The population of Shanghai in the Yuen Dynasty was 72,502. This included the country districts which have since been elevated into arrondissements between Shanghai and the lakes and between Shanghai and the sea, At that time, five centuries anda half ayo, there was a junk population of 5,675, beside the wives and families of the junku We may estimate the junk population then as 20,000, more or less, at that time. In the 16th century there were 300,000 to 500,000 on the legal registers. But at the close of that century, when new districts had been made out of the old Shanghai area, the population was 70,623. The Manchus ordered a new census, which made the numbers 81,000, In the first half of the 18th century it had risen to 93,294. Another separation of districts came and the number sank to 48,209; this means adult males, and the whole population would then be about 200,000. In 1864 the registers stated the number to be 543,358. Of these there were, males 285,326, females 257,784. This includes the country all round Shanghai for a short distance, and every one knows that villages are everywhere numerous, and that wheat, rice, and cotton, the three staples of production, perpetually tend to maintain and increase the numbers on the registers kept by the magistrates according to law.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.