While basic demographic studies, such as censuses, were conducted in the ancient world as far back as 6,000 years ago, demographers as we know them, such as John Graunt from the United Kingdom, came about in the 16th century.
The Materials of Demography
Censuses, although usually not including all individuals, were carried out in the ancient world in powerful states such as Egypt, Babylon, Persia, India The Analysts
The Italian Renaissance and the era of European voyages and religious missions to distant continents first stirred interest in estimating population size Institutionalization
Until the twentieth century the only sense in which demography was a discipline was that there was a growing body of knowledge The Recent Past and The Future
By 1970 it was known that fertility decline had begun in much of the developing world except for sub-Saharan Africa Bibliography
Bulatao, Rodolfo A., and Ronald D. Lee, eds. 1983. Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries: A Summary of Knowledge The development of the discipline of demography is usually traced to
seventheenth-century England, especially among the founders of the Royal Society.
The roots of statistical demography may be found in the work of the Englishman John Graunt; his work Natural and Political Observations . . . Made upon the Bills of Mortality (1662) examines the weekly records of deaths and baptisms (the “bills of mortality”) dating back to the end of the 16th century.
The initial population "upswing" began around
5000 BC.
