Population and Marketing Settlements in Ch'ing China

The historical records of Ch'ing China (1644–1911) contain numerous statistics concerning the population in local areas and the distribution of markets. These figures provide information on two of the most important and least understood factors that were to affect China's modern development: the massive population growth prior to 1850 and the tenacity of small-scale markets as the focus of commercialisation. This book presents and evaluates the data from northern China to ascertain the qual...