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> population of more than a billion people, the 3rd largest landmass > how they managed to fall so low There are countries with even larger landmass, and coun

> population of more than a billion people, the 3rd largest landmass > how they managed to fall so low There are countries with even larger landmass, and countries with roughly the same population, whose economies are doing worse than China, so I'm not convinced that landmass and population are fundamental requirements for economic prosperity. I should add that I'm not an economist in any shape or form and I'm happy to be proven wrong since I believe this is an interesting topic.

roenxi 7y ago
> There are countries with even larger landmass Russia and Canada. I wouldn't want to call Canada an inhospitable frozen wasteland, but I'm happy to say that about Russia. I suppose on reflection China has a lot of deserts, but I suspect given the population difference that China has a massive edge on quality farmland. If you look at the wiki page for landmass [0] China actually has a startling abundance of land and has 20% of the worlds population. It doesn't really have much competition on the land+people front. With fundamentals that good, they really don't need to get much right to become a superpower. They needed to get something right, but realistically they aren't transparent enough for us to know what. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
- aquadrop 7y ago
  And you'd be wrong saying that about Russia. Sure, most of the country landmass is located in pretty cold regions, but nobody lives there, most of population lives in european part with okish weather. And this part is still huge enough to have big agriculture landmass overall. It's like calling Denmark inhospitable frozen wasteland because of Greenland. Russia has much more arable and cultivated land than Canada even in percentage.
nine_k 7y ago
There is exactly one country with a comparable populatuon, India. It's not doing exactly bad, too. The next largest country is USA, with roughly thee times smaller a population. Most countries with larger landmass have most of its landmass barely usable due to climate: Russia, Canada, Australia, Algeria. Most others from top 10 largest countries are doing OK: USA, India, Brazil. China has a unique combination of very long subtropical shorelines, a decent amount of arable inland, and a very large population.
- richardw 7y ago
  India has more arable land than China, no? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India "India's arable land... is the second largest in the world, after the United States. Its gross irrigated crop area... is the largest in the world." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China "Although China's agricultural output is the largest in the world, only 12.6% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population."
- adventured 7y ago
  > There is exactly one country with a comparable populatuon, India. It's not doing exactly bad, too. There are however several other large population nations. There's no reason for eg one billion to be a cut-off point or similar. There are only 14 nations with 100m or more people, a sufficiently rare group to look at the nations that fall within it. The parent's point: "I'm not convinced that landmass and population are fundamental requirements for economic prosperity" - is spot on. They're not requirements at all (just ask Denmark, Belgium, Singapore, Israel, Austria and Ireland) and outsized population is clearly not a booster. Among nations with at least one million people, the median is around 11.x million population wise. So 100m stands as 9x larger, a very considerable gap in size. The majority of countries with large populations have done poorly economically. Great economic success with a very large population is a rare exception: (shown with per capita output rank) China #67 ($9608), 1.4b people | India #142 ($2036), 1.37b people | Indonesia #115 ($3871), 269m people | Brazil #73 ($8968), 212m people | Pakistan #148 ($1555), 204m people | Nigeria #141 ($2049), 201m people | Bangladesh #144 ($1745), 168m people | Russia #60 ($11327), 144m people | Mexico #66 ($9807), 132m people | Ethiopia #168 ($853), 110m people | Philippines #127 ($3104), 108m people | Egypt #130 ($2573), 101m people | Vietnam #131 ($2551), 97m people Among the 15 nations with 97m+ people, there are only two standouts: US #8 ($62606), 330m people | Japan #24 ($39306), 126m people The poor performance doesn't stop at 100m either, it continues for most other large population nations below 100m as well. Including: Thailand, DR Congo, Turkey, Iran, Tanzania, South Africa, Myanmar, Kenya, Colombia, Uganda, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Peru, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Malaysia, Angola, Mozambique, Ghana, Nepal, Madagascar, Yemen, North Korea, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon Between the 100m and 25m population line, you have around 40 nations. At least 26 of those are between very poor and moderately poor. Here is how the highest per capita output countries rank in total territorial area: Luxembourg (#167), Switzerland (#132), Norway (#67), Ireland (#118), Iceland (#106), Qatar (#158), Singapore (#175), US (#4), Denmark (#130), Australia (#6), Sweden (#55), Netherlands (#131), Austria (#113), Finland (#64), Germany (#62), Belgium (#136), Canada (#2), France (#42), UK (#78), Israel (#149), New Zealand (#75), UAE (#114), Japan (#61), Italy (#71), South Korea (#107) Having a lot of territory to look after, is more often an immense burden.
addicted 7y ago
The population argument makes little sense. Chinese like Indians speak a multitude of languages and have very different cultures. I don’t think there are 2 places in mainland US that have as distinct cultures as pretty much every region of China has from each other (primarily because everyone speaks English in the US, while people speak different languages in different regions of China).
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Different dialects of Chinese you mean, and mandarin works well enough in most places as China also has a lot of transplants. You could love and work in Chengdu without without speaking sichuanese, for example. In India, the unifying language is English, though it isn’t as widespread in India as mandarin is in China.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    > Different dialects of Chinese you mean No, the use of the term “dialect” is propaganda from the diversity-denying central government; describing Chinese languages as “dialects” is a gross abuse of the English word “dialect”, comparable to saying that French, Portuguese, and Romanian are all just dialects of Latin. “Chinese” consists of many mutually unintelligible languages (hundreds?), each of which has multiple dialects. Mandarin works well enough as a lingua franca because (a) there has been a tremendous effort to force it on the population and suppress local culture (e.g. forcing children to speak it in school, force mass media to use it, etc.), and (b) there has been a massive internal migration in China so that a large proportion of the population is no longer living in their native land. In some ways it is similar to the way young people from different European countries now speak English as a common language.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Sichuanese is much more of a dialect than Cantonese. Even my sorry laowai Chinese can make some of it out. Cantonese and fujianese are about as far away from mandarin as dialects get, and they still are somewhat intelligible with manadarin and each other. The real different languages of China are like Tibetan, Mongolian, zhuang, Miao, Uighur, and a plethora of minority languages, but < 10% of the population speak them. Mandarin gets you far for work or life in China in most Chinese cities. It stops working that great once you get to heavy minority areas outside big cities.
RomanBob 7y ago
To be a developed country you simply need 2 things. Average IQ >= 100, and a free market. Every country that has these (north america, non-communist europe, japan, south korea, singapore, taiwan, hongkong, israel) is a developed country. Every country that has not, is not. Having oil helps a little, also.

roenxi 7y ago

> There are countries with even larger landmass Russia and Canada. I wouldn't want to call Canada an inhospitable frozen wasteland, but I'm happy to say that about Russia. I suppose on reflection China has a lot of deserts, but I suspect given the population difference that China has a massive edge on quality farmland. If you look at the wiki page for landmass [0] China actually has a startling abundance of land and has 20% of the worlds population. It doesn't really have much competition on the land+people front. With fundamentals that good, they really don't need to get much right to become a superpower. They needed to get something right, but realistically they aren't transparent enough for us to know what. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

aquadrop 7y ago
And you'd be wrong saying that about Russia. Sure, most of the country landmass is located in pretty cold regions, but nobody lives there, most of population lives in european part with okish weather. And this part is still huge enough to have big agriculture landmass overall. It's like calling Denmark inhospitable frozen wasteland because of Greenland. Russia has much more arable and cultivated land than Canada even in percentage.

nine_k 7y ago

There is exactly one country with a comparable populatuon, India. It's not doing exactly bad, too. The next largest country is USA, with roughly thee times smaller a population. Most countries with larger landmass have most of its landmass barely usable due to climate: Russia, Canada, Australia, Algeria. Most others from top 10 largest countries are doing OK: USA, India, Brazil. China has a unique combination of very long subtropical shorelines, a decent amount of arable inland, and a very large population.

richardw 7y ago
India has more arable land than China, no? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India "India's arable land... is the second largest in the world, after the United States. Its gross irrigated crop area... is the largest in the world." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China "Although China's agricultural output is the largest in the world, only 12.6% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population."
adventured 7y ago
> There is exactly one country with a comparable populatuon, India. It's not doing exactly bad, too. There are however several other large population nations. There's no reason for eg one billion to be a cut-off point or similar. There are only 14 nations with 100m or more people, a sufficiently rare group to look at the nations that fall within it. The parent's point: "I'm not convinced that landmass and population are fundamental requirements for economic prosperity" - is spot on. They're not requirements at all (just ask Denmark, Belgium, Singapore, Israel, Austria and Ireland) and outsized population is clearly not a booster. Among nations with at least one million people, the median is around 11.x million population wise. So 100m stands as 9x larger, a very considerable gap in size. The majority of countries with large populations have done poorly economically. Great economic success with a very large population is a rare exception: (shown with per capita output rank) China #67 ($9608), 1.4b people | India #142 ($2036), 1.37b people | Indonesia #115 ($3871), 269m people | Brazil #73 ($8968), 212m people | Pakistan #148 ($1555), 204m people | Nigeria #141 ($2049), 201m people | Bangladesh #144 ($1745), 168m people | Russia #60 ($11327), 144m people | Mexico #66 ($9807), 132m people | Ethiopia #168 ($853), 110m people | Philippines #127 ($3104), 108m people | Egypt #130 ($2573), 101m people | Vietnam #131 ($2551), 97m people Among the 15 nations with 97m+ people, there are only two standouts: US #8 ($62606), 330m people | Japan #24 ($39306), 126m people The poor performance doesn't stop at 100m either, it continues for most other large population nations below 100m as well. Including: Thailand, DR Congo, Turkey, Iran, Tanzania, South Africa, Myanmar, Kenya, Colombia, Uganda, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Peru, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Malaysia, Angola, Mozambique, Ghana, Nepal, Madagascar, Yemen, North Korea, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon Between the 100m and 25m population line, you have around 40 nations. At least 26 of those are between very poor and moderately poor. Here is how the highest per capita output countries rank in total territorial area: Luxembourg (#167), Switzerland (#132), Norway (#67), Ireland (#118), Iceland (#106), Qatar (#158), Singapore (#175), US (#4), Denmark (#130), Australia (#6), Sweden (#55), Netherlands (#131), Austria (#113), Finland (#64), Germany (#62), Belgium (#136), Canada (#2), France (#42), UK (#78), Israel (#149), New Zealand (#75), UAE (#114), Japan (#61), Italy (#71), South Korea (#107) Having a lot of territory to look after, is more often an immense burden.

addicted 7y ago

The population argument makes little sense. Chinese like Indians speak a multitude of languages and have very different cultures. I don’t think there are 2 places in mainland US that have as distinct cultures as pretty much every region of China has from each other (primarily because everyone speaks English in the US, while people speak different languages in different regions of China).

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Different dialects of Chinese you mean, and mandarin works well enough in most places as China also has a lot of transplants. You could love and work in Chengdu without without speaking sichuanese, for example. In India, the unifying language is English, though it isn’t as widespread in India as mandarin is in China.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > Different dialects of Chinese you mean No, the use of the term “dialect” is propaganda from the diversity-denying central government; describing Chinese languages as “dialects” is a gross abuse of the English word “dialect”, comparable to saying that French, Portuguese, and Romanian are all just dialects of Latin. “Chinese” consists of many mutually unintelligible languages (hundreds?), each of which has multiple dialects. Mandarin works well enough as a lingua franca because (a) there has been a tremendous effort to force it on the population and suppress local culture (e.g. forcing children to speak it in school, force mass media to use it, etc.), and (b) there has been a massive internal migration in China so that a large proportion of the population is no longer living in their native land. In some ways it is similar to the way young people from different European countries now speak English as a common language.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Sichuanese is much more of a dialect than Cantonese. Even my sorry laowai Chinese can make some of it out. Cantonese and fujianese are about as far away from mandarin as dialects get, and they still are somewhat intelligible with manadarin and each other. The real different languages of China are like Tibetan, Mongolian, zhuang, Miao, Uighur, and a plethora of minority languages, but < 10% of the population speak them. Mandarin gets you far for work or life in China in most Chinese cities. It stops working that great once you get to heavy minority areas outside big cities.

RomanBob 7y ago

To be a developed country you simply need 2 things. Average IQ >= 100, and a free market. Every country that has these (north america, non-communist europe, japan, south korea, singapore, taiwan, hongkong, israel) is a developed country. Every country that has not, is not. Having oil helps a little, also.