List of famines

Depiction of victims of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–1849

This is an incomplete list of known major famines, ordered by date.

Between 108 BC and 1911 AD there were no fewer than 1,828 major famines in China, or one nearly every year in one or another province; however, the famines varied greatly in severity.^[1]^[2] There were 95 famines in Britain during the Middle Ages.^[3]^[4]

Date	Event	Location	Death toll (estimate)
ca. 1890 BC	Seven year famine in Egypt and "in all other lands." Famine in Canaan caused the sons of Jacob to go to Egypt and buy food.	Egypt, Canaan^[5]^[6]
441 BC		Ancient Rome^[7]
400–800 AD	Famine in Western Europe associated with the Fall of Rome and its sack by Alaric I. Between 400 and 800 AD, the population of the city of Rome fell by over 90%, mainly because of famine and plague.^[8]	Western Europe
639	Famine in Arabia during the Caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab	Arabia
750's		Spain^[9]
800–1000 AD	Severe drought killed millions of Maya people due to famine and thirst and initiated a cascade of internal collapses that destroyed their civilization^[10]	Maya Empire
809		Frankish Empire^[11]
875–884	Peasant rebellion in China inspired by famine; Huang Chao captured capital	China
927–928	Caused by four months of frost^[12]^[13]	Byzantine Empire
1005		England^[14]
1016	Famine throughout Europe^[15]	Europe
1022, 1033, 1052	Great famines in India, in which entire provinces were depopulated	India
1064–1072	Seven years' famine in Egypt	Egypt
1051	Famine forced the Toltecs to migrate from a stricken region in what is now central Mexico^[16]	Mexico (present day)
1097	Famine and plague	France	7005100000000000000100,000
1230	Famine in the Republic of Novgorod	Russia
1229–1232	The Kangi famine, possibly the worst famine in Japan's history.^[17] Caused by volcanic eruptions.^[18]	Japan
1235	Famine in England, 20,000 died in London alone	England
1255		Portugal^[19]
1275–1299	Collapse of Anasazi civilization, widespread famine occurred^[20]	United States (present day)
1315–1317	Great Famine of 1315–1317	Europe^[21]
1333–1337		China^[22]
1344–1345	Great famine in India	India
1387	After Timur the Lame left Asia Minor, severe famine ensued	Anatolia
1396–1407	The Durga Devi famine	India^[23]
1441	Famine in Mayapan	Mexico^[24]
1450–1454	Famine in the Aztec Empire,^[25] interpreted as the gods' need for sacrifices.^[26]	Mexico (present day)
1460–1461	Kanshō famine in Japan	Japan
1504		Spain^[27]
1518	Venice	Italy (present day)
1528	Famine in Languedoc	France^[28]
1535	Famine in Ethiopia	Ethiopia
1567–1570	Famine in Harar, combined with plague. Emir of Harar, died.	Ethiopia
1586	Famine in England which gave rise to the Poor Law system	England
1601–1603	One of the worst famines in all of Russian history; famine killed as many as 100,000 in Moscow and up to one-third of Tsar Godunov's subjects; see Russian famine of 1601–1603.^[29]^[30] Same famine killed about half Estonian population.	Russia	70062000000000000002 million
1618–1648	Famines in Europe caused by Thirty Years' War	Europe
1619	Famine in Japan. During the Tokugawa period, there were 154 famines, of which 21 were widespread and serious.^[31]	Japan
1630–1631	Deccan Famine of 1630–32 (Note: There was a corresponding famine in northwestern China, eventually causing the Ming dynasty to collapse in 1644)	India	70062000000000000002 million
1648–1660	Poland lost an estimated 1/3 of its population due to wars, famine, and plague	Poland
1649	Famine in northern England	England
1650–1652	Famine in the east of France	France
1651–1653	Famine throughout much of Ireland during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland^[32]	Ireland
1661	Famine in India, when not a drop of rain fell for two years^[33]	India
1669	Famine in Bengal	India
1670s and 1680s	Plague and famines in Spain	Spain
1680	Famine in Sardinia^[34]	Italy (present day)	7004800000000000000 80,000 ^[35]
1680s	Famine in Sahel
1690s	Famine throughout Scotland which killed 15% of the population	Scotland
1693–1694		France	70062000000000000002 million^[36]^[37]
1695–1697	Great Famine of Estonia killed about a fifth of Estonian and Livonian population (70,000–75,000 people). Famine also hit Sweden (80,000–100,000 dead)	The Swedish Empire, of which Swedish Estonia and Swedish Livonia were dominions at that time
1696–1697	Great Famine of Finland wiped out almost a third of the population^[38]	Finland, then part of Sweden proper
1702–1704	Famine in Deccan	India	70062000000000000002 million
1708–1711	Famine in East Prussia killed 250,000 people or 41% of its population^[39]	East Prussia	7005250000000000000250,000
1709–1710		France^[40]
1722		Arabia^[41]
1727–1728	Famine in the English Midlands^[42]	England
1738–1756	Famine in West Africa, half the population of Timbuktu died of starvation^[43]	West Africa
1740-1741	Great Irish Famine (1740–1741)	Ireland
1750–1756	Famine in the Senegambia region ^[44]
1764	Famine in Naples^[45]	Italy (present day)
1769–1773	Bengal famine of 1770,^[46] 10 million dead (one third of population)	India	700710000000000000010 million
1770–1771	Famines in Czech lands killed hundreds of thousands people	Czech Republic (present day)
1771–1772	Famine in Saxony and southern Germany	Germany
1773	Famine in Sweden	Sweden
1779	Famine in Rabat	Morocco^[47]
1780s	Great Tenmei famine	Japan	20,000 - 920,000
1783	Famine in Iceland caused by Laki eruption killed one-fifth of Iceland's population^[48]	Iceland
1783–84	Chalisa famine	India	700711000000000000011 million^[49]
1784	Widespread famine throughout Egypt^[50]	Egypt
1784–1785	Famine in Tunisia killed up to one-fifth of all Tunisians	Tunisia
1788	The two years previous to the French Revolution saw bad harvests and harsh winters, possibly because of a strong El Niño cycle^[51] or caused by the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland.^[52]^[53]	France
1789	Famine in Ethiopia afflicted "amhara/tigray north"
1789–92	Doji bara famine or Skull famine	India
1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849	Four famines in China	China	700745000000000000045 million.^[54]
1811–1812	Famine devastated Madrid^[55]	Spain	700420000000000000020,000^[56]
1815	Eruption of Tambora, Indonesia. Tens of thousands died in subsequent famine	Indonesia
1816–1817	Year Without a Summer	Europe	7004650000000000000 65,000
1830–1833	Claimed to have killed 42% of the population	Cape Verde	700430000000000000030,000^[57]
1830s	Tenpo famine	Japan
1837–1838	Agra famine of 1837–38	India
1845–1857	Highland Potato Famine	Scotland
1845–1849	Great Famine in Ireland killed more than 1 million people and over 1.5–2 million emigrated^[58]	Ireland	70061500000000000001.5 million
1846	Famine led to the peasant revolt known as "Maria da Fonte" in the north of Portugal	Portugal
1849–1850	Demak and Grobogan in Central Java, caused by four successive crop failures due to drought.	Indonesia	700483000000000000083,000^[59]
1850–1873	As a result of Taiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China dropped by more than 60 million^[60]	China
1866	Orissa famine of 1866	India	70061000000000000001 million^[61]
1866–1868	Finnish famine of 1866–1868. About 15% of the entire population died	Finland, northern Sweden	7005150000000000000150,000+
1869	Rajputana famine of 1869	India	70061500000000000001.5 million^[61]
1870–1871	Famine in Persia	Iran (present day)	70062000000000000002 million^[62]^{[unreliable source?]}
1873–1874	Famine in Anatolia caused by drought and floods^[63]^[64]	Turkey (present day)
1879	1879 Famine in Ireland. Unlike previous famines, this famine mainly caused hunger and food shortages but little mortality.	Ireland
1873–74	Bihar famine of 1873–74. Mortality was avoided in a massive relief campaign	India	50000000000000000000
1876–1879	ENSO Famine in India, China, Brazil, Northern Africa (and other countries). Famine in northern China killed 13 million people.^[65] 5.25 million died in the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India	India, China, Brazil, Northern Africa (and other countries).
1878-1880	Famine in St. Lawrence Island, Alaska^[66]	United States
1888–1892	Ethiopian Great famine. About one-third of the population died.^[67]^[68] Conditions worsen with cholera outbreaks (1889–92), a typhus epidemic, and a major smallpox epidemic (1889–90).	Ethiopia
1891–1892		Russia	7005375000000000000375,000–500,000^[69]^[70]
1896–1897	ENSO famine in northern China leading in part to the Boxer Rebellion	China
1896–1902	ENSO famine in India^[71]	India
1907, 1911	Famines in east-central China	China
1914–1918	Mount Lebanon famine during World War I which killed about a third of the population	Lebanon
1916–1917	Famine caused by the British blockade of Germany in WWI	Germany
1916–1917	Winter famine in Russia	Russia
1917–1919	Famine in Persia. As much as 1/4 of the population living in the north of Iran died in the famine^[72]	Iran (present day)
1917–1921	A series of famines in Turkestan at the time of the Bolshevik revolution killed about a sixth of the population^[73]	Turkestan
1921	Russian famine of 1921	Russia	70065000000000000005 million^[74]
1921–1922	1921–1922 famine in Tatarstan	Russia
1921–1922	Famine in Volga German colonies in Russia. One-third of the entire population perished^[75]	Russia
1928–1929	Famine in Ruanda-Burundi, causing large migrations to the Congo	Rwanda and Burundi (present day)
1928–1930	Famine in northern China. The drought resulted in 3 million deaths	China	3 million
1932–1933	Soviet famine of Ukraine and North Caucasus area.	Ukraine	70071000000000000007–10 million^[76]
1936		China	70065000000000000005 million^[77]
1940–1945	Famine in Warsaw Ghetto, as well as other ghettos and concentration camps (note: this famine was the result of deliberate denial of food to ghetto residents on the part of Nazis).	Occupied Poland
1941–44	Leningrad famine caused by a 900-day blockade by German troops. About one million Leningrad residents starved, froze, or were bombed to death in the winter of 1941–42, when supply routes to the city were cut off and temperatures dropped to −40°C (−40°F).^[78]	Russia	7006100000000000000 1 million
1941–1944	Famine in Greece caused by the Axis occupation.^[79]^[80]	Greece	7005300000000000000300,000
1943	Bengal famine of 1943	Bengal, India	7006150000000000000 1.5-7 million
1943	Famine in Ruanda-Urundi, causing migrations to the Congo	Rwanda and Burundi (present day)
1944-45	Java during World War II	Indonesia	7006240000000000000 2.4 million^[81]
1944	Dutch famine of 1944 during World War II	Netherlands	700420000000000000020,000
1945	Vietnamese Famine of 1945	Vietnam	7005400000000000000 400,000–2 million
1947	Soviet Famine of 1947	Soviet Union	70061000000000000001–1.5 million^[82]^[83]
1958	Famine in Tigray	Ethiopia	7005100000000000000100,000
1959–1961	The Great Chinese Famine. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths.	China	700715000000000000015–43 million^[84]
1966–1967	Lombok, drought and malnutrition, exacerbated by restrictions on regional rice trade	Indonesia	700450000000000000050,000^[85]
1967–1970	Biafran famine caused by Nigerian blockade	Nigeria
1968–1972	Sahel drought created a famine that killed a million people^[86]	Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso
1972–1973	Famine in Ethiopia caused by drought and poor governance; failure of the government to handle this crisis led to the fall of Haile Selassie and to Derg rule	Ethiopia	700460000000000000060,000^[87]
1974	Bangladesh famine of 1974	Bangladesh
1975–1979	Khmer Rouge. An estimated 2 million Cambodians lost their lives to murder, forced labor and famine	Cambodia
1980–1981	Caused by drought and conflict^[87]	Uganda	700430000000000000030,000^[87]
1984–1985	1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia	Ethiopia
1991–1992	Famine in Somalia caused by drought and civil war^[87]	Somalia	7005300000000000000300,000^[87]
1996	North Korean famine.^[88]^[89] Scholars estimate 600,000 died of starvation (other estimates range from 200,000 to 3.5 million).^[90]	North Korea	7005200000000000000200,000 to 3.5 million
1998	1998 Sudan famine caused by war and drought	Sudan	700470000000000000070,000^[87]
1998–2000	Famine in Ethiopia. The situation worsened by Eritrean–Ethiopian War	Ethiopia
1998–2004	Second Congo War. 3.8 million people died, mostly from starvation and disease	Democratic Republic of the Congo
2011-2012	Famine in Somalia, brought on by the 2011 East Africa drought^[91]	Somalia
2012	Famine in West Africa, brought on by the 2012 Sahel drought^[92]	Senegal, Gambia, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso

1 See also
- 1.1 Main article lists
- 1.2 Other articles
2 References
3 Bibliography
4 External links

References[edit]

^ China: Land of Famine
^ "Heaven, Observe!" – TIME
^ Famines through history.
^ Poor studies will always be with us
^ Genesis 41:54-58; 42:5
^ Filer, Joyce, Famine in Ancient Egypt (and Nubia): What is the evidence?
^ Livy, From the Founding of the City 4.12
^ A Brief History of Population
^ Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages
^ The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death
^ The Ninth Century
^ Treadgold, Warren T. (1997), A history of the Byzantine state and society, Stanford University Press, p. 480, ISBN 978-0-8047-2630-6
^ Kazhdan, Aleksandr Petrovich; Wharton, Annabel Jane (1985), Change in Byzantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, University of California Press, p. 27, ISBN 978-0-520-05129-4
^ 1005: The People's Chronology
^ Famine – LoveToKnow 1911
^ The Facts of Malnutrition and Famine
^ Farris, William Wayne (2009), Japan to 1600: a social and economic history, University of Hawaii Press, p. 116, ISBN 978-0-8248-3379-4
^ Ó Gráda 2009, p. 17
^ Portugal > History and Events
^ Collapse: Chaco Canyon
^ The Great Famine and the Black Death
^ Projects and Events: 14th Century
^ Bidar District Important Historical Events
^ Welcome to The Human Past
^ Trigger, Bruce G. (2003), Understanding early civilizations: a comparative study, Cambridge University Press, p. 387, ISBN 978-0-521-82245-9
^ Davíd Carrasco (1998), Daily life of the Aztecs: people of the sun and earth, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 199, ISBN 978-0-313-29558-4
^ Land and Society in Golden Age Castile
^ The Dimension of Famine
^ Boris Feodorovich Godunov
^ Russia before Peter the Great
^ A Chronology of Japanese History
^ BBC – Northern Ireland – A Short History
^ The 17th Century
^ Italian States in the Seventeenth Century
^ Dyson, Stephen L; Rowland, Robert J (2007). Archaeology and history in Sardinia from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages: shepherds, sailors & conquerors. Philadelphia: UPenn Museum of Archaeology, 2007. p. 136. ISBN 1-934536-02-4.
^ Appleby, Andrew B. (1980), "Epidemics and Famine in the Little Ice Age", Journal of Interdisciplinary History (The MIT Press) 10 (4): 643–663, doi:10.2307/203063, JSTOR 203063.
^ Ó Gráda, Cormac; Chevet, Jean-Michel (2002), "Famine And Market In Ancient Régime France", The Journal of Economic History 62 (03): 706–733, doi:10.1017/S0022050702001055, PMID 17494233. Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)
^ Finland timeline
^ The Dimension of Famine.
^ The Little Ice Age in Europe
^ Climatic fluctuation and natural disasters in Arabia between mid-17th and early 20th Centuries
^ Epidemics and Famine in the Little Ice Age
^ Len Milich: Anthropogenic Desertification vs ‘Natural’ Climate Trends
^ Searing, James F. (2003), West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 1700-1860, Cambridge University Press, p. 132, ISBN 978-0-521-53452-9
^ Naples and Sicily -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
^ FAMINE ()
^ The locust plague
^ Haze Famine (Icelandic history)
^ Grove, Richard H. (2007), "The Great El Nino of 1789–93 and its Global Consequences: Reconstructing an Extreme Climate Event in World Environmental History", The Medieval History Journal 10 (1&2): 80, doi:10.1177/097194580701000203
^ ScienceDaily: Icelandic Volcano Caused Historic Famine In Egypt, Study Shows
^ Grove, Richard H. (1998), "Global Impact of the 1789–93 El Niño", Nature 393 (6683): 318–319, doi:10.1038/30636.
^ Wood, C. A. (1992), "The climatic effects of the 1783 Laki eruption", in Harrington, C. R. (ed.), The Year Without a Summer?, Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Nature, pp. 58–77
^ Neumann, J. (1977), "Great Historical Events that were Significantly Affected by the Weather: 2, The Year Leading to the Revolution of 1789 in France", Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 58 (2): 163–168, doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1977)058<0163:GHETWS>2.0.CO;2, ISSN 1520-0477.
^ Fearfull Famines of the Past
^ Carr, Raymond (2001), Spain: a history, Oxford University Press, p. 203, ISBN 978-0-19-280236-1
^ Reader, John (2005), Cities, Atlantic Monthly Press, p. 243, ISBN 978-0-87113-898-9
^ Ó Gráda 2009, p. 22
^ The Great Famine in Ireland, 1845–1849
^ Elson, R.E. (1985) ‘The Famine in Demak and Grobogan in 1849-50: Its Causes and Circumstances’, Review of Indonesian and Malayan Affairs, 19(1)pp.39-85.
^ Ch'ing China: The Taiping Rebellion
^ ^a ^b Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. III (1907), The Indian Empire, Economic (Chapter X: Famine, pp. 475–502, Published under the authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council, Oxford at the Clarendon Press. P. 486–487, 1 map, 552.
^ The Great Persian Famine of 1870-1871
^ Zürcher, Erik Jan (2004), Turkey: a modern history (3 ed.), I.B.Tauris, p. 72, ISBN 978-1-85043-399-6
^ Mitchell, Stephen (1995), Anatolia: land, men, and Gods in Asia Minor (reprint ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 145, ISBN 978-0-19-815029-9
^ Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009). Famine: A Short History. Princeton University Press. p. 245. ISBN 9780691122373.
^ The St. Lawrence Island Famine and Epidemic, 1878–80, Arctic Anthropology
^ Famine Hunger stalks Ethiopia once again – and aid groups fear the worst
^ El Niño and Drought Early Warning in Ethiopia
^ The History of International Humanitarian Assistance
^ Spiridovich, Alexander. Revolutionary movement in Russian. Ed. 2. (Russian)
^ Late Victorian Holocausts
^ Global Connections . Timeline
^ Famine perspectives from past and present
^ World's worst natural disasters since 1900
^ The German Colonies on the Volga River – Famine Years
^ [1]
^ Natural Disasters and Hazards – Historical Events Timeline
^ 900-Day Siege of Leningrad
^ Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944
^ Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: daily life in occupied Europe, by Robert Gildea, Anette Warring, Olivier Wieviorka, Berg Publishers 2007
^ Van der Eng, Pierre (2008) 'Food Supply in Java during War and Decolonisation, 1940-1950.' (MPRA Paper No. 8852) pp.35-38. http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8852/
^ The 1947 Soviet famine and the entitlement approach to famines, Cambridge Journal of Economics
^ Nicholas Ganson, The Soviet Famine of 1946-47 in Global and Historical Perspective [2]. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. (ISBN 0-230-61333-0)
^ Peng Xizhe (彭希哲), "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces," Population and Development Review 13, no. 4 (1987), 639-70.
For a summary of other estimates, please refer to this link
^ Van der Eng, Pierre (2012) “All Lies? Famines in Indonesia during the 1950s and 1960s?” Asian Historical Economics Conference, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo (Japan), 13-15 September 2012. https://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/events/2012/20120916-Famine-in-Indonesia-1950s-60s.pdf
^ Famine Casts Its Grim Global Shadow, TIME
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ó Gráda 2009, p. 24
^ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/august97/korea_8-26.html
^ http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr990802.html
^ Bruce Cumings: We look at it and see ourselves
^ [3]. December 7, 2012
^ "Sahel Famine Crisis". UNICEF. Retrieved 29 August 2013.

Bibliography[edit]

Ó Gráda, Cormac (2009), Famine: a short history, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-12237-3.

External links[edit]

Media related to famines at Wikimedia Commons

Disasters

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See also[edit]

Main article lists[edit]

Other articles[edit]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

External links[edit]