Song China's Population Surpasses One Hundred Million

1060

Census records from the Song dynasty suggest the empire's population crossed the hundred-million mark around this period - making it by far the most populous state on earth. The demographic surge was fed by improved rice strains from Vietnam, expanded irrigation, and the relative peace of the dynasty's southern heartland. This vast population both enabled and demanded the commercial revolution underway: more mouths meant more markets, more labor, and more tax revenue for an ambitious state.