Population Distribution, The Ming Dynasty

The population distribution, which is a very important aspect in population research, means population distribution condition and density structure in certain geographic spaces in a special time. It is also called the space form of population.Ming Dynasty occupies a very important position in the history of population development in China.Year 26 of Hongwu Mark (1393), China had a total population of 69.63644 million and, had a total area of 5688601 square kilometers and had an average population density of 12.2 persons per square kilometer. The population distribution structure in China in the early years of Ming Dynasty was as follows: The Southeast coastland including South Zhili Province, Zhejiang Province, Jiangxi Province and Fujian Province is the densest region in population, The population density become thinner and thinner by extending in the direction of west and south along this region.Year 15 of Hongzhi Mark (1502), China had a total population of 110.79701 million, had a total area of 7573451 square kilometers and had an average population density of 14.6 persons per square kilometers. The population distribution structure was alike to that of the early years of Ming Dynasty, the population of the southeast region was still the densest in China; because the population in the South regions grew fast and the growing speed of population density exceed that of the southeast coastland, there are many dense places in population in the north regions at this time.Year 3 of Chongzhen Mark (1630), China had a total population of 173.413749 million, a total area of 5329720 square kilometers and an average population density of 32.5 persons per square kilometers. The population distribution structure in the later years of Ming Dynasty had some changes: the south region became very prominent in population density because of its population growing fast. The population density became thinner and thinner by extending in the direction of west and south along the southeast region.The characteristic of the population distribution in Ming Dynasty represents the universality and imbalance of population distribution, the coefficient of the populationconcentration shows the situation of increasing by degrees, which explains that the population distribution of Ming Dynasty evolved step by step under the tendency of becoming more dense at all times.The formation of the population distribution of Ming Dynasty is the outcome of the synthetically mutual effect of many multifarious factors, such as natural environment, social economy, politics and history and so on. Taking a panoramic view of the population history of Ming Dynasty, we can see that natural conditions determined the currency of the population distribution, whereas the changes of the social and economic conditions together effect the population re-contribution.During the transitional course of the population contribution in Ming Dynasty, Chinese traditional social economy, thinking concepts, behavior and social morality, etc. were impacted and influenced by different degrees.