This is a List of famines in China, part of the series of

lists of disasters in China A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...

. Between 108 BC and 1911 AD, there were no fewer than 1,828 recorded

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

s in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, or once nearly every year in one

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

or another. The famines varied in severity.

Famines in China

Responding to famines

In China, famines have been an ongoing problem for thousands of years. From the

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou d ...

(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 Throughout Chinese history, "Emperor" () was the superlative title held by the monarchs of imperial China's various dynasties. In traditional Chinese political theory, the emperor was the " Son of Heaven", an autocrat with the divine mandat ...

to provide, 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 The Mandate of Heaven ( zh, t=天命, p=Tiānmìng, w=, l=Heaven's command) is a Chinese ideology#Political ideologies, political ideology that was used in History of China#Ancient China, Ancient China and Chinese Empire, Imperial China to legit ...

. Qing China built an elaborate system designed to minimize famine deaths. The system was destroyed in the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of ...

of the 1850s.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
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References

* 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). {{Population famines

Famines in China

Responding to famines

See also

References

Further reading