Because of industrialization, but also because of a vast increase in agricultural output without which industrialization would have been impossible, Western Europeans by the latter half of the nineteenth century enjoyed higher standards of living and longer, healthier lives than most of the world’s peoples. In Europe as a whole, the population rose from 188 million in 1800 to 400 million in 1900. By 1900, virtually every area of Europe had contributed to the tremendous surge of population, but each major region was at a different stage of demographic change.

Improvements in the food supply continued trends that had started in the late seventeenth century. New lands were put under cultivation, while the use of crops of American origin, particularly the potato, continued to expand. Setbacks did occur. Regional agricultural failures were the most common cause of economic recessions until 1850, and they could lead to localized famine as well. A major potato blight (disease) in 1846-1847 led to the deaths of at least one million persons in Ireland and the emigration of another million, and Ireland never recovered the population levels the potato had sustained to that point. Bad grain harvests at the same time led to increased hardship throughout much of Europe.

After 1850, however, the expansion of foods more regularly kept pace with population growth, though the poorer classes remained malnourished. Two developments were crucial. First, the application of science and new technology to agriculture increased. Led by German universities, increasing research was devoted to improving seeds, developing chemical fertilizers, and advancing livestock. After 1861, with the development of land-grant universities in the United States that had huge agricultural programs, American crop-production research added to this mix. Mechanization included the use of horse-drawn harvesters and seed drills, many developed initially in the United States. It also included mechanical cream separators and other food-processing devices that improved supply.

The second development involved industrially based transportation. With trains and steam shipping, it became possible to move foods to needy regions within Western Europe quickly. Famine (as opposed to malnutrition) became a thing of the past. Many Western European countries, headed by Britain, began also to import increasing amounts of food, not only from Eastern Europe, a traditional source, but also from the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Steam shipping, which improved speed and capacity, as well as new procedures for canning and refrigerating foods (particularly after 1870), was fundamental to these developments.

Europe's population growth included one additional innovation by the nineteenth century: it combined with rapid urbanization. More and more Western Europeans moved from countryside to city, and big cities grew most rapidly of all. By 1850, over half of all the people in England lived in cities, a first in human history. In one sense, this pattern seems inevitable growing numbers of people pressed available resources on the land, even when farmwork was combined with a bit of manufacturing, so people crowded into cities seeking work or other resources. Traditionally, however, death rates in cities surpassed those in the countryside by a large margin; cities had maintained population only through steady in-migration. Thus rapid urbanization should have reduced overall population growth, but by the middle of the nineteenth century this was no longer the case. Urban death rates remained high, particularly in the lower-class slums, but they began to decline rapidly.

The greater reliability of food supplies was a factor in the decline of urban death rates. Even more important were the gains in urban sanitation, as well as measures such as inspection of housing. Reformers, including enlightened doctors, began to study the causes of high death rates and to urge remediation. Even before the discovery of germs, beliefs that disease spread by "miasmas" (noxious forms of bad air) prompted attention to sewers and open garbage; Edwin Chadwick led an exemplary urban crusade for underground sewers in England in the 1830s. Gradually, public health provisions began to cut into customary urban mortality rates. By 1900, in some parts of Western Europe life expectancy in the cities began to surpass that of the rural areas. Industrial societies had figured out ways to combine large and growing cities with population growth, a development that would soon spread to other parts of the world.

19世纪下半叶，西方的欧洲人比世界上的大多数人享有更高的生活水平、活得更长久、更健康，这一切都离不开工业化，同时也离不开农业产出的大幅增长，因为农产品的增长才使工业化成为可能。在整个欧洲，人口从1800年的1.88亿增长到了1900年的4亿。到1900年为止，欧洲几乎每个地区的人口数量都在激增，但是每个主要地区都处于人口变化的不同阶段。

食品供应的提升延续了自17世纪末开始的趋势。（人们）开辟新的土地用来耕种，而种植美国本土作物，尤其是马铃薯，其规模还在继续扩大。这确实造成了一些问题。到1850年，地区农业的失败依然是经济衰退最常见的原因，也可能导致局部地区发生饥荒。1846年到1847年间，一种马铃薯晚疫病导致爱尔兰至少一百万人死亡，而另外的一百万人选择了移民，从那之后爱尔兰的人口再也没有恢复到之前这些马铃薯所能养活的人口数量水平。同时，粮食歉收也使得欧洲部分地区面临更多的困难。

然而，1850年后，食物的增加慢慢跟上了人口增长的节奏。尽管贫困阶层仍然营养不良。两种发展至关重要。第一，科学和新技术在农业上的应用增加了。在德国大学的领导下，越来越多的人致力于研究如何改良种子、发展化肥和促进畜牧业发展。1861年后，随着有着庞大农业项目的美国赠地大学的发展，美国农作物产量研究也加入到了这一系列的研究当中。机械化包括使用马拉收割机和播种机，这些机器的使用最初在美国发展起来。这些机器还包括机械奶油分离器和其他提升供应水平的食品加工设备。

第二个发展涉及工业运输。通过火车和蒸汽船运输，人们可以迅速地将食物运输到西欧贫困地区。饥荒（和营养不良不同）成为了过去式。许多以英国为首的西欧国家也开始进口越来越多的粮食，不仅从东欧这一传统的粮食来源进口食物，还从美国、澳大利亚和新西兰进口食物。能够提高运输速度和运输容量的蒸汽船，以及装罐和冷藏食物的新工艺（特别是在1870年以后），都为这些发展奠定了基础。

19世纪欧洲人口的增长还包含了另一项创新：它与快速城市化进程相结合。越来越多的西欧人从农村迁移到城市，大城市的人口增长得最快。到1850年，英国有一半以上的人居住在城市，这种情况在人类历史上首次发生。从某种意义上说，这种模式看似是不可避免的：越来越多的人压榨一片土地上可以利用的资源，即使是当农业与小部分制造业结合起来的时候也是如此，因此人们涌入城市寻找工作或其他资源。然而，传统上来说，城市的死亡率远远超过了农村；城市只能通过稳定的移民来维持人口。所以，快速的城市化进程应该会降低总人口增长率，但到了19世纪中叶，情况就不再如此。城市的人口死亡率仍然很高，特别是在下层贫民区，但是人口死亡率开始迅速下降。

粮食供应的可靠性是城市人口死亡率下降的一个因素。更重要的是城市卫生设施的改善，以及房屋检修等措施。改革者们，包括一些有见识的医生，开始研究人口死亡率高的原因，并提出补救办法。甚至是在发现细菌之前，人们就相信疾病是由“瘴气”（有害的坏空气）传播的，所以需要注意下水道清洁和露天垃圾的清理；19世纪30年代，查德威克在英国引领了一次模范性的城市运动，要求对城市下水道进行改革。渐渐地，关于公共卫生的规定开始减少城市人口死亡率。到1900年，在西欧的一些地区，城市人口的预期寿命开始超过农村地区。工业社会已经找到了将城市发展和人口增长结合起来的方法，这种发展很快就会传播到世界的其他地方。