Caribounomade

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Antwerp

Hi Caribounomade! I reverted the changes you made to Antwerp, since the population numbers you removed were sourced to the provided reference. Please use Wikipedia:Sandbox to experiment. Thanks! --Lemnaminor (talk) 20:37, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Before you revert, please consider this sentence from the cited source: 'as late as 1568 was supposed to contain 200,000 inhabitants (...) and it does not contain at present above 60,000 people' --Lemnaminor (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Lemnaminor, Please consider this quote : Original French text "En 1568, la population [d'Anvers], sans doute déjà un peu réduite, s'élevait à 90 000 habitants." My English translation "In 1568, [Antwerp's] population, undoubtedly already a little bit diminished, was of 90 000 people." from this book Coornaert Émile (1961) Les Français et le commerce international à Anvers, Paris, Marcel Rivière et Cie, Vol 1 et 2, 1961, p. 96 (443 p.) E. Coornaert took his information from this other author : R. Boumans and J. Craeybeckx, «Het bevolkingscijfer van Antwerpen in het derde kwaart der XVIe eeuw», T.G. (1947), pp. 394-405.

In this article from J. A. van Houtte, there is no sign that Antwerp's population at its peak in the 16th century could have been higher than 100,000. Houtte J. A. Anvers aux XVe et XVIe siècles : expansion et apogée. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 16e année, N. 2, 1961, p. 249 (pp. 248-278). http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ahess_0395-2649_1961_num_16_2_420705 The reference used in this article is mentionned in the footnote number 1 on page 249.

I don't know how to insert an image (I would like to show you the exact page), and I don't find all my references on the internet in order to show them to you, but in none of those that I consulted have I had a hint that Antwerp's population could have been of 200,000 in 1568.

Finally, this chart on wikimedia shows clearly that a population of 200,000 in 1568 is an error. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population-antwerp.png

Have a good evening, --Caribounomade (talk) 23:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Great work, thanks for that, and I agree with your thoughtful analysis. Let's take that 200,000 number out.

The demography section is a mess at the moment, relying on various sources, some of which have been taken offline, and the graph does not reflect the given numbers (this is the graph you referred to, it is based on an earlier version of the wikipedia page, so not useful as a reference.) Your work could be used for a major rewrite of the section - how about starting a draft on Talk:Antwerp? Let's take all discussion over there in any case, so that others can weigh in. --Lemnaminor (talk) 10:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Lemnaminor, You're welcome! Sure, I agree that editing the population section is a good idea. I am new in Wikipedia, can you start the edits on the talk page, and tell me how I could contribute please? --Caribounomade (talk) 23:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)