Editing Edo period (section)

===Population===
[[File:Cotton-Transport-Ships-Racing-to-Edo-from-Aji-River-Osaka-by-Gansuitei-Yoshitoyo-c1855.png|thumb|upright=1.2|left|A set of three [[ukiyo-e]] prints depicting [[Osaka]]'s bustling shipping industry. By Gansuitei Yoshitoyo. 1854–1859.]]
By the mid-18th century, Edo had a population of more than one million, likely the biggest city in the world at the time.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Perez, Louis G.|title=The history of Japan|date=2009|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-36442-6|edition=2nd|location=Westport, Conn.|oclc=277040931}}</ref> [[Osaka]] and [[Kyoto]] each had more than 400,000 inhabitants. Many other [[castle town]]s grew as well. [[Osaka]] and Kyoto became busy trading and handicraft production centers, while Edo was the center for the supply of food and essential urban consumer goods. Around the year 1700, Japan was perhaps the most urbanized country in the world, at a rate of around 10–12%.<ref name=":0" /> Half of that figure would be samurai, while the other half, consisting of merchants and artisans, would be known as ''[[chōnin]]''.<ref name=":0" />

In the first part of the Edo period, Japan experienced rapid demographic growth, before leveling off at around 30 million.<ref name=":3">Hanley, S. B. (1968). Population trends and economic development in Tokugawa Japan: the case of Bizen province in Okayama. ''Daedalus'', 622-635.</ref> Between the 1720s and 1820s, Japan had almost [[zero population growth]], often attributed to lower birth rates in response to widespread famine ([[Great Tenmei famine]] 1782–1788), but some historians have presented different theories, such as a high rate of infanticide artificially controlling population.<ref>{{Harvnb|Flath|2000}}</ref>

At around 1721, the population of Japan was close to 30 million and the figure was only around 32 million around the [[Meiji Restoration]] around 150 years later.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Huang|first=Ray|title=Capitalism and the 21st Century (Zi ben zhu yi yu er shi yi shi ji)|date=2015|isbn=978-7-108-05368-8|edition=Di 1 ban|location=Beijing|oclc=953227195 |publisher=生活·读书·新知三联书店 }}</ref><ref name=":0" /> From 1721, there were regular national surveys of the population until the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.<ref name=":3" /> In addition, regional surveys, as well as religious records initially compiled to eradicate Christianity, also provide valuable demographic data.<ref name=":3" />