UncleChu/Demographics

UncleChu Demographicates for You

This is a page of general Demographic information. Specific places where I have done Demographics work are listed below:

• UncleChu/Lookshy
• Lookshy
• Lap

Special thanks to JohnBiles for keepin' a sharp eye on my numbers.

Agriculture

• Medieval technology can support 180 people per sq. mile (Medieval Demographics Made Easy)
• Ancient Roman technoloy could support 210 people per sq. mile, 40 of whom were actually growing stuff (Wikipedia, I think I did the math right)
• Present technology can support 500 fat Westerners, or 2100 world citizens, per square mile. (cited this stuff at Lookshy)
• "In the United States today, with its highly efficient agriculture, farmers make up only 2 percent of our population, and each farmer can feed, on the average, 129 other people. Ancient Egyptian agriculture was efficient enough for an Egyptian peasant to produce five times the food required for himself and his family. But a Maya peasant could produce only twice the needs of himself and his family." --The Last Americans, Jared Diamond, Harper's Magazine June 2003
• Nagada culture (Egyptian pre-dynastic culture around 4000 BC) grew enough grain on land at the edge of the floodplain to support about 76 to 114 persons per square kilometer [190-295 per square mile]. By clearing trees, removing dense grass growth, building dikes, and digging drainage canals to clear still-inundated acreage, the farmers opened up much larger tracts of agricultural land. By the time the villagers had cultivated four, or even eight, times more ground, they could support as many as 760 to 1,520 people per square kilometer [1970-3950 per square mile], including officials, traders, artisans, and other nonfarmers. --Demographic archaeologist Fekri Hassan I think these figures are wildly insane, or being claimed under factors that I can't readily identify
• peasant agriculture can often sustain a hundred people per square mile --Catherine Caulfield, "A Reporter at Large: The Rain Forests," New Yorker, Jan. 14, 1985
• In the introduction to Farmers of Forty Centuries, F.H. King states that the three main islands of Japan had in 1907 a population of 46,977,000, maintained on 20,000 square miles of cultivated fields. This is at the rate of 2,349 to the square mile or more than three people to each acre. In addition, Japan fed on each square mile of cultivation a very large animal population -- 69 horses and 56 cattle, nearly all employed in labour; 825 poultry; 13 swine, goats, and sheep. (it further extrapolates where China was at at the time: 3,072 people, 256 donkeys, 256 cattle, and 512 pigs per square mile)
• In Italy there are 826 persons per square mile of cultivated land, while in the United States, there are only 208. -- Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years, W.C. Lowdermilke, US Dept. of Agr., Feb 1948
• Depending upon the productivity of local ecosystems, it may take as much as one to three square miles of land per person to support a hunter gatherer lifestyle.)

Agricultural Conclusions

I'm torn whether I want to make default agriculture Realm-based or Scavenger Land-based. Assume lands that are reasonably fertile. That aside, here is my list of general agricultural spreads:

.3-1 person/sq.mile --hunter gatherer
100 people/sq.mile --no special technology, organization, or magic
200 people/sq. mile --advanced, though mundane, agri-tech and/or organization.
300-500 people/sq.mile --advanced agri-tech and organization, as well as First Age tech, spirit influence, special location, and/or magic
1000-2000 people/sq.mile --unimaginable First Age level agriculture, unseen in the Age of Sorrows. Lookshy and the Realm could reach this if they devoted all their efforts to agriculture. The Lap does it reach this level because all their efforts ARE devoted to agriculture.

Population Density

This was lifted from this fine About.com site:
Population density of the continents:

• North America - 32 people per square mile
• South America - 73 people per square mile
• Europe - 134 people per square mile
• Asia - 203 people per square mile
• Africa - 65 people per square mile
• Australia - 6.4 people per square mile

The population density of the planet (including all land area) is about 105 people per square mile. If Antarctica is eliminated (since it has zero population density), the world population density rises only to 115 people per square mile.

The population density of the United States is approximately 76 people per square mile.

Indonesia as 126 people per square mile, and the Caribbean islands around 220 p/sq.mi.

The world population at the height of the Byzantine Empire, around 1000 AD, was around 300 million.

CANON ALERT: There are one hundred million people on the Blessed Isle. The Isle is roughly 7,500,000 square miles based on eyeballing the map. This creates a density ratio of 13.3 people per square mile.

Popdens Conclusion

There are three numbers separated by slashes. The first is a number to equate population density with corresponding contemporary continents or areas in Reality. The second is most canonical, based off the Blessed Isle's density and scaled to match the other numbers. It is absolutely amazing how the Blessed Isle's population density is exactly 1/10th that of Europe... if the Great Contagion wiped out 90% of all life, then that means the First Age matched our modern-day Reality density.

• Blessed Isle - 134/13.3 people per square mile
  

the rest are estimated scalings

• Scavenger Lands - 200/19.9 people per square mile
• East - 70/6.9 people per square mile
• South - 50/5 p/sq.mi
• North - 50/5 p/sq.mi
• West - 173/17.2 p/sq.mi

The first number is unreasonable. Creation would be packed like we couldn't imagine, with cities numbering into the ten millions. However, its usable to determine the density of highly urbanized, small areas. Chances are good the First Age had these kinds of numbers.
The second number is a canonically accurate population density for Creation, and represents the population density Reality Earth felt in 1700AD, with around 596 million people.

Comments

The U.S. sends only about 10% of its agricultural output directly to consumers. The rest goes into ethanol/like byproducts, gets made into various animal feeds, gets set in reserve, or is simply baught up and left to rot to artificially inflate prices. That equates to being able to support roughly ten thousand people per square mile. -Xeriar

I assumed that a great deal of that grain went into animal feed, as we eat meat in the States like crazy, a square mile supporting the 500 Westerners vs. 2100 rest-of-the-worlders. But an excellent point in the amount of exportation that goes on in the US. If you can pass me any websites or excerpts I could cite, that'd be awesome. --UncleChu

The relevant study was in high school (1996) and we found the information in actual books. I'll need to find something that doesn't go into alarmist mode, though. -Xeriar

Maybe they're just being dumb, but according to the 2e Core Book, Gem, Chiaroscuro, and Paragon each have over a [b]million people[/b]. The Lap is surrounded by exceptionally fertile land, but - I'm at a loss as to where all that food will get grown. Perhaps we should have a Farming Art of Thaumaturgy to explain the surprisingly efficacious land efficiency that must explain this... Kukla

Cities which possess huge resources import their food from elsewhere. Chiaroscuro is a major port on one of the major trade oceans. They no doubt sell their products, get money, and import food with it. This is how the city of Rome had a million people at the height of the Roman Empire. Now, if the shipping is cut off...they're screwed. Ditto for Paragon. (In defense of LOTR, this is essentially how Minas Tirith got its food--it was shipped from other parts of Gondor up the river.) Now, Gem, on the other hand, is harder to explain, as shipping the food by land is utterly not practical. You have to assume some kind of underground fungus growing is going on. --JohnBiles

Indeed, importation seems like the key here. You've got the berserk fertility of Chaya and the Hundred Kingdoms focused through the Guild, and you can probably feed Creation. The North American continent, for instance, can probably feed the majority of the world, but we keep a tight control on it for economic reasons. And the Blessed Isle itself no doubt has very competitive prices. I'm disappointed they jacked the numbers up for the fireward cities. Nexus and the Imperial City should be the biggest with numbers around a million. But I guess this is just the beginning of the 1irst and 2econd edition reality split. --UncleChu

I did further thought on the Gem concern, and there were a few possibilities that came to mind. Gem is surrounded by fertile, arable land, but to the south, you pass through badlands, then savannah. One possibility is that you do NOT, in fact, pass through desert before you reach Gem, and Gem's walls are flanked not by desert but by dry but farmable savannah. The extent of the farms would be massive, but not infeasible - the southern Fair Folk tend to not burn down that sort of thing.

Another possibility is sail-powered land barges that skim across the sand dunes of the southern gulf like boats, carrying vast loads of grain from Gem.

A third possibility is that the land around Gem is irrigated by water from the rivers and lakes of the Wyld bordermarches. Kukla

Okay, seems the three big cities in the South get close to a million people or over even in Scavenger Sons, which is a damned old reference. So it seems that Gem, Paragon and Chiaroscuro are huge probably because there aren't too many other places to live in the South. Also, Kirighast in Harborhead has a million and a half people (HotBG p.19). The South has big cities, period. So we must find out how Gem survives.

As for your possibilities, I'd say arable land is right out. Maybe in the Winter there can be some edible cactii or grasses that can be grown, but that's a single harvest's worth of crops, not the 3-5 harvests the rest of the world gets. Arable land seems to depart from canon descriptions too much.

I'd say water from the Wyld is extremely unlikely, and certainly not steady enough to be able to base irrigation on it. A more plausible source would be water from deep geothermally heated springs. This kind of water supply might make underground horticulture plausible. Families could grow small fungal gardens to supplement their diets.

I'd say trade has gotta be the main source of food. Page 143 of the Time of Tumult, there's a sidebar talking about how the Lap and Gem kind of depend on each other... Gem's got moolah, the Lap's got extra grain and people. There is a "Diamond Road" connecting the two places, allowing for big trade to happen. The Lap uses the pinnacle of available agricultural tech from the Realm. It has enough food to feed itself, the Legion on duty, with still enough to export back to the Realm. Its not going to be a stretch to assume it feeds Gem as well. I'm gonna start a Speculation section at Lap. --UncleChu

Man, I completely forgot about the Lap. You'd probably need some kind of special vehicles to let it all be hauled fast enough back and forth and still be profitable, but yeah, that makes sense. --JohnBiles

I believe Exalted: The Autocthonians might mention something about populations of the Blessed Isle, insomuch as I'm vaguely remembering a comparison between population in Yugash with the Realm... -- GreenLantern, not as helpful as he could be

40 million people in Autochthonia... that's all I can find. No comparisons... --UncleChu

100 million people in the Realm, of which 10,000 are Realm Dynastic Dragonblooded and 5,000 more are Outcaste DBs. The Imperial City is around a million. --JohnBiles

100 million, not 10 million, Uncle Chu. 10,000 DBs, 100,000,000 mortals. So the population density would be 13.3 people per square mile. --JohnBiles

SON OF A BITCH! *slapping forehead* I'm an IDIOT! GRAARAAARARRGH! Back to the GODDAMN drawin' board! --UncleChu will find and choke that missing zero to DEATH

Well. My thoughts drift to Gethemane, and the obscene fertility provided by the broken manse in the fungi fields: I also drift to caste book: eclipse, and Admiral Sand, who commands a fleet of dunerunners which ply the trade routes between Gem, Chiaroscuro, and the Lap, and presumably the other desert cities and villages. presumably there are numerous oases and small villages scattered throughout the south - given how many millenia of exalted terraforming... - Molikai