Historical Demographics | ||
---|---|---|
Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus | ||
Articles | ||
Demographic history | ||
Historical demography | ||
World population estimates | ||
List of countries by population | ||
1900 | 1939 | 1989 |
This is a list of countries by population in 1939 (including any dependent, occupied or colonized territories for empires), providing an approximate overview of the world population before World War II.
Estimate numbers are from the beginning of the year, and exact population figures are for countries that were having a census in the year 1939 (which were on various dates in that year).
Rank | Country/territory | Population c. 1939 | Percentage of world's population |
---|---|---|---|
World [1] | 2,300,000,000 | – | |
1 | British Empire [2] [3] subdivisions
| 545,463,825 | 23.7% |
2 | Japanese Empire [2] [3] subdivisions
| 304,119,000 | 13.2% |
3 | China [3] | 267,568,000 | 11.6% |
4 | Soviet Union [5] subdivisions
| 170,918,811 | 7.4% |
5 | United States [3] subdivisions
| 148,594,713 | 6.5% |
6 | French Empire [2] [3] [6] subdivisions
| 111,524,472 | 4.8% |
7 | Germany [2] [3] [8] subdivisions
| 86,755,281 | 3.8% |
8 | Dutch Empire [3] subdivisions
| 78,366,300 | 3.4% |
9 | Italian Empire [2] [3] [9] subdivisions
| 57,596,517 | 2.5% |
10 | Brazil [3] | 40,289,000 | 1.8% |
11 | Poland [3] | 34,849,000 | 1.5% |
12 | Spanish Empire [3] subdivisions
| 26,822,800 | 1.2% |
13 | Belgian Empire [3] subdivisions
| 22,491,000 | 1.0% |
14 | Romania [3] | 19,933,800 | 0.9% |
15 | Mexico [3] | 19,320,000 | 0.8% |
16 | Portuguese Empire [3] subdivisions
| 18,595,400 | 0.8% |
17 | Turkey [3] | 17,370,000 | 0.8% |
18 | Yugoslavia [3] | 15,490,000 | 0.7% |
19 | Thailand [3] | 15,023,000 | 0.7% |
20 | Persia [3] | 14,340,000 | 0.6% |
21 | Argentina [3] | 13,948,000 | 0.6% |
22 | Canada [14] [lower-alpha 1] | 11,267,000 | 0.5% |
23 | Union of South Africa [lower-alpha 2] | 10,160,000 | 0.4% |
24 | Hungary [3] | 9,129,000 | 0.4% |
25 | Colombia [3] | 8,896,000 | 0.4% |
26 | Greece [3] | 7,222,000 | 0.3% |
27 | Afghanistan | 6,970,000 | 0.3% |
28 | Peru [3] | 6,572,000 | 0.3% |
29 | Bulgaria [3] | 6,458,000 | 0.3% |
30 | Sweden [3] | 6,341,000 | 0.3% |
31 | Nepal [3] | 6,087,000 | 0.3% |
32 | Chile [3] | 4,914,000 | 0.2% |
33 | Cuba [3] | 4,235,000 | 0.18% |
34 | Switzerland [3] | 4,210,000 | 0.18% |
35 | Denmark (including colonies) [3] [15] [16] subdivisions
| 3,959,200 | 0.17% |
36 | Finland [3] | 3,700,000 | 0.16% |
37 | Iraq [3] | 3,698,000 | 0.16% |
38 | Venezuela [3] | 3,628,000 | 0.16% |
39 | Ireland [3] | 2,960,000 | 0.13% |
40 | Norway [3] | 2,945,000 | 0.13% |
41 | Yemen [3] [note 4] | 2,775,000 | 0.12% |
42 | Haiti [3] | 2,707,000 | 0.12% |
43 | Saudi Arabia [3] | 2,670,000 | 0.12% |
44 | Bolivia [3] | 2,659,000 | 0.12% |
45 | Slovakia [17] | 2,655,000 | 0.12% |
46 | Lithuania [3] | 2,575,000 | 0.11% |
47 | Ecuador [3] | 2,412,000 | 0.10% |
48 | Guatemala [3] | 2,150,000 | 0.093% |
49 | Latvia [3] | 1,994,500 | 0.087% |
50 | Uruguay [3] | 1,953,000 | 0.085% |
51 | Dominican Republic [3] | 1,634,000 | 0.071% |
52 | El Salvador [3] | 1,459,600 | 0.063% |
53 | Estonia [3] | 1,134,000 | 0.049% |
54 | Honduras [3] | 1,096,950 | 0.048% |
55 | Albania [3] | 1,073,000 | 0.047% |
56 | Tibet [3] | 1,000,000 | 0.043% |
57 | Paraguay [3] | 931,800 | 0.041% |
58 | Mongolia [3] | 819,000 | 0.036% |
59 | Nicaragua [3] | 806,000 | 0.035% |
60 | Liberia [3] | 780,000 | 0.034% |
61 | Costa Rica [3] | 623,400 | 0.027% |
62 | Panama [3] | 605,000 | 0.026% |
63 | Bhutan (semi-independent British protectorate) | 470,000 | 0.020% |
64 | Danzig [18] [note 5] | 408,000 | 0.018% |
65 | Luxembourg [3] | 295,000 | 0.013% |
66 | Monaco [3] | 24,000 | 0.0010% |
67 | San Marino [3] | 14,500 | 0.00063% |
68 | Liechtenstein [3] | 13,000 | 0.00057% |
69 | Andorra [3] | 6,000 | 0.00026% |
70 | Vatican City [3] | 1,000 | 0.000046% |
Corrado Gini was an Italian statistician, demographer and sociologist who developed the Gini coefficient, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was a proponent of organicism and applied it to nations. Gini was a eugenicist, and prior to and during World War II, he was an advocate of Italian Fascism. Following the war, he founded the Italian Unionist Movement, which advocated for the annexation of Italy by the United States.
Italian East Africa was an Italian colony in the Horn of Africa. It was formed in 1936 after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War through the merger of Italian Somaliland, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire.
Kotor, historically known as Cattaro, is a town in Coastal region of Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Bay of Kotor. The city has a population of 13,347 and is the administrative center of Kotor Municipality.
Višnjan is a village and municipality in Istria, Croatia. Višnjan is the site of Višnjan Observatory. The observatory is home of several long-running international summer programs for youth in astronomy, archeology, marine biology and other disciplines.
Angri is a town and comune in the province of Salerno, Campania, southern Italy. It is around 15 miles (24 km) northwest of the town of Salerno.
Castelcucco is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Treviso in the Italian region Veneto, located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) northwest of Venice and about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northwest of Treviso. As of 31 May 2021, it had a population of 2,288 and an area of 8.8 square kilometres (3.4 sq mi).
The Riviera District is a district of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It has a population of 10,346. The capital of the district is Riviera.
The Leventina District is one of the eight districts of the largely Italian-speaking canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The capital of the district is Faido but the largest town is Airolo on the southern flank of the Gotthard Pass.
Dalmatian Italians are the historical Italian national minority living in the region of Dalmatia, now part of Croatia and Montenegro.
The Italian language in the Italian Switzerland or Swiss Italian is the variety of the Italian language taught in the Italian-speaking area of Switzerland. While this variety is mainly spoken in the canton of Ticino and in the southern part of Grisons, Italian is spoken natively in the whole country by about 700,000 people: Swiss Italians, Italian immigrants and Swiss citizens with Italian citizenship.
Libya was a colony of Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911.
Italian Libyans are Libyan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Libya during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Libya. Most of the Italians moved to Libya during the Italian colonial period.
The Italian colonial empire, also known as the Italian Empire between 1936 and 1941, was founded in Africa in the 19th century and it comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy. In Africa, the colonial empire included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia ; outside Africa, Italy possessed the Dodecanese Islands, Albania and also had a concession in Tianjin, China.
The Italian colony of Italian East Africa was composed of six governorates which made up the first level of country subdivisions for the colony.
Rodolfo Benini was an Italian statistician and demographer.
Castellano Vittorio was an Italian statistician.
Giorgio Mortara was an Italian economist, demographer, and statistician. He was the son of senator Lodovico Mortara, a noted jurist, magistrate and politician.
Italian irredentism in Dalmatia was the political movement supporting the unification to Italy, during the 19th and 20th centuries, of Adriatic Dalmatia.
Italian Benghazi was the name used during the Italian colonization of Libya for the port-city of Benghazi in Italian Cyrenaica.
Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi was an Italian archdeacon, scientist, mathematician, political economist. He also wrote a book about pedagogy and invented the tonograph.