List_of_famines

List of famines

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

A complete list will almost certainly never become available.

5th century BC

440 BC famine in Ancient Rome.

2nd century BC

Between 108 BC and 1911 AD there were no fewer than 1828 major famines in China, or one nearly every year in one or another province; however, the famines varied greatly in severity.

5th century 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. See Medieval demography.

7th century AD

639 AD - Famine in Arabia during the Caliphate of `Umar ibn Al-Khattab
650 Famine throughout India

8th century

750's famine in Spain

9th century

800-1000 AD, severe drought killed millions of Maya people with famine and thirst and initiated a cascade of internal collapses that destroyed their civilization
809 famine in Frankish Empire
875-884 peasant rebellion in China inspired by famine; Huang Chao captured capital

10th century

927 famine in Byzantine Empire

11th century

1005 Famine in England There were 95 famines in the Middle Ages.
1016 Famine throughout Europe
1022,1033 Great famines in India, in which entire provinces were depopulated
1064-1072 Seven years' famine in Egypt
1051 famine forced the Toltecs to migrate from a stricken region in what is now central Mexico
1066 famine in England

13th century

1199-1202 famine in Egypt
1230 famine in Novgorod
1231-1232 famine in Japan
1235 famine in England. 20,000 die in London, alone
1255 famine in Portugal
1258 famine in Germany and Italy
1275-1299 collapse of Anasazi civilization, widespread famine occurred
1294 famine in England

14th century

1315-1317 Great Famine in Europe
1333 famine in Portugal
1333-1334 famine in Spain
1333-1337 famine in China
1344-1345 Great famine in India
1387 after Timur the Lame left Asia Minor, severe famine ensued
1390 famine in England
1396-1407 The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting twelve years

15th century

1403-1404 famine in Egypt
1441 famine in Mayapan, Mexico
1445 famine in Korea
1450-1454 famine in Aztec Empire
1460 – 1461 Kanshō famine in Japan

16th century

1504 famine in Spain
1518 famine in Venice
1528 famine in Languedoc, France
1535 famine in Ethiopia
1540 famine in Spain
1555 famine in England
1567-1570 famine in Harar in Ethiopia, combined with plague. Emir of Harar, died.
1574-1576 famine in Istanbul and Anatolia
1586 famine in England which gave rise to the Poor Law system
1590s famines in Europe

17th century

1599-1600 famine in Spain
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. Same famine killed about half Estonian population.
1611 famine in Anatolia
1618-1648 famines in Europe caused by Thirty Years' War
1619 famine in Japan. During the Tokugawa period, there were 154 famines, of which 21 were widespread and serious.
1623-1624 famine in England
1630-1631 Deccan famine in India kills 2,000,000 (Note: There was a corresponding famine in northwestern China, eventually causing the Ming dynasty to collapse in 1644.)
1636 famine in Spain
1648-1660 Poland lost an estimated 1/3 of its population due to the wars, famine, and plague
1649 famine in northern England
1650-1652 famine in the east of France
1651-1653 famine throughout much of Ireland during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
1661 famine in India, when not a drop of rain fell for two years
1661-1662 famine in Morocco
1661-1662 famine in France
1669 famine in Bengal
1680 famine in Sardinia
1680 famine in Japan
1680s famine in Sahel
1690s famine in Scotland which may have killed 15% of the population
1693-1694 famine in France which killed 2 million people
1695-1697 Great Famine of Estonia killed about a fifth of Estonian population (70 000 – 75 000 people). Famine also hit Sweden (80 000 – 100 000 dead)
1696-1697 famine in Finland wiped out almost a third of the population

18th century

1702-1704 famine in Deccan, India, killed 2 million people
1706-1707 famine in France
1708-1711 famine in East Prussia killed 250,000 people or 41% of its population
1709-1710 famine in France
1740-1741 famine in Ireland
1722 famine in Arabia
1727-1728 famine in England
1732 famine in Japan
1738-1739 famine in France
1738-1756 famine in West Africa, half the population of Timbuktu died of starvation
1741 famine in Norway
1750 famine in Spain
1764 famine in Naples
1769-1773 Bengal famine of 1770
1770-1771 famine in Czech lands killed hundreds of thousands people
1771-1772 famine in Saxony and southern Germany
1773 famine in Sweden
1779 famine in Rabat, Morocco
1780s Great Tenmei Famine in Japan
1783 famine in Iceland caused by Laki (volcano) eruption killed one-fifth of Iceland's population
1783-84 Chalisa famine in South Asia
1784 widespread famine throughout Egypt
1784-1785 famine in Tunisia killed up to one-fifth of all Tunisians
1788 famine in France. The two years previous to the French Revolution saw bad harvests and harsh winters, possibly because of a strong El Niño cycle or caused by the 1783 Laki eruption at Iceland.
1789 Famine in Ethiopia afflicted "all the provinces"
1789-92 Doji bara famine or Skull famine in India

19th century

1800-1801 famine in Ireland
Four famines - in 1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 - in China claimed nearly 45 million lives.
1811-1812 famine devastated Madrid, taking nearly 20,000 lives
1815 eruption Tambora, Indonesia. Tens of thousands died of subsequent famine
1816-1817 famine in Europe (Year Without a Summer)
1830 famine killed almost half the population of Cape Verde
1830s Tenpo famine (Japan)
1835 famine in Egypt killed 200,000
1845-1849 Great Irish Famine killed more than 1 million people
1846 famine led to the peasant revolt known as “Maria da Fonte” in the north of Portugal
1846-1857 Highland Potato Famine in Scotland
1850-1873 as a result of Taiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China drop by over 60 million people
1866 Orissa famine of 1866 in India; one million perished
1866-1868 Famine in Finland. About 15% of the entire population died
1869 Rajputana famine of 1869 in India; one million and a half perished
1870-1871 famine in Persia is believed to have caused the death of 2 million persons
1873-1874 famine in Anatolia
1879 Famine in Ireland
All mortality avoided in Bihar famine of 1873–74 in India.
1876-1879 ENSO Famine in India, China, Brazil, Northern Africa (and other countries). Famine in northern China killed 13 million people. 5.25 million died in the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India.
1878-1880 famine in St. Lawrence Island, Alaska
1888 famine in Sudan
1888-1892 Ethiopian Great famine. About one-third of the population died. Conditions worsen with cholera outbreaks (1889-92), a typhus epidemic, and a major smallpox epidemic (1889-90).
1891-1892 famine in Russia caused 375,000 to 500,000 deaths
1896-1897 ENSO famine in northern China leading in part to the Boxer Rebellion
1896-1902 ENSO famine in India

20th century

1907 famine in east-central China
1914-1918 Mount Lebanon famine during World War I which killed about a third of the population
1914-1918 famine in Belgium
1915-1916 Armenian Genocide. Armenian deportees starved to death
1916-1917 famine caused by the British blockade of Germany in WWI; up to 750,000 Germans starved to death
1916-1917 winter famine in Russia
1917-1919 famine in Persia. As much as 1/4 of the population living in the north of Iran died in the famine
1917-1921 a series of famines in Turkestan at the time of the Bolshevik revolution killed about a sixth of the population
1921 famine in Russia killed 5 million
1921-1922 Famine in Tatarstan
1921-1922 famine in Volga German colonies in Russia. One-third of the entire population perished
1928-1929 famine in northern China. The drought resulted in 3 million deaths
1928-1929 famine in Ruanda-Burundi, causing large migrations to the Congo
1932-1933 Soviet famine in Ukraine (Holodomor), some parts of Russia and North Caucasus area. As many as 10 million people may have died
1932-1933 famine in Kazakhstan killed 1.2-1.5 million
1936 famine in China, with an estimated 5 million fatalities
1940-1943 famine in Warsaw Ghetto
1941-44 Leningrad famine caused by a 900-day blockade by Nazi and Finnish 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 degrees.
1941-1942 famine in Greece caused by Nazi occupation. An estimated 300,000 people perished
1942-1943 famine killed one million in China
1943 famine in Bengal
1943 famine in Ruanda-Urundi, causing migrations to the Congo
1944 famine in the Netherlands during World War II, more than 20,000 deaths
1945 famine in Vietnam
1946-1947 famine in Soviet Union killed 1-1.5 million
1958 Famine in Tigray, Ethiopia, claimed 100,000 lives
1959-1961 Great Leap Forward / The Great Chinese Famine (China). The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang
1965-1967 drought in India responsible for 1.5 million deaths
1966 famine in Bihar, India.
1967-1970 Biafran famine caused by Nigerian blockade
1968-1972 Sahel drought created a famine that killed a million people
1973 famine in Ethiopia; failure of the government to handle this crisis led to fall of Haile Selassie and to Derg rule
1974 famine in Bangladesh
1975-1979 Khmer Rouge. An estimated 2 million Cambodians lost their lives to murder, forced labor and famine
1980 famine in Karamoja, Uganda
1984 famine in Ethiopia
1991-1993 Somalian famine
1996 North Korean famine
1998 famine in Sudan caused by war and drought
1998-2000 famine in Ethiopia. The situation worsened by Eritrean-Ethiopian War
1998-2004 Second Congo War. 3.8 million people died, mostly from starvation and disease
2000-2008 Zimbabwe's food crisis caused by Mugabe's land reform policies