The historical demography of Japan to 1700Yoshida’s guesstimate of 18.5 million appears to be not far wrong, despite the flaw in his
reasoning.
The question is how to reconcile all these varying sets of fragmentary data. For example, if
warfare took place only occasionally and the toll from disease and famine was great simply for
the decades 1430–1460 and 1490–1520, then maybe considerable growth could have occurred
and the estimates of Saitō or Yoshida are closest to the mark. On the other hand, if warfare was
frequent and deadly and other factors trended worse, then perhaps Hayami’s estimates are more
accurate. No one knows for sure.
After 1600, Japanese entered a much more peaceful era. No new diseases entered the archi-
pelago and the number of epidemic outbreaks trended dramatically lower. There was one severe
famine occurring in the 1630s (the Kan’ei famine), but otherwise the inhabitants had more food
than ever before. The increasing plentitude of grains and other foods is also suggested by extant
death registers, as they show a temporary end to the “spring hungers” and a mortality curve
more in line with a modern society. In many places, suspicious daimyō moved recalcitrant samurai
off the land and into their castle towns, leaving peasants to farm peacefully on their own. Finally,
a “marriage revolution” united former servants and slaves into new families, as they rose in status
to become commoners. They cleared new land and improved agricultural productivity. Japan
became a land of small independent farmers, while daimyō initiated a building boom that wit-
nessed the rise of many new cities. There can be no doubt that population increased substantially
between 1600 and 1721; Kitō’s estimate of 31.3 million for the latter date is derived from Toku-
gawa bakufu census figures and is generally accepted.
The growth occurring during 1300–1700 transformed Japanese society. Prior to 1300, a
chronic labor shortage induced by high mortality from disease, war, and famine gave rise to a
static population. By 1721, the labor shortage was over, as agriculture, commerce, and industry
all boomed. Society was now organized around the stem household (ie), the corporate village,
and urban blocks. To be sure, growth always has its drawbacks; one was the denuding of Japan’s
forests in the construction boom. For this and other reasons, growth ceased around 1721, only to
resume about 1870.
Japan’s population in global perspective
If the population figures adduced for the centuries 100 ce–1721 are to be believed, Japanese
society traveled an exceptional path to modernity. The reason for this statement is that Japan’s
population curve is a mirror image of those of Western Europe and China. I know of no other
society in which population fluctuated in quite the way it did in Japan. This conclusion suggests
that there are myriad paths to modernity; considering Western Europe’s, for example, as para-
digmatic is not warranted by these larger demographic trends. Demographically speaking, Japan
followed its own path into the modern world.
Notes
1 Kitō Hiroshi, Nihon nisen nen no jinkō shi. Kitō later updated and expanded his work in Jinkō kara yomu
Nihon no rekishi.
2 Koyama Shūzō, “Jōmon Subsistence and Population,” 1–65.
3 Serizawa Chōsuke. Sekki jidai no Nihon, 152. Gina Barnes has also expressed reservations. Personal
communication.
4 Sawada Goichi, Nara chō jidai minsei keizai no sūteki kenkyū, 143–310.
5 William Wayne Farris, Daily Life and Demographics in Ancient Japan, 20–27. Charlotte von Verschuer,
“Demographic Estimates and the Issue of Staple Food in Early Japan,” 337–362.