List of famines in China

This is a list of famines in China. Between 108 BC and 1911 AD, there were no fewer than 1,828 recorded famines in China, or once nearly every year in one province or another. The famines varied in severity.[1][2]

Victims of a famine forced to sell their children from The Famine in China (1878)
Global famines history

Famines in China
Name Time Region Context Estimated number of dead
875–884 Peasant rebellion in China inspired by famine; Huang Chao captured capital
1333–1337[3] Famine in China
1630–1631 Northwestern China Eventually causing the Ming dynasty to collapse in 1644
1810, 1811, 1846, 1849 Unknown (45 million decrease, unknown how many emigrated or avoided census to evade taxes)[4]
1850–1873 Nian Rebellion, Taiping Rebellion and drought Primarily caused by famine, lower life expectancy and plague in the case of the Nian rebellion, the total war casualties are claimed to possibly be 10–30 million people[5][6]
Great North China Famine 1876–1879 Northern China Drought 9–13 million[7]
1896–97 Northern China Leading in part to the Boxer Rebellion
Great Qing Famine 1907 Northern Jiangsu, parts of central China and Guangdong 25 million[8]
1920–1921 North China famine 1920–1921 Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, southern Zhili (Hebei) 0.5 million[9]
Chinese famine of 1928–30 1928–1930 Northern China Drought 3 million
1936–1937 famine 1936–1937[10] Sichuan, Gansu Unknown (the source that claimed up to 5 million people has been unproven)
1942–1943 famine 1942–1943 Mainly Henan Second Sino-Japanese War 2–3 million
Great Chinese Famine 1959–61[11] Entire country[12][13] Great Leap Forward, Floods, Droughts, Typhoons, Insect Invasion[14] 15 to 55 million [15]

Responding to famines
Chinese officials engaged in famine relief, 19th-century engraving

In China famines have been an ongoing problem for thousands of years. From the Shang dynasty (16th-11th century BC) until the founding of modern China, chroniclers have regularly described recurring disasters. There have always been times and places where rains have failed, especially in the northwest of China, and this has led to famine.

It was the task of the Emperor of China to provide assistance, as necessary, to famine areas and transport foods from other areas and to distribute them. The reputation of an emperor depended on how he succeeded. National famines occurred even when the drought areas were too large, especially when simultaneously larger areas of flooded rivers were over their banks and thus additionally crop failures occurred, or when the central government did not have sufficient reserves. If an emperor could not prevent a famine, he lost prestige and legitimacy. It was said that he had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Qing China built an elaborate system designed to minimize famine deaths. The system was destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s.[16][17]

See also

References
  1. "China: Land of Famine". JSTOR 3014847. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. "Heaven, Observe!". Time. February 6, 1928.
  3. "Projects and Events: 14th Century". Archived from the original on 2016-01-13.
  4. 民国时期社会调查丛编. p. 73.
  6. "Ch'ing China: The Taiping Rebellion".
  7. Cormac Ó Gráda (March 16, 2009). Famine: A Short History. Princeton University Press.
  8. "SAGE Reference - Encyclopedia of Disaster Relief". sk.sagepub.com. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  9. Li, Lillian M. (1982). "Introduction: Food, Famine, and the Chinese State". The Journal of Asian Studies. 41 (4): 687–707. doi:10.2307/2055445.
  10. "Natural Disasters and Hazards - Historical Events Timeline".
  11. Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-62. Walker & Company, 2010 pp.32, 67, xxiii. Becker, Jasper (1998). Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. Holt Paperbacks p.xi. Yang, Jisheng (2008). Tombstone (Mu Bei - Zhong Guo Liu Shi Nian Dai Da Ji Huang Ji Shi). Cosmos Books (Tian Di Tu Shu), Hong Kong pp.12, 429.
  12. Yang (2008) pp.396, 411
  13. Peng Xizhe (1987). Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces. Population and Development Review Vol.13 No.4 (Dec. 1987) pp.646-648.
  14. "The Great Chinese Famine". Alpha History. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
  15. "Response to Minarchist on the "great" Chinese famine".
  16. Pierre-Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the people: The state civilian granary system in China, 1650–1850 (University of Michigan Press, 2020).
  17. Kathryn Jean, Edgerton-Tarpley, "From 'Nourish the People' to 'Sacrifice for the Nation': Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China." Journal of Asian Studies (2014): 447-469. online

Further reading
  • Bohr, Paul Richard. Famine in China and the missionary: Timothy Richard as relief administrator and advocate of national reform, 1876–1884 (Brill, 2020).
  • Edgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn Jean. "From 'Nourish the People' to 'Sacrifice for the Nation': Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China." Journal of Asian Studies (2014): 447-469. online
  • Edgerton-Tarpley, Kathryn, and Cormac O'gr. Tears from iron: cultural responses to famine in nineteenth-century China (U of California Press, 2008).
  • Li, Lillian M. Fighting famine in North China: state, market, and environmental decline, 1690s-1990s (Stanford UP, 2007).
  • Maohong, Bao. "Environmental history in China." Environment and History (2004): 475-499. online
  • Shiue, Carol H. "The political economy of famine relief in China, 1740–1820." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36.1 (2005): 33-55. online
  • Shiue, Carol H. "Local granaries and central government disaster relief: moral hazard and intergovernmental finance in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century China." Journal of Economic History (2004): 100-124. online
  • Will, Pierre-Etienne, and R. Bin Wong. Nourish the people: The state civilian granary system in China, 1650–1850 (University of Michigan Press, 2020).
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