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Most Populous Modern-Day Countries in 1800 AD

Name the modern-day countries whose current territory had the highest population in the year 1800.
Based on a variety of sources including this map, Wikipedia, and popstat.info
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: June 3, 2019
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First submittedSeptember 6, 2017
Times taken47,306
Average score83.3%
Rating4.93
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Population
Country
295 m
China
255 m
India
29 m
Japan
27 m
France
21 m
Germany
21 m
Russia
Population
Country
18 m
Bangladesh
17 m
Italy
16 m
Indonesia
13 m
Nigeria
12 m
United Kingdom
11 m
Spain
Population
Country
9 m
Pakistan
9 m
Ukraine
8 m
Mexico
8 m
Poland
7 m
D.R. Congo
7 m
Turkey
+15
Level 51
Sep 7, 2017
So even though it's shockingly high on the present-day population quiz, it's even more shocking to realise that Bangladesh has actually been dropping off! It used to be much higher.
+19
Level 75
Jan 8, 2018
Well Google currently thinks that the population of Bangladesh is about 9 times what it is in this quiz, whereas China & India are only about 4-5 times...
+18
Level 65
Feb 27, 2018
The USA, with over 325 million people doesn't figure at all!
+6
Level 82
Feb 27, 2018
There may have been as many as 20 million people there except for the disease brought by Europeans in the 1500s.
+6
Level 51
Feb 27, 2018
What I mean is that Bangladesh was at this time the seventh-most populous country in the world. Nowadays, it's eighth.
+24
Level 39
Feb 27, 2018
That just means other countries are growing faster
+3
Level 82
Mar 1, 2018
No Egypt?
+1
Level 79
Dec 14, 2019
Your comment is false, whichever way one interprets it.
+7
Level 71
Dec 14, 2019
If you've ever played the "Most Populous Modern-Day Countries by Century" you will notice that Bangladesh was even higher on the list before--3rd place in 1000 AD and 4th place in 1500 AD!

https://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/modern-day-countries-most-populous-by-century

+6
Level 67
Feb 27, 2018
These attempts to calculate populations in areas that had no statistics seem to rely on a lot of speculation. The numbers for such places as Nigeria, D.R. Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc are not very reliable. Probably the only places that had reliable statistics at that time were the UK, France, Germany, and maybe Spain and Italy.
+6
Level 54
Dec 14, 2019
Don't think anyone is claiming them to be 100% accurate. It's just a quiz.
+16
Level 70
Dec 14, 2019
Japan too. They have famously good demographic records.
+1
Level 73
Feb 27, 2018
I thought India, Bangladesh and Pakistan were just one country in 1800
+25
Level 76
Feb 27, 2018
The directions specify the modern day countries.They may have all been one country, but the area that is now Pakistan counts for Pakistan, the area that is now Bangladesh counts fro Bangladesh, etc.
+4
Level 61
Feb 28, 2018
Where did all the current Iranians, Saudi Arabians, Egyptians and Brazilians all come from???
+20
Level 81
Feb 28, 2018
Mars.
+20
Level 89
Jun 21, 2018
Their moms.
+4
Level 79
Dec 14, 2019
Saudi Arabia currently only has over 30 million people.
+4
Level 66
Dec 14, 2019
Caffeinated storks..
+6
Level 59
Feb 28, 2018
Can you do another quiz for 1801 AD?
+2
Level 79
Dec 14, 2019
Yeah, and one for each year in the 19th century.
+4
Level 30
Mar 1, 2018
no USA! How America has grown in just 200 years!
+4
Level 59
Jan 1, 2021
Probably not enough reliable sources for natives. This country's growth in population is based a lot on immigration after world wars and during the times when US has been young country without some or most of current territory, of course not everyone necessarily wanted to become an immigrant in US..
+2
Level 62
Jul 19, 2021
The 1800 US census put the population at 5.3 million. But, I find it pretty unlikely that there were 1.7 million natives east of the Mississippi (the number required to make it on this list). They had been through a few hundred years since Spanish contact, so plenty of time for the European diseases to spread and wipe out a large portion of the population. And the region never had a large-scale civilization like those in Mesoamerica or the Andes.
+3
Level 64
Nov 4, 2021
They definitely had had large scale civilization as the Mississippian Culture or Cahokia shows, it had just collapsed hundreds of years before contact for unrelated reasons.
+2
Level 68
Sep 5, 2022
Cahokia collapsed well before european arrival, true, but there were still fairly large-scale Mississippian towns and villages up through the De Soto expedition in the mid-1500s as accounts from that expedition describe several settlements with temple mounds and populations in the low thousands. That particular expedition likely marked the final population collapse of large-scale indigenous settlements in the area, as it corresponded with a disease outbreak in the Southeast and in the Mississippi valley, not to mention the looting and killing De Soto did as he marched from town to town. Even so, there is a fairly clear continuation of culture between some regional Mississippian subcultures and modern tribes like the Muskogee, Natchez, and Caddo. There are accounts of the Natchez at least living in walled villages with central temple mounds up into the mid 1700s.
+1
Level 49
May 15, 2019
Didn’t expect to see Japan in the 3rd place
+1
Level 50
Dec 14, 2019
Missed Mexico damn it
+6
Level 88
Dec 18, 2019
I suspect you'll do well on a quiz about the south Pacific at least...
+1
Level 69
Dec 15, 2019
I don't think there was any Poland on a map in 1800 AD.
+9
Level 66
Dec 16, 2019
This quiz is about the population of the countries current boundaries. It doesn't matter whether Poland existed at the time.
+1
Level 64
Nov 4, 2021
Very interesting that Mexico was ahead of the US.