ABSTRACT
The population of Indo-China in 1936 was 23,030,000, or about half that of Great Britain, rather more than half that of France, and over one-third that of any other French colonial possession. In the following table, the population of Indo-China is compared with that of the neighbouring countries of south-east Asia:
The mean density of population in Indo-China is thus higher than in Siam and Burma, but lower than in China and India. The figure of 31 inhabitants per sq.km., however, is misleading, since Indo-China, in common with the other countries of south-east Asia, has a large area of thinly settled mountains. Only 8 % of the country is under cultivation. On the basis of cultivated area instead of total area the mean density is then 383 inhabitants per sq.km., which gives a truer conception of the pressure of population.
