ABSTRACT
Statistics on the population of the region before the 19th century are completely lacking, except for the 16th-century Ottoman Empire and some Roman provinces, but it is possible to hazard educated guesses about magnitudes and trends. In the 2nd century A.D. the Middle East may have had something like 40 to 45 million inhabitants, accounting for perhaps a fifth of the world total. The plagues of the 2nd and 6th centuries greatly reduced the population, but a recovery took place in the 8th–11th centuries, raising the total to a new peak of perhaps 35 to 40 million. The Black Death of 1346–48 may have carried off a quarter or a third of the inhabitants of some countries. 1 Thereafter, population seems to have fluctuated, without showing any clear trends, except for an upsurge in the 16th century associated with the establishment of order by the Ottomans. Table 6.1 gives some estimates for the 19th and early 20th centuries. (For more recent figures see appendix table A.1.)
