Yen Keng-wang

New Asia Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies, Hong Kong

    As early as the third and fourth centuries or before scholars from the Western regions estimated China to be the most populous country in the world. Most geography sections of official dynastic histories, beginning with Han-shu, contained household figures. These figures were derived from statistics reported by local governments to the central government. However, the number of households contained in local registers surpassed by far the numbers reported to the central government. This paper demonstrates this phenomenon by examining the Tang dynasty Yuan-ho chih.

    The main purpose of this paper is to examine the actual household numbers in each prefecture (chou) during the Yuan-ho period. A comparison of the household figures recorded in the Yuan-ho chih indicates that the number of households reported in this source is only a fraction of those reported in other available sources, sometimes only 10 or 20 percent. A comparison of the actual number of military personnel in military commanderies with the household numbers recorded in the Yuan-ho chih yields a number of military personnel several times larger, yet this was clearly not the case. Moreover, a comparison the grain quotas during years of good harvest with those during disaster years also shows that the number of households reported by local government during the Yuan-ho period was only a fraction of the actual number at the local level. Therefore, if one relies on the household figures reported by the local government to the central government to make population estimations, one seriously underestimates the actual numbers.