Beskrivelse
For 1,000 years, from the time of the great Hindu-Buddhist empires up to the early 1800s, Java’s population of 3.5 million remained relatively stable. Wet-rice cultivation was the basis of civilisation, and as long as the population was small, farmers produced vast surpluses. Then in the 19th century a forced-labour cultivation system instigated by the Dutch to increase food supplies resulted in a spiralling birth rate. By 1900, the population had soared to 28 million and today stands at nearly five times that number.
