Chapter 1334 The Third Most Populous Country in the World (Two in One)

Mbeya city.

This round of census in East Africa is much more difficult and labor-intensive than it was ten years ago.

Ten years ago, East Africa was still in the era of a fully planned economy. At that time, population mobility in East Africa was weak, and the direction of population mobility was very clear and specific. Due to policy restrictions, various procedures were required to travel to other regions.

Since the opening of the market, East Africa's control over the population has been greatly reduced. In the economic market, the mobility of people has increased and is not very regular. After all, at this time, population mobility is completely money-oriented. The population will naturally flow to where they can make more money.

The ways to make money are diverse and unpredictable, which has caused the population flows in East Africa to become a complete mess.

Otwiss Town.

This is a town under the jurisdiction of Mbeya City. In order to investigate the regional population situation, the staff of the Mbeya City Statistics Bureau had to go deep into the rural grassroots.

Currently, two staff members of the Mbeya Municipal Statistics Bureau, Fonte and Rhine, are conducting investigations in the village of Amforst under the town of Otwiss.

Both Font and Rhine were young men. At this time, they were talking to the village chief Dill in the village council of Am Forst.

Fonte held up a document and said to Village Chief Dill, "Village Chief Dill, the document in my hand is a summary of the household registration records of Otwiss Town. According to the records of Otwiss Town, the registered population of Amforst Village under its jurisdiction, which is where you are, is 3,208. After our verification, the actual population of this village is currently 2,097."

"We want to know the specific whereabouts of the 1,111 people who are not in the village. We also want to know the recent birth and death information in the village. Do you know anything about this?"

Facing the two civil servants from above, Village Chief Dill said with a smile: "The current population of our village is roughly the same as the data. Although I don't remember the exact number of villagers in our village, it is definitely more than 3,000."

"As for those who are not in the village, I am not sure about their specific whereabouts. In the past, when people wanted to leave the village and needed a letter of introduction or other documents, they would ask me, the village chief, to stamp them."

"However, since 1910, the state no longer restricts the normal movement of the population. If villagers leave the village, they no longer need to go through the review process. They may just go to other places on a whim."

"With the opening of policies in recent years, many people have chosen to work outside their hometowns to supplement their family income, especially during the slack season. Some people even work away from home all year round, and some have even moved their household registration to other places."

With the passing of the era of completely planned economy, the freedom of travel of people in East Africa has greatly increased. The village of Amforst is a typical example. Almost half of the village’s population lives outside, but this is obviously not all.

For example, in some families, the couple may go out to work together, so there is a high probability that they will have children outside, which may result in the child’s household registration not being registered in the village in time.

In addition, in the early stages of economic opening up in East Africa, social order was relatively unstable and public security was chaotic. Some people may have disappeared accidentally, but their registered residence was still in Amforst Village, or other factors may have distorted the population data, which all required verification by the East African government.

In the following days, Font and Rhine, as well as the grassroots cadres of Am Forst Village, began to address these detailed issues and confirm the true population situation of Am Forst Village through surveys, visits, and phone calls.

The difficulty of population census work can be seen from the situation in Amforst alone. In Amforst alone, the phone was almost smoking because of the need to verify the population.

Therefore, it is difficult to complete the census work relying solely on the East African Statistics Bureau. Other departments of the East African government have also joined in or actively cooperated with the census work.

But even so, the East African government did not dare to guarantee the complete accuracy of the statistical data. In fact, even in the 21st century, an era of highly developed information, it was difficult to guarantee the complete accuracy of the census.

…

Although the census work progressed slowly, the East African governments still obtained approximate population data for East Africa.

This is actually normal. East African citizens are tied to their household registration. Except for some who have not had time to register their population, or have not had time to update their household registration due to unexpected events (such as disappearance and death), or are illegal residents, the household registration status of most East African residents is normal.

Therefore, the East African government only needs to conduct preliminary statistics and summary of the national household registration to obtain the approximate population situation of the country, and this is the "preliminary verification". As for other unexpected situations, the data distortion and errors caused actually have little impact on the overall situation, especially for a populous country like East Africa.

After all, East Africa was already a country with a population of over 100 million as early as ten years ago. For a family, if it loses one person, it would certainly be a big deal. However, for a populous country like East Africa, unless there is a large-scale population extinction caused by war, plague, etc., some details are not very important.

Rhine City.

The Director of the East African National Statistics Bureau, Langfurt, and the Minister of Civil Affairs, Wolnitz, and other departments reported the preliminary situation of the East African population to Ernst.

"Your Majesty, based on the preliminary compilation of domestic household registration data, without considering other factors, by the end of 1918, our country's total population reached 163 million, with urban population accounting for more than 34%, or about 55.4 million, and rural population at more than 107 million."

"That is to say, our current population size is roughly the same as that of Tsarist Russia before the war, but considering that Russia's land area has shrunk significantly, coupled with the current Russian civil war and the previous war between Russia and the Allies, etc."

"Russia's population is definitely decreasing instead of increasing. This means that without taking into account colonies, our country has officially replaced Russia and become the third most populous country in the world, which is one step further than the last time we counted it."

Before World War I, Russia's population fluctuated between approximately 160 million and 180 million. This was the result of deduction based on Russia's last demographic data in the last century, as well as Russia's birth and death rates.

The last official population census of Tsarist Russia was in the 1990s, when Russia claimed that its population was more than 130 million.

Moreover, Tsarist Russia was in its twilight years at that time and occupied large amounts of land in Ukraine, Poland and other countries. However, after the Russian Labor Party came to power, it lost a large amount of territory, and Russia's land area shrunk from more than 20 million square kilometers to nearly 20 million square kilometers.

The areas that Russia lost were all densely populated areas in Europe or along the Black Sea coast. Coupled with the brutal civil war in Russia today, the Russian population may even fall below 100 million.

Moreover, even if Russia is able to regain lost territory in the future, it will not be able to surpass East Africa in population size. After all, according to data from previous lives, after the end of the Russian Civil War, even though Russia took back the land of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk due to the defeat of the Allies, official Soviet data later showed that Russia's population still declined significantly.

According to preliminary population data, East Africa has officially replaced Russia to become the third most populous country in the world. The Far Eastern Empire and the United Kingdom rank ahead of East Africa.

The UK's population ranks second in the world mainly because of India. Therefore, whether calculating the UK or comparing India separately, it will not affect East Africa's status as the third most populous country in the world.

This data does not include the colonial population in East Africa. After all, East Africa does not care about or pay attention to the specific population numbers of the colonies. The colonial population has always been relatively rough, and the East African government will not seriously check it.

After all, the local population verification work alone is already overwhelming for East African government departments, and it also consumes a lot of manpower, material and financial resources. If the colonial population is verified as well, it would be too difficult for East African government staff.

Generally, the population census work in the East African colonies is handled and reported by the colonial governments themselves. The East African governments only need to have a general understanding. For the East African governments, the more colonial populations there are, the better. After all, the colonies are the future population reservoirs of East Africa built by Ernst to cope with future problems such as local aging.

Therefore, as long as it can be confirmed that the colonial population is always increasing, Ernst's psychological expectations can be achieved. In fact, it is difficult for the colonial population in East Africa not to increase, and this does not require a lot of support from the East African government.

After all, the fertility rate of the population who could immigrate to the East African colonies would not be lower than that of the mainland, even if the living standards in the colonies were far different from those in the mainland of East Africa.

Compared with the colonies, the local population data was obviously more meaningful to Ernst, and he was indeed very happy when he learned that the population of East Africa had exceeded 160 million.

Although this data is only a preliminary result based on household registration records and is not necessarily accurate, the final population data of East Africa should be similar to this data.

With this population size, even if there are a few million more or less people, the impact on East Africa will be very weak.

However, there is a high probability that the final data will be higher than the initial results, so 160 million is just a conservative number.

Ernst said: "Our population has exceeded 160 million, which confirms the fact that our country has become the third most populous country in the world, and population represents productivity."

"The urban population has exceeded 50 million. I am afraid that only the United States can reach this level in the world. Even our urban population is larger than that of France or the United Kingdom."

In 1918, the population of the United States was close to 100 million, but the urbanization level in the United States was higher than that in East Africa, possibly even close to 50%, which means that the urban population in the United States is likely to be around 50 million.

Of course, the fact that East Africa's urban population is only about five million more than that of the United States is obviously somewhat unreasonable. After all, East Africa has replaced the United States as the world's first industrial power, and the quality of East Africa's industrial development is slightly inferior to that of the United States.

In other words, the industrial profits of the United States are higher than those of East Africa at the same size. Moreover, the service and financial industries in the United States are more developed than those in East Africa, and these industries can also support the development of cities.

Therefore, considering all factors, if the urban population in East Africa is only five million more than that of the United States, it would be unreasonable for East Africa's industrial output value to surpass that of the United States and become the world's number one. After all, the quality of industrial development in East Africa is not as good as that of the United States.

Ernst soon realized this problem. He said to Lang Furt, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, "Our urban population should be more than this! After all, our industrial capacity has surpassed that of the United States a few years ago, making us the world's largest industrial power."

Lang Furt, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, said: "Your Majesty's doubts are actually very clear to us, but this is not a mistake in our work, but a normal phenomenon."

"This time we only collected preliminary data on urban hukou, so we ended up with a figure of 34 percent of the urban population. However, many years ago, my country's urbanization level exceeded 30 percent."

"In recent years, East Africa's economic and industrial development has been accelerated by the war, so the 34 percent figure seems a bit unreasonable at first glance."

"But we cannot ignore that the structure of the urban population in East Africa has changed. In the planned economy era, the registered population in my country's cities basically matched the overall urban population data."

"But since 1910, when my country opened up a series of policies and relaxed restrictions on freedom, the value of household registration has been greatly reduced in East Africa."

"Many non-urban residents have flocked to cities. Many of them have not become urban residents, but still retain their rural household registration, but they do live in cities."

"Therefore, the current permanent population of cities in my country is definitely much higher than 34%. According to our estimates, if the permanent population with non-urban household registration is included, the proportion of urban residents in the country may exceed 40%."

"However, the accurate data will ultimately depend on the final accounting data at the end of the year, and the preliminary audit is only suitable for rough reference."

Following Langfurt's explanation, Ernst and other senior officials in East Africa suddenly realized that this was the difference between registered population and permanent population.

Ernst had a deep understanding of this in his previous life. In his previous life, there were many non-urban residents living in the Far Eastern Empire. Take the capital of the Far Eastern Empire for example, its registered population was only more than 10 million, while the permanent population could reach more than 20 million. If some floating population were also included, the number would be even more exaggerated.

Therefore, if calculated based on permanent population, the urban population in East Africa is very likely to exceed 60 million or even higher.

In this case, the permanent rural population in East Africa may not have reached the level of more than 100 million. Of course, this is a good thing for East Africa. As it has developed to this day, unless East African society no longer progresses, the rural population will inevitably decrease gradually.

Let’s tentatively estimate the urbanization level in East Africa to be 40%, which is already a very good result for East Africa.

After all, the more populous a country is, the more difficult it is to industrialize. If we want to further support the industrial development of East Africa, we can only snatch food from the old imperialist powers.

The tens of millions of extra industrial population in East Africa have destroyed countless jobs. After all, the growth rate of the world market is far lower than the expansion rate of industrial capacity. This is also the reason why the world economic crisis has been concentrated, severe and frequent since the mid-to-late 19th century.

Of course, this also shows that the 19th century to the early 20th century was a period of opportunity for countries around the world to achieve success overnight. If they seized this opportunity, they could quickly become industrial countries and become a member of the imperialist countries.

In the mid-19th century alone, there were five rising industrial countries: Germany, Russia, the United States, East Africa and Japan. This era was a truly diversified era. As long as one made good use of the conflicts between major powers, one could profit from them.

Under unipolar hegemony, the mobility of technology, knowledge, and talent is the worst, just like in the 21st century, when the world order was almost stagnant. Even if many countries worked hard enough, they eventually fell on the eve of victory and became the leeks harvested by American hegemony.

(End of this chapter)