Can you name the countries/empires with the largest populations in 1900?

created by Booger

Enter a country in the box below
Correctly named countries will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Source: worldalmanacforkids.com (with terminology, spellings and populations reproduced as originally listed)
Also try: World Population 2050

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Rank	Country/Empire	Population
1		402,680,000
2		385,280,140
3		128,932,173
4		87,000,000
5		63,166,967
6		52,279,901
7		41,827,700
8		41,089,940
9		34,970,785
10		33,559,787
11		33,042,238
12		18,000,000
13		17,550,216
14		12,578,861
15		11,073,681

Rank	Country/Empire	Population
16		10,519,000
17		8,000,000
18		7,653,600
19		6,785,898
20		6,500,000
21		6,030,043
22		5,700,000
23		5,376,000
24		4,600,000
25		4,042,990
26		4,000,000
27		3,500,000
28		3,000,000
29		2,933,334
30		2,500,000

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There are 171 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

World Population 1900 Quiz

by Booger

Created May 11, 2009 in History
Featured May 11, 2009
Game Plays 200,720

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	bsd987:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:52 GMT		109 points
	ottoman empire should definitely be accepted for "Turkish empire", if not the listed answer.

	Txagsforever:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:53 GMT		13 points
	I split number 15 and 19 in half. I am mad.

	mutang:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:54 GMT		64 points
	I think Austro-Hungary should be sufficient for Austro-Hungarian empire.

	pete:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:54 GMT		96 points
	What was the source for these numbers? I think Ethiopia would easily be on this list, as it was an independent nation in 1900, and from some quick googling, had around 11 million in 1900.

	debbiedoesnothin:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:56 GMT		7 points
	I didn't get them all but the only one that surprised me was #29.

	nearlyextinct:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:57 GMT		25 points
	Interesting quiz. I didn't realize Congo was independent.

	jd1z:	May 11th, 2009 at 04:57 GMT		25 points
	This is so funny to see some numbers so vague, and some so specific. -- 29 has 2,933,334, and 28 has 3 million. ... Or maybe they just had Exactly 3 million people. The world may never know.

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	RipTatermen:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:14 GMT		52 points
	I found it pretty irritating that 'Turkish' or 'German' didn't work (not to mention Ottoman), but when I entered Turkey or Germany it says 'Turkish Empire' or 'German Empire'. So, err, there you go. That's what irritated me with regards to this free, online trivia quiz.

	RedLIon:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:23 GMT		35 points
	This was a nice idea, and fun, but...really, what the heck? It was Ottoman Empire, not the Turkish Empire. Ethiopia was up there. Congo was not independent!

	tkeller:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:38 GMT		15 points
	congo was made an official state in the 1890s when taken out of control of the belgian king. and its austria hungary not austro hungary

	Woopee:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:39 GMT		71 points
	Why do the rank numbers go 14, 18, 15, 16, 17, 19?

	Kevin:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:45 GMT		80 points
	Bah, I entered both Sweden and Norway independently. Is that really what the quiz required for an answer, "Union of Sweden and Norway?" Also couldn't believe there was no Ethiopia. I know at one point in the earlier twentieth century, there were only three independent African countries, Ethiopia being one of them. Ah, the foresight of buying guns.

	weizenugb:	May 11th, 2009 at 05:51 GMT		106 points
	@mutang: Austro-Hungary should not work. In short, it doesn't work because you've mixed an adjectival form with a place name. Austro-Hungarian Empire works because those are both adjectival. Austria-Hungary works because they are both (noun) place names. Austro-Hungary implies that you are talking about a Hungary that is somehow "Austria-cized." I know most people won't get this and will thus downvote it, but some will know what I mean.

	jbear31:	May 11th, 2009 at 06:06 GMT		9 points
	i agree with Kevin, i entered Norway and Sweden separately and also Scandinavia and got nothing.

	onemorething81:	May 11th, 2009 at 06:17 GMT		10 points
	Not happy I didn't get credit for typing Austro Hungarian without a hyphen. Frustrating when you know an answer and don't get it because you're going through the quiz quickly and leave out punctuation. Nice quiz though. I also tried Ethiopia and was surprised it wasn't there. And I liked that once I got 2 in Latin America, I guessed a bunch more and got a bunch more.

	Reynaert:	May 11th, 2009 at 06:45 GMT		9 points
	@ nearlyextinct: Apperantly, the Congo Free State, Leopold IInds private domain, was not yet a belgian colony. I was shocked to learn there were so few independant countries in 1900...

	onetheta:	May 11th, 2009 at 07:19 GMT		2 points
	'Union between Sweden and Norway' Well, you learn something new every sporcle quiz. I guess this union spawned dynamite and the Gatling gun. Peace and love.

	davidr:	May 11th, 2009 at 07:58 GMT		9 points
	@onetheta: The Gatling gun was invented by Richard J. Gatling, an American.

	Matt91486:	May 11th, 2009 at 08:14 GMT		33 points
	I tried a ton of combinations for the Sweden/Norway one and couldn't come up with that. There should be some more flexibility with that one.

	Adam:	May 11th, 2009 at 08:59 GMT		23 points
	25 has a bigger population than 24...

	Nordmann:	May 11th, 2009 at 09:12 GMT		7 points
	For the union between Sweden and Norway I just typed in "Sweden Norway" which worked. Seeing that only 0.5% of people actually guessed this, i suppose the history of Scandinavia is not very well known outside of our little corner of the world.

	fatfifer:	May 11th, 2009 at 09:32 GMT		2 points
	lol. i didnt think to try brazil seperately from portugal but i did with mexico. duh

	WCRoentgen:	May 11th, 2009 at 09:45 GMT		9 points
	I thought bulgaria was liberated in 1878 and had about 3.1 million people. Also agree that Abyssinia (Ethiopia) should be there since it was independent and had over 4 million people.

	R:	May 11th, 2009 at 10:23 GMT		0 points
	I got all except Sweden/Norway. Oh how simple the world was back then.

	JoeGrzzly:	May 11th, 2009 at 10:29 GMT		9 points
	@all those confused by Ethiopia like me. Perhaps the world population/census guy at the time was ordered by one of the countries like France or Great Britain to fudge the numbers to cover up the failure to conquer Ethiopia. wink.

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	rockyraccoon88:	May 11th, 2009 at 10:45 GMT		18 points
	@JoeGrzzly it'll have been the Italians covering up the numbers as it was them that failed to conquer Ethiopia in 1896. Far as I'm aware Britain and France never tried.

	Steesh:	May 11th, 2009 at 10:57 GMT		5 points
	This is a poor quiz at the moment. Austro-hungarian didn't work for me and needed the empire on the end unlike the others. 18 seems to have become a number of a lesser value than 15 and i'm pretty sure 4,600,000 is a higher number than 4,042,990 or i'm having a mixed up maths dream. Nice idea but poor execution.

	yaremchuk:	May 11th, 2009 at 11:41 GMT		14 points
	I'm wondering how Canada fits into this quiz. Clearly it is being included as a colony of the British Empire, but since Confederation was in 1867, I've always considered Canada to be a separate country from that point forward. Sure it maintained ties until the Statute of Westminster (1931) and Patriation of the Constitution (1982) - but it was more than just a colony in 1900. It's population at that time was 5.3 million or so.

	MissInformed:	May 11th, 2009 at 11:46 GMT		3 points
	I'm pretty peeved that "Austro-Hungarian" didn't work with or without a hyphen, and yet typing in just "Austria Hungary" worked fine. Apparently the former needed "empire" on the end, which none of the other answers did. I wasted a lot of time on that. Also it really should take "Ottoman" although I did get it by typing "Turkey". I know both of these things have been said already, but they need emphasising, as otherwise it's a great quiz!

	DLJessup:	May 11th, 2009 at 11:48 GMT		6 points
	@onemorething81: The missing hyphen wasn't the problem with "Austro Hungarian"; you were missing "Empire", as in "Austro Hungarian Empire". Sporcle quizzes usually ignore punctuation when determining whether an answer is right.

	Booger:	May 11th, 2009 at 12:15 GMT		5 points
	The caption of this quiz omits a key point that was meant to be included. The countries and territories listed in this quiz use the unchanged spellings as published in The World Almanac 1900. As for Austria-Hungary, the quiz accepts both Austria=Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (with or without the hyphens). Austro-Hungarian itself without the name Empire is not a name, just as American, British or French is not the name of a country or empire.

	davidr:	May 11th, 2009 at 12:16 GMT		5 points
	@morch: Canada had a large degree of autonomy from its formation in 1867 but it was very definitely a colony of the British Empire at that point. For example, Canada had no foreign policy independent of Empire's and had no formal say in what that foreign policy would be.

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	squirrelito:	May 11th, 2009 at 12:52 GMT		5 points
	Totally thrown by Sweden/Norway and assumed Congo was included in the Belgian total. More fool me! Thanks for the game, good fun.

	squirrelito:	May 11th, 2009 at 12:53 GMT		4 points
	ps: While Canada and Australia were quite autonomous by 1900, they were still very much part of the Empire.

	Etheridge2:	May 11th, 2009 at 13:28 GMT		44 points
	finally a quiz where typing in CONGO gets you an answer..ME LIKE

	Booger:	May 11th, 2009 at 13:40 GMT		16 points
	@ Kevin and jbear: Sweden and Norway were one country from 1814-1905. (I didn't know that myself until I put this quiz together). The quiz accepts "Sweden and Norway," "Sweden Norway," "Norway and Sweden" and "Norway Sweden". Just as it would not be right to accept Austria or Hungary by itself in this quiz, I didn't think it right to accept Sweden or Norway by themselves.

	Sausage:	May 11th, 2009 at 13:49 GMT		26 points
	Top quiz booger thanks. Great example of the educational value of Sporcle - I have now read up on Sweden Norway Union and am ready to sound knowledgable when it comes up. I have lasted 40+ years without it doing so, but I am hopeful and ready to be incredulous with someone who hasn't heard of it.