Size and Population
I have been doing a bit of
browsing in the Guinness World Fact Book - an excellent reference work for
discovering everything you ever wanted to know (and several things you
didn't) about most countries in the world. Particularly interesting are the
listed population figures - based on 1991 estimates - which indicate quite
clearly that the present-day population of Yorkshire makes it considerably
larger than a great many countries of the world. In fact, it would be in the
top half of the world's most populated countries, were it an independent
Did you know, for instance, that Yorkshire has a greater population than
nations like Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Libya,
Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay and New Zealand, is approximately equal in size to
countries like Israel and El Salvador and has a greater population than all
but 14 states of the USA?
Applying the same relative figures throughout the last two centuries, it is
reasonable to assume that this has always been the case, and I ask our
overseas cousins to remember this when they ask blithely for lookups of "my
gt-gt-grandfather John Smith, born in Yorkshire" in a census that hasn't
been surname indexed!!!
Those who are easily bored with statistics need read no further, but I
thought perhaps it may help others to understand the size of Yorkshire in
relation to many independent countries of the world and to get the family
history of your Yorkshire ancestors into some kind of perspective.
I base my estimate of Yorkshire's modern population on the fact that ever
since the first UK census of 1801, the official figures show that the county
has consistently held within its borders approximately 10% of the population
of Britain. Given, then, that the UK population today is 57-60 million, the
current population of Yorkshire is around 5-and-a-half to 6 million. This
figure is loosely supported when one adds up the grand total of the huge
conurbations of the West Riding and other major towns.
This makes it roughly twice the size of Wales (2,900,000), substantially
larger than the Irish Republic (3,500,000) and probably larger in population
than Scotland (5,111,000). However, it comes as a bit of a surprise to find
that Yorkshire is also larger than the following countries of Europe:
Denmark (5,162,000), Finland (5,092,000), Norway (4,272,000), Iceland
(264,000), Cyprus (756,000), Malta (360,000) Albania (3,422,000), Bosnia
(4,365,000), Croatia (4,821,000), Estonia (1,536,000), Latvia (2,596.,000),
Lithuania (3,760,000), Macedonia (2,063,000), Slovakia (5,290,000) and
Slovenia (1,966,000). Of course, I have not counted all the tiddly little
countries like Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Gibraltar, San
Marino, etc, that don't add up even to the population of Leeds or Sheffield!
Further a field than Europe, Yorkshire's population is larger than more than
20 countries of Africa and larger than the following countries of Central
and South America: Belize (204,000), Costa Rica (3,200,000), Guyana
(730,000), Honduras (5,150,000), Nicaragua (4,265,000), Panama (2,563,000),
Paraguay (4,613,000), Surinam (405,000), Uruguay (3,150,000).
In the USA, Yorkshire's population exceeds that of every state with the
exception of the following: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana
(roughly about the same), Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. It is over twice the
size of (and several times the size of) some states: for instance, Alaska,
Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana,
Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North and South Dakota
(together), Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
I won't bother giving the figures for the numerous Middle Eastern, Asian,
Caribbean and Pacific countries that have smaller populations than
Yorkshire, since I'm sure you've got the message by now. In fact, were it an
independent nation Yorkshire would be about 95th out of some 200 countries
in the world - in the top half, in other words.
NOW, do you folks over there and in Oz understand why I am constantly
stressing how big Yorkshire is and why you should try to be specific in your
enquiries? Seriously, I hope this quick rundown gives you some idea of the
size of the problem when you are researching in our great (in all senses of
the word) county.
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