[Neonlicht]

Apparently Edo (now Tokyo) had a population of one million in the 18th century.

Always amazed me how they could pull that off. Japan was a very regulated society which must have helped with the chaos but Japanese people go to the toilet just like everyone else...

[mncharity]

Interesing.[1] Looks like governance (better water supply, sanitation, lower density, a "polluted" caste[2]), intensive agriculture making night soil valuable fertilizer instead of city-as-cesspit waste, and domestic culture (cooking/boiling, cleanliness). The night soil diversion seems to have kept toilets out of sewers/water into the 1900s.

[1] https://wjsmith.faculty.unlv.edu/smithtest/Urban-Sanitation_... (1987) [2] off topic but interesting https://www.academia.edu/download/34028214/The_Creation_of_t...

[e40]

2nd link is a 404 for me

[mncharity]

Thx! That's [1]. So I guess beware direct links into academia.edu.

[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Gro...