Thoughts on Imperial Demography

It's often commented that Sigmar's Heirs does not produce a very populous Empire with its town and village gazeteer, so I decided to ask myself-just how many people live in the Empire? In each province? Just how many people can â€“live- in the Empire given its description as a rather sparsely populated realm of tractless forests? What does this means for the Empireâ€™s wealth, power and political organization?

By my rough calculations, the Empire (the large Empire as depicted in the older maps) is around 1,280,000 km or around 500,000 miles square, treating it as a triangle and multiplying half its base (1,000 miles) times its height (1,000 miles). Because it's not a perfect triangle, the real number is perhaps closer to 1,000,000 square km, but then again it might be more. This makes it about as large as Egypt and around twice the size of Spain or as large as Texas and New Mexico put together.

Figuring that so much of it is trackless forest, I think that a population of 10,000,000, yielding a density of 10 people per square km would be reasonable. This is about the population density of Turkmenistan or Utah or Randolph County, West Virginia (youâ€™ve never heard of it, but there ainâ€™t much there in terms of, you know, habitation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density

This is also rather less total population than the combined values for France and the Low Countries in 1450, given here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html

Still, this is a larger total population than any late medieval kingdom, save perhaps the Empire's historical analogue, the HRE, which is even less unified than it! I think that this little mental exercise shows us that a more populous, somewhat more settled empire can still retain the right Warhammer 'feel' of dark and deep forests, which will be further demonstrated later.

I imagine that Brettonia has around as many people as the Empire, but on less land, making them more miserable and easier to oppress. The Kislevites are much less heavily settled, say on the order of 2 million people on half as much land as the Empire (or perhaps as much land as the Empire, if you include all the lands north of the Lynsk), while Tilea and Estalia might have 4 and 3 million, respectively, being far more heavily settled than any of the northern neighbors. Albion and Norsca might have 1 million people a peice, or less if you prefer their more savage, canonical versions. Finally the Wasteland probably comprises a measely 50,000 sq km or so, most of it barren more, and hold half a million people, mosly in Marienburg and the settled land around the Reik.
This gives a total Old World population of 32 million or so, against 50 million for Europe in 1450.
-Wilhelm

Some quite good thoughts on this where discussed Here

Edit: Or Here if you are not from Australia.

And, for some odd reason, the thread is backwards (ie it's first post is at the bottom of the last page, while it's last post is at the top of the first page, at least in my browser...).

Anyway, I like the reasoning you present for the Empire's population density. I've always been a supporter of a populous Holy Empire of Sigmar (slightly more populous than yours, even, at 12-15 million), and the numbers in succesfull gazetteers make my teeth hurt.

While I agree with the size you've given to Bretonnia, I can't really understand the low populations of Kislev, Tilea and Estalia. Sure, they should be smaller then the Empire's, but not *that* smaller. Slightly more then half of the Empire's population is, I think, suitable for Kislev (and belive me, even though the population density might be larger, the population's confinement in fortified stanitsas will allow for vast, empty steppes). The same numbers would be suitable for Tilea, and very slightly lower (by, say, half a million tops) for Estalia.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

One of the resources I always make use of: http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

Now, the problem is that this is fantasy, you have magic, you have monsters, you have other races. With each of these I think you have additional concerns.

Magic is a simple fix for a lot of population woes, mostly illiness. Does this throw off the balance of life and death? I don't think so in WFRP.

Monsters - How do they fall into the numbers? One way is that they can offset the magic fix, for every person saved by magic, another is killed by a monster. They are also natural disasters, where people in the real world die from floods, fires, bee stings, etc., can now be pushed off on a monster attack.

Races - man, dwarves, elves, halflings, skaven, goblin, etc., are apex predators. at the top of their own food chains, all feed off of something else. Rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule, which means for every 2 predators, there are 8 prey animals. If population of predators is equal, there is conflict.

In WFRP the closer you get to the chaos waste population drops, I put this to monsters and races. The population has to be reduced to account for the non-population ingenius creatures. Brettonia, is a protected landscape, the mountains and the empire protect it from so much, population is booming there, there are less threats.

I think there are several things to take into consideration.

a) Given the level of technology and health care (not to talk of hygienic standards, although sewers seem to exist in most towns), both the mortality of adults and children will be comparatively high, whilst the average life expectence would be somewhere around 40 for the big majority. This takes out a significant number of people.
b) Given the level of medical knowledge (although there is the really working "healing potion"), many illnesses will have a much direr result than in a higher developped environment. So many people will fall victim to illnesses which could be treated comparatively easy if the knowledge was there.
c) There is a lot of warfare around, further lowering numbers. Add to this monsters which don't exist in the real world.
d) Whilst there are small communities on the gazeteers, it's unlikely that every settlement is there. This won't add a lot of numbers, but it's something.
e) Ask yourself what is counted in - and what not. The numbers listed for Imperial communities may not count in Dwarfs and Elves; they're not citizens. They also don't list people who are mainly living "on the road", such as travelling sales(wo)men and similar, because they have no fixed address. A merchant and his family may live on their riverboat, which is moving around a lot, hence they're neither listed as living in Altdorf, nor in WeissbrÃ¼ck or Delberz or wherever. The totality of mobile citizens is (and was in a time of comparable level in our real world) surprisingly high, much more than one might assume given the media available.

BraganÃ§a Escher wrote:

a) Given the level of technology and health care (not to talk of hygienic standards, although sewers seem to exist in most towns), both the mortality of adults and children will be comparatively high, whilst the average life expectence would be somewhere around 40 for the big majority. This takes out a significant number of people.
b) Given the level of medical knowledge (although there is the really working "healing potion"), many illnesses will have a much direr result than in a higher developped environment. So many people will fall victim to illnesses which could be treated comparatively easy if the knowledge was there.

As figures from 1450 were used as a model I don't think this stuff makes any difference. As described the Empire is massively underpopulated for a country that size compared to its RW historical model. The published stuff has never claimed to be comprehensive though. Indeed the first edition positively encouraged GM's to fill in the blanks (don't remember if it has anything to say about this in v.2). How densely populated you want the Empire to be is really up to you. Personally I use a much more populous and settled realm (I'd guesstimate about 12 million hapless souls) but still have no shortage of room for vast expanses of forest that have little or no human habitation.

Life expectancy in the 16th century was a lot lower than the mediaeval period. In fact the population of Europe fell by something like 33%.

jadrax wrote:

Life expectancy in the 16th century was a lot lower than the mediaeval period. In fact the population of Europe fell by something like 33%.

Really? Where do those figures come from? Everything I've ever read on the subject has stated quite the contrary. According to John Hale's 'The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance' the population of Europe (excludingRussia and Lithuania for which figures are unreliable) rose from around 60 million to around eighty million between 1500 and 1600 (that's actually a rise of a third). In Germany the population rose from 12 to 16 million. In England and Italy it may have actually doubled.

I would be interested to know where this idea that life-expectancy was lower in the 16th C comes from.

While you are right that population figures did grow over the 16th century as a whole, (So you see a total growth over Europe of approx 80m in 1500 going to 100m in 1600,) that is a vast over simplification.

What you actually got was an early period from 1618 - 1648 where there was a sharp and massive decline in population, (indeed around 1 in 3), followed by a great recovery. (As mentioned by BraganÃ§a Escher, this was mainly due to several epidemics.)

Also as noted distribution was no where close to even, so while the Netherlands's, UK and France gained a lot, the region around Germany did not do so well at all and Italy just never regained its prior status as the Europe's leader in population.

Which of course emphasis the fact that no common population patterns across country or time frame actually naturally occur, while sticking up a graph of population over the whole of Europe at convenient year points gives a vague idea, you have to understand that each region and year will often give a vastly different story. which is lost as soon as you start to paint in the broad brush strokes that some role-play writers are often prone too.

World Population Timeline: http://www.worldhistorysite.com/population.html

Just for comparison.

Population Figures

Of course, population is also a function of Birth rate and emigration Rate, not just Life Expectancy.

Life expectancy isn't an accurate measure of how long people actually live, however, in societies with high infant mortality, like the Empire.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy ) In the middle ages people that lived to 70 were not freaks (as the Psalmist said, maybe around the 6th century BCE, '3 score and ten are the years allotted man'), though looking at the life expectancy you might think that. Still, the death rate throughout life is going to be higher, so that would keep the population down, as would infant mortality.

RE population of other nations, I figured that Estalia and Tilea were somehwere less than half of the Empire's size, and though their arable land would be quite densely settled, they do have marshes and mountains--certainly more mountains than the Empire does. Perhaps one could increase their population by a couple million apeice to make them truly densely settled. As to Kislev, half the size and a quarter of the population makes it only half as dense as the Empire, which I think fits the fluff for the country pretty well. Also, I was trying to make the Old World significantly less poplous than our own in the 15th century-frankly given their respective areas I think the Old World is probably about as densely populated as 15th century Europe, going by the numbers from the site I linked to earlier. They're just distributed differently.

Anyway, continuing what I wrote before,
Most of the Imperial populace is concentrated in densely settled strips along the rivers and in the more â€˜civilizedâ€™ southern and western provinces.

Hereâ€™s a possible provincial breakdown:
Reikland: 2.2 Million People
Altdorf: 200,000 people (in the entire city-state, city and surrounding villages)
Talabecland: 880,000 people
Talabheim: 120,000 people (entire city-state)
Middenland: 860,000 people
Middenheim: 140,000 people (entire city-state)
Wissenland: 600,000 people
Nuln: 150,000 people (entire city-state)
Stirland: 1,000,000 people
Averland: 750,000 people
Moot: 100,000 people
Hochland: 500,000 people
Ostland: 500,000 people
Nordland: 500,000 people
Ostermark: 500,000 people

Note that these city population, as stated above, are for the entire area governed by the city's rulers, not the urban area itself.
-Wilhelm

The only problem with integrating these huge population numbers is just the very idea of millions of people removes the imagery "Here there be Monsters...". Or orcs, or goblins, or dwarves and elves, for that matter.

I completely understand and support the methodology, after all to sustain Altdorf, Nuln, etc, you need miles and miles of cultivated land, not to mention all the trade goods flowing hither and yon up and down the Reik. Again, I don't dispute the numbers, I just find the concept of them wrong in terms of imagery.

Having a half million people within 50 miles totally wrecks the idea of isolation and keeping your doors and shutters barred at night for fear of what lurks out in the darkness. When I first started playing Warhammer, I wasn't familiar with the european village model. Based on what was written in the adventures, I assumed it was like the old West (US 1850's), where your nearest neighbours were 20+miles away. I mean why else would you have these moderately fortified farms?

It's that siege mentality, that isolation, that "it's us against whatever is out there" imagery I drew from those adventures.

Again, I agree you need the Empire at 15-30 million for trade/army/society/civilization to work, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

In hindsight, I don't even know why I wrote this.

1010 Cloud Deck wrote:
Again, I agree you need the Empire at 15-30 million for trade/army/society/civilization to work, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

In hindsight, I don't even know why I wrote this.

It is a good point!

That being said, I think you can spread the burden, some areas are very underpopulated, others are essentially for farming. So while the land around Nuln is relatively populated, go into some of the more forested areas then there are a lot fewer people in more fortified styled settlements and farmsteads.

A couple of months ago I went through the figures for mediaeval/early modern central European demographics and came up with a rough estimate of 18 million for the Empire in 2522, although I can't remember how I actually came up with that figure now. I also included in my estimates the population figures for Austria, Bohemia-Moravia and (for figures pre-2429) the Dutch Republic, since the Empire is actually quite a lot bigger than historical Germany (indeed, a bit bigger even than the HRE) and including the neighbouring Imperial states seemed sensible. It's still lower than I'd ideally like, but I guess the constant wars will have taken a toll.

What bugged me more about Sigmar's Heirs than the low population was the low urbanised population compared to the monster cities of Nuln, Altdorf and (till recently) Middenheim. In the whole of the Empire there are only four cities, and of the remaining towns very few have a population even over 10,000. To me that seems silly. I tend to consider Carroburg in particular, but also most of the southern provincial capitals, together with towns like Delberz and Bogenhafen, to be considerably bigger than they are in Sigmar's Heirs. I also mentally substitute "city" for "town" in the description of any provincial capital, and for a couple of other towns as well. I think in many ways it adds character to have some backwater that no respectable Altdorfer's ever heard of being a "city" and proud of it, thanks to some ancient Imperial edict (happens in real life too- St Albans? Wells?)

Ath

One thing to observe about these numbers is that they are very uneven in terms of density from province to province.

For instance, giving the Reikland the rather generous area of 100,000 km, this produces a population density of 22 (24 counting Altdorf) people per square km, about as much as Peru or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whereas if Ostland had the same area the population density would be 5 people per square klick, or about as much as Kazakhstan. Note that this doesn't reflect the actual distribution throughout the province--in Ostland for instance, the population is undoubtedly concentrated along the Talabec and along the Wulfen in between Wolfenburg and the Talabec, so if that has say 3/5 of the population and a tenth of the province's land area that produces the density of 30 people per square km for this small portion and 2 people per square km for the rest--more people per square klik than Mongolia, fewer than Namibia. The former value--30 people per square klik for settled areas--is probably on the middling to low end in some of the more densely settled parts of the Empire, which might approach 50 people per square km.

Now, this Empire DOES banish most of the monsters from Reikland, but then again most descriptions of the Reikwald (even in the 5th edition WFB book) dwell more on bandits than beastmen in that particular forest. The Reikwald would have to be reimagined more as the hunting preserve of of the Princes of Reikland, which covered only a rather small portion of the province, for instance the Hagercrybs (sp) and less as a trackless wilderness. Frankly, I think there is quite a bit of room in the Empire fluff for the settlement patters to vary widely in different types of wilderness--for instance, in the Forest of Shadows and the Drakwald, there are vast tracts with almost know mark of human hands upon them dotted with well fortified villages and fortified clan farmsteads, because the inhabitants are so hostile, while in the Great Forest dwellings might be more genuinely dispersed because the forest is 'friendlier;' there would be more hermitages, more isolated but unfortified farmsteads and hermitages. Note that both types of settlement-pattern are known to us from history, the first from the early middle ages, when the vikings were still causing trouble, and the second from the early modern period and even more so here in the New World.

As to whether you will be travelling through tractless wilderness going from city to city, that depends upon how you travel. The roads from Middenheim to Altdorf and Middenheim to Talabheim go through some settled territory and some less settled (but not entirely wild) territory, while the Marienburg to Middenheim and the Middenheim to Eringrad road (together the Great North Road, no?) travel through miles and miles of forest. Then there's the Middle Mountains--I doubt the Wolfenburg to Ferlangen road is generally considered safe in winter.
-Wilhelm

jadrax wrote:

no common population patterns across country or time frame actually naturally occur, while sticking up a graph of population over the whole of Europe at convenient year points gives a vague idea, you have to understand that each region and year will often give a vastly different story. which is lost as soon as you start to paint in the broad brush strokes that some role-play writers are often prone too.

There is much that is true in this. However it seems to be avoiding the point quite spectacularly. No one who knows anything about this period would deny that it is in general terms one of population growth, in spite of calamities that may have caused short-term setbacks (and this is even more the case in the 17th century in spite of the truly calamitous Thirty Years War). Even at the nadir of 16th century population figures c.1550 the populations of both Europe as a whole and of Germany would have been higher than estimates of them for 1450. As such Wilhelm Ritter's selection of that date (when medieval figures were quite low actually) is if anything an underestimate and judiciously chosen.

It is perfectly valid to argue that the Imperial population should reflect the period 1518 -1548 due to circumstances, but that wasn't the case that was made. Also it could be argued just as reasonably that other periods of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries would make an appropriate model when growth was the trend.

In any event all of these figures show countries that are smaller than the Empire with much larger populations than the officially filled in settlements would suggest. This is hardly surprising given that the official material has never claimed to be comprehensive. How far you wish to fill it in further, if at all, is entirely up to you. As 1010 Cloud Deck mentioned there is an issue of 'isolation', but the Empire is huge and you can fill in the map a good deal more and have a population similar to 16th C Germany if you like (though still a much lower density) and yet have plenty of room to keep the game's feel (though I'd say it gives more variety, especially if you follow Wilhelm Ritter's settlement scheme). You do not have to even approach real European settement patterns of the period if you don't want to whilst increasing the population considerably.

IMHO :

There is between 12 and 15 million of imperial subjets.

- between 12 000 and 15 000 imperial subjects with an aptitude for magic.
- between 360 000 & 750 000 priest in the imperial clergy (between 360 & 750 of them can cast spells).
- between 120 000 and 300 000 nobles.
- between 720 000 and 900 000 imperial subjets that live in urban area.
- more than 10,2 million of imperial subjects that live in rural area.
- less than 200 000 dwarfs in the empire.

Captain frakas wrote:- between 12 000 and 15 000 imperial subjects with the psyker mutation.

What an ugly 40k-ism. The game universes are separate. Shoo

It's called "aptitude for magic" in Warhammer Fantasy.

Anyway, 0,1% is quite low, aspecially since these numbers need to account for a) licensed Magisters b) Hedge Wizards and other illegal practitioners (including Chaos Magi from various cults) c) those never discovered or trained. I use five times your numbers in this case.

Captain frakas wrote:- between 360 000 & 750 000 priest in the imperial clergy (between 360 & 750 of them can cast spells).

Are these meager 360-750 spellcasters accounted for in the above number of people with aptitude for magic, or are they in addition?

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Captain frakas wrote:IMHO :

There is between 12 and 15 million of imperial subjets.

- between 12 000 and 15 000 imperial subjects with the psyker mutation.
- between 360 000 & 750 000 priest in the imperial clergy (between 360 & 750 of them can cast spells).
- between 120 000 and 300 000 nobles.
- between 720 000 and 900 000 imperial subjets that live in urban area.
- more than 10 million of imperial subjects that live in rural area.
- less than 150 000 dwarfs in the empire.

IIRC The official number of Dwarfs is 20% of the population of the Empire. Stunty little buggers are everywhere.

Gorthuar wrote:

Captain frakas wrote:- between 12 000 and 15 000 imperial subjects with the psyker mutation.

What an ugly 40k-ism. The game universes are separate. Shoo It's called "aptitude for magic" in Warhammer Fantasy.

Sorry for the 40k-ism.
For me, the games universes are the sames, but the galaxies aren't. (we can see that in the Realms of Chaos, in the Dark Shadow campaign, in the cover of the Warhammer Armies Realms of Chaos for WFB4. and in some others documents. But it's anonther subject. I will use "peoples with aptitude for magic".

Gorthuar wrote:Anyway, 0,1% is quite low, aspecially since these numbers need to account for a) licensed Magisters b) Hedge Wizards and other illegal practitioners (including Chaos Magi from various cults) c) those never discovered or trained. I use five times your numbers in this case.

This statistic of 1â€° is from the WFRP2 Realms of Sorcery book. It account licensed magisters, hedge wizards, other illegal practitioners (including Chaos Magi from various cults) and those never discovered or trained who could have been magic users but have never tried.

Gorthuar wrote:

Captain frakas wrote:- between 360 000 & 750 000 priest in the imperial clergy (between 360 & 750 of them can cast spells).

Are these meager 360-750 spellcasters accounted for in the above number of people with aptitude for magic, or are they in addition?

I count them as spellcasters.

jadrax wrote:

Captain frakas wrote:IIRC The official number of Dwarfs is 20% of the population of the Empire. Stunty little buggers are everywhere.

IIRC, they can be as many as 20% in some imperial cities. (it should be from the WFRP1 rulebook). So they are less than 20% of the citizen population, and far less than 20% of the total population.

Can we say "less than 200 000" ?

Captain frakas wrote:
IIRC, they can be as many as 20% in some imperial cities. (it should be from the WFRP1 rulebook). So they are less than 20% of the citizen population, and far less than 20% of the total population.

Can we say "less than 200 000" ?

having checked up yo are of course quite right, I had misremembered, according to Sigmar's heirs it is up to 10% of the population.

jadrax wrote:

Captain frakas wrote:
IIRC, they can be as many as 20% in some imperial cities. (it should be from the WFRP1 rulebook). So they are less than 20% of the citizen population, and far less than 20% of the total population.

Can we say "less than 200 000" ?

having checked up yo are of course quite right, I had misremembered, according to Sigmar's heirs it is up to 10% of the population.

In the french edition of Sigmar's heir at least, it's up to 10% of the population of some cities and town.

RE nobles, one should distinguish between the untitled gentry (the majority of the aristocracy, probably the bulk of most 'Knightly' orders) and the titled nobility with its various levels. The latter would include both the lesser nobility of (titled) knights and esquires (the vast majority of the titled nobility) and the upper nobility of lords (probably no more than several hundred at any time in the Empire.) Untitled gentry and lesser nobles can be represented by the 'noble,' 'courtier' or 'knight' careers, while the greater nobility is represented by the 'noble lord' career.
All these might make up around 5% of the population. Urban dwellers of all classes would probably be 10% or so of the populace. The remaining 85% would be varying degress of peasant, with a plurality of these being poor but not destitute ploughmen. Of course, these percentages are based on what I remember of 15th century England, not 16th century Germany.
-Wilhelm

you know, this thread kind of makes me want to have run a game where the players have to perform a census for a 'noble'. Players have to visit towns and do a count.