Food & agriculture · 1492

Columbian exchange

Maize, potatoes and cassava crossed the Atlantic one way, wheat, cattle and horses the other.

After 1492 crops and livestock moved between hemispheres on an unprecedented scale. American staples helped Old World populations grow, while Eurasian diseases devastated the Americas; it was the largest reshuffling of biology in human history.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 4

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World trade as a share of GDP since 1500 Latest: 1950-now (PWT): 57.8 % of GDP (2023) Source: Our World in Data

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)

World population Latest: 8.09B people (2023) Source: Our World in Data