Demographics

[buddhax]

Lately I'm having doubts to figure out the size and population of villages like Woodmen Town, Woodland Hall, Rhosgobeal and the newest Sunstead. Any ideas?

[Hermes Serpent]

Other Minds issue 14 has extensive material on the Demographics of Rhovanion at several points in time with suggested areas of habitation and population numbers listed in various tables.

[Tolwen]

Lately I'm having doubts to figure out the size and population of villages like Woodmen Town, Woodland Hall, Rhosgobeal and the newest Sunstead. Any ideas?

As Hermes Serpent said, Issue 14 of OM has a lot of stuff for the demographics of Rhovanion throughout the Third Age (thus enabling you to game in varying timeframes if you're interested). Of course the standard TOR era of TA 2946 is included as well.

You can find the link to the website (with the PDF of all Issues) in my signature.

Cheers
Tolwen

[buddhax]

Thanks, guys. Already downloaded, reading...

[Tolwen]

Thanks, guys. Already downloaded, reading...

Did you find the "Demographics of Rhovanion" useful for your purposes? Obviously I'm interested in that

Cheers
Tolwen

[aramis]

Lately I'm having doubts to figure out the size and population of villages like Woodmen Town, Woodland Hall, Rhosgobeal and the newest Sunstead. Any ideas?

Without reference to any of the tolkien materials, just referencing what's in the RPG and Wilderland...
and some basic historical knowledge...

I put Mountain Hall at between 459 and 900 people. This is based upon counting what appear to be halls, grading by size, and presuming 15 in a small hall, 30 in a medium hall, 50 in a large hall, and 75 in a huge hall for the high figure.

I come up with about 2000 each for the larger "cities" - Rhosgobel and Woodland Town.

[buddhax]

Lately I'm having doubts to figure out the size and population of villages like Woodmen Town, Woodland Hall, Rhosgobeal and the newest Sunstead. Any ideas?

Without reference to any of the tolkien materials, just referencing what's in the RPG and Wilderland...
and some basic historical knowledge...

I put Mountain Hall at between 459 and 900 people. This is based upon counting what appear to be halls, grading by size, and presuming 15 in a small hall, 30 in a medium hall, 50 in a large hall, and 75 in a huge hall for the high figure.

I come up with about 2000 each for the larger "cities" - Rhosgobel and Woodland Town.

Aramis, finally, after reading Other Minds magazine which doesn't say nothing about this, I accept something smaller given the usual medieval village.

So, Mountain Hall has as much as 500, Woodland Hall 300-400, Woodmen Town 400-500 and Rhosgobel is the smaller with 200.

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

[aramis]

Lately I'm having doubts to figure out the size and population of villages like Woodmen Town, Woodland Hall, Rhosgobeal and the newest Sunstead. Any ideas?

Without reference to any of the tolkien materials, just referencing what's in the RPG and Wilderland...
and some basic historical knowledge...

I put Mountain Hall at between 459 and 900 people. This is based upon counting what appear to be halls, grading by size, and presuming 15 in a small hall, 30 in a medium hall, 50 in a large hall, and 75 in a huge hall for the high figure.

I come up with about 2000 each for the larger "cities" - Rhosgobel and Woodland Town.

Aramis, finally, after reading Other Minds magazine which doesn't say nothing about this, I accept something smaller given the usual medieval village.

So, Mountain Hall has as much as 500, Woodland Hall 300-400, Woodmen Town 400-500 and Rhosgobel is the smaller with 200.

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

I'm familiar with, and have some minor issues with, SJR's essay, specifically some of his chosen densities.

I've not gotten to OM 14 yet, but have read most of OM 1-7 and 13.

I just counted buildings on the detail maps, made judgements on what size the buildings were (restricting to ones with the 4-part roofs - the simple squares I presumed to be non-residences), and did some multiplication. But remember as well - one 10-mile hexagon is about 87 square miles.

And I misremembered which map. Yeah, Rhosgobel's smaller.
I count 1 very huge, 1 huge, 7 large, 7 medium, 4-6 small halls (2 might be outbuildings), no clear outbuildings, but 3 large halls and the very huge hall have what appear to be attached stables, in what is apparently a modified Norse style.
Woodmen Town I get 34 small, 90 medium, 23 large, 1 huge, 6 square buildings (very small x4, small x2), 2 clear stables, and a gatehouse, and a single long pier. I reject the implications of the high end, and the low end would be 5 per building for 740 as a minimum for woodman.

Again, it's a culture described as extended families in halls. Figure Grandpa, 2-3 adult male offspring, their wives, and about 4-5 children each, and you have a potential for about 2000 people in Woodman Town.

[Fridokind Wargaug]

I´m not sure whether I read this in the Lake town supplement or somewhere else, but for my group I the population of Lake town is between 1000 and 3000 (so let´s say 2000).

Since HotW says that the Toft is the largest settlement in Wilderland after Dale and Esgaroth, I would put it´s population to about 800.

Therefore, Woodland Hall (the core book says, it´s the largest and youngest of the four houses of woodmen) might have 500, Woodmen Town and Mountain Hall 400 and Rhosgobel 200. I think there are no other "big" settlements of Woodmen (exluding the three from DoM Black Tarn Hall, Sunstead and Tyrant´s Hill (if you count this one as Woodmen; well and in my group we have a total number of 7 Houses, so there are those three ) Because a population of 1,500 is too small, (there were constantly wars between the Woodmen and Dol Gudur, imagine having only 500 soldiers max.) I´d say, that only 10% lived in these settlements, the others lived in isolated hamlets and farms (somewhat like the House of Haleth in Brethil).

Sunstead, being desribed as wealthy, is probably a larger town (maybe 600-1000), while Black Tarn Hall not having a own big hall only has 100 inhabitants. The Tyrant´s Hill having big fornifications and such, probably has a population of 1000+.

I think the lands of the Beornings probably behave more like SJR´s society, only lacking larger settlements.

In general I am really sceptical about those essays comparing the medieval populations with middle earth, for if the Shire really had 400,000 hobbits (Shire size x anglo saxon density) or Gondor over 10 Million people, the armies of Evil would not be that hard to defeat...

What do you think?

[Stormcrow]

It might be an interesting project, trying to calculate the populations of Gondor and Rohan based on the numbers of troops in their armies—keeping in mind who is said not to show up and who is already dead.