{"id":2669,"date":"2016-09-27T03:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T03:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:01:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:01:49","slug":"how-many-people-died-in-the-black-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/how-many-people-died-in-the-black-death\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many People Died in the Black Death?: A Detailed Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Black Death<\/a> is estimated to have killed between millions of people across Europe and Asia. Globally, including Asia and the Middle East, the death toll may have reached as high as 200 million people. The massive loss of life had lasting effects<\/a> on economies, societies, and the structure of medieval life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT WAS THE BLACK DEATH?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Black Death is the term that historians use to describe the spread of the bubonic plague.\u00a0 It is believed that the plague first began in Central Asia and spread to Europe through vast trade routes such as the Silk Road<\/a>.\u00a0 Historians studying the spread of the plague<\/a> discovered that the disease was spread by fleas that are commonly found on rodents such as rats and mice.\u00a0 As such, it is now understood that the plague spread via trade routes as the rodents travelled in caravans and on merchant ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Black
Spread of the Bubonic Plague<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED IN THE BLACK DEATH?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The death toll of the Black Death is a debated topic and different historians have offered different views on the issue.  Regardless, the reported death tolls are massive with some suggesting that it resulted in the deaths of between 75 and 200 million people in Europe and Asia.  These high numbers suggest that between 30% and 60% of people died due to the infectious disease.  Some regions suffered more than others, but in general it is widely accepted that approximately half of Europeans died as a result of the disease.  For example, it has been recorded that both Paris, France and London, England saw half of their populations succumb to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The death tolls of the Black Death<\/a> were devastating\u00a0and led to several major impacts on European society.\u00a0\u00a0It had equally devastating results in the Middle East and Asia with similarly dramatic death tolls.\u00a0 The reasons for why the death tolls were so high are many and included: poor hygiene and lack of medical understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Causes
The people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death. (1353)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hoe many people died in the Black Death? Historians have struggled with this questions for centuries. This article details the estimate death tolls in the Black Death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":15,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,42],"tags":[85,15,83],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-ages","category-black-death","tag-black-death","tag-history","tag-middle-ages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5518,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/5518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}