ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Asian historical demography has entered a phase of rapid development as a result of the emergence of data, methods and concerns distinct from those in European historical demography. Asian historical demography emerged in the middle of the late twentieth century and initially focused on the same topics as European historical demography, including mortality, fertility and population size. The extent of fertility regulation was a topic of considerable debate, as was the role of Malthusian processes in regulating population growth. Later, researchers located novel sources of data and developed a distinctive research agenda that included consideration of alternative marriage forms, infanticide, adoption and various forms of migration. The chapter introduces the major sources of data available for each country or region, with an emphasis on sources such as population registers and genealogies. It also discusses recent work on specific topics including marriage, adoption, migration, health and mortality. The emphasis is on comparison across regions or countries. Reflecting the relative availability of data and the large number of published studies, East Asia is covered in the greatest detail. As much as possible, however, data and published studies for South and South-East Asia are also identified.
