This tool lets you generate figures for populating low-fantasy kingdoms and settlements. Instructions are included in Low-fantasy Populations article, also included in the offline download below.
Low-fantasy Population Generator
Use the drop-down menus and input fields in the form below to generate population numbers for your setting. Fields with grey backgrounds are filled in automatically by the Generator.
Last Update: 17 Oct 2006 by Erin D. Smale
Original codebase drawn from The Domesday Book by Brandon Blackmoor, based on Medieval Demographics Made Easy by S. John Ross. Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
How do you use the offline version? I downloaded it but I am lost after that
@Evil Eli : Just unzip the download into its own directory. Navigate to that directory and double-click on the ‘lowfantasypop.html’. It should open in your web browser, and you can work it from there (it won’t look as pretty as the above). Drop me a line if you get stuck (admin AT welshpiper DOT com).
Tks, I got it working!
The population number of people in a settlement: Does this number represent the entire population (including children and the elderly, i.e. non-labor force) or the adult population able to provide work?
@Summer : It’s the entire population (i.e., every single living inhabitant). Details about determining workforce are found in the companion article, “Low-fantasy Populations.”
Specifically: “Not all citizens are workers; the Generator groups citizens into households of 4.75 each. These include one or two parents and children of various (pre-marital) ages.”
Hope this helps!
Thanks, that helps a lot! I must’ve missed that particular line…
@Summer : What? You mean that 2-line sentence buried in a sea of text? 😉
You’re not the first one to ask, though, and I should update for the current version of Chimera. Thanks for the nudge.
I have playing with the numbers but cannot seem to generate a University.
What does it take before my kingdom, realm, country, province, whatever supports a University?
Thank you in advance.
Rex A. Loewen
@Rex Loewen : You’re right–universities are very rare. Based on the source material, the output is 1 University for every 27.3 million people.
You could come up with a university-to-population ratio that fits in better with your campaign, or you could add your universities “manually,” based on what you want in your campaign.
If you download the offline version, the University calculation is lines 107-110 of the “pop_functions.js” file.
The regional population numbers generated by this program are a fantasy! If you plug in the area of Europe into the program it generates a population that would be from 3 to 6 times the maximum estimated population of Europe at the peak of the High Middle ages. (70 to 100 millions people.)
So, divide all these population numbers by 3 to 6 if you want something approaching reality.
Kyle Stoddar
@Kyle Stoddard : I see your point, but there may be a flaw in your approach. The tool applies the same population density across the entire area you plug in, which wouldn’t be accurate for all of Europe in the Middle Ages (i.e, some areas were highly populated while others were very sparse).
To get manageable (and more realistic) results, I suggest you use smaller areas–kingdoms instead of continents, or maybe even individual counties thereof. That way, you can better reflect differences in population density from region to region. Hope this helps.
Is there a reason I can’t see the online version of the generator anymore? Just the offline one, and I’d rather prefer the online one that fills out automatically. Just wondering if there’s something amiss…
@Summer : ACK! Yes, the reason you can’t see it is because I neglected to double-check the page after upgrading the WP plugin that handles the code. Sorry about that. Good news is that it’s easy to fix, which I’ll do tonight. On the meantime, I hope the offline version is of use.
@Summer All sorted now – thanks for the heads up, and again, my apologies for the inconvenience.
@Erin D. Smale
@Erin, thank you! Can’t begin to tell you how useful this generator has been for me 🙂
@Erin, is it possible to add a factor of 10 to population density? Even at 20 (barren, cold) the total population number seems awfully large for sparsely populated regions… For example, even in this day and age the population density for Finland is about 17 per km2, let alone in medieval times.
@Summer : Glad it’s useful to you, Summer. And yes, I can add “10” to the dropdown – on one condition: you have to supply the description in parenthesis.
I’m travelling now, but can add this next week – that should give you enough time to complete your assignment 😉
@Erin D. Smale Oh, the pressure…. The first describes natural conditions and terrain, right? And the second is temperature.
Well, since there are restrictions to available space in the drop-down, let’s keep this short and sweet. How about… A) Desolate, Any (reference to temperature). B) Desolate, Unpredictable (that’s probably too long). C) Wilderness, Any. D) Wild, Erratic. E) Desolate, Erratic. F) Desert(ed), Any.
Or any combination of the above options.
Wow. This is more difficult than I thought… The previous description, barren, pretty much covers all contingencies. I was trying to find a word that would describe any kind of terrain and temperature, so that the area could be void of people for any sort of reason, from natural conditions to results of calamities, like war or plague or something.
If I come up with more possibilities, I’ll be sure to add them 🙂 In the meantime, if anyone else would like to take a crack at it, be my guest!
@Summer : You’re right – the descriptions are a little confusing. I’ve addressed that with broader terms, AND added your “10” option to both the on- and offline versions. Please let me know if this fits the bill.
@Erin D. Smale : Thank you so much. This is perfect! It has already worked very well for me 🙂
@Summer Huzzah!
But here’s something to think about: why not a high-fantasy demographics tool? What would be different?
This is neat, but it seems way too high. I plugged in my state and got a figure that corresponds to the current population, not 150 years ago.
@JeremyR The tool applies the same population density to whatever square mileage you enter. IOW, it assumes that every square mile of your region has the same population.
This probably isn’t true. Does your state have uninhabited or non-inhabitable areas? If so, you need to take those areas out of the equation. Does your state have a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas? If so, you’ll need to factor those in as well.
My advice is to “carve up” your total area into smaller regions that have the same population density, run the tool, and that should give you more “realistic” figures.
A useful calibration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_population_density_based_on_food_growing_capacity
gives modern densities by total land, and by arable land. Not directly useful for medieval purposes, since modern numbers ride on fertilizers made with fossil fuel energy (huge), extensive irrigation and aquifer mining (though those can be pre-modern), modern crop breeds (possible with magic or post-apoc setup), pesticides (magic?), mechanized harvesting (though that probably reduces labor more than increases productivity per land… some say proper intensive farming is more productive than modern farms, if you have thed skilled labor for it.) Fertilizer is probably the big one — and was preceded by guano, so you may have to go back to 1840 to find world population numbers. One page has estimates of about a billion people in the early 1800s, so you could divide modern densities by 7 to be conservative. Though how much fertilizer are poor countries affording?
Anyway, even without such adjustment, the Wikipedia table shows the variation in density per arable land due to climate and the variation in amount of a country that’s arable. Then there’s what you put the land to use for: the US could have far more people per arable land, but we have cattle and other livestock instead, including horses back before the car.
Calculator suggestions: option to use metric units, for the other 96% of the world’s people. Option to enter a density directly, if someone feels the menu range isn’t good enough.
This is GREAT! Thank you for this lovely calculator! Gonna make figuring out my settlement sizes much easier! 🙂 Brilliant! now i can concentrate on my map. 😀
@Erin D. Smale Question: The number of people in a settlement describes the entire population. What is the percentage of the labor force, as in adults in their prime able to work? Obviously this interpretation would exclude children and the elderly. The number wasn’t mentioned in Low-fantasy Populations. Would a rough guess of 60-80 % sound natural? Or do you have a more specific factor in play?
@Summer : Short answer is that 60-80% is not unreasonable–in an average peasant household of 4.75, that means anywhere between 2.85 and 3.8 were able-bodied.
But let me reinforce that with some armchair logic. Assume we’re excluding freeholders, so we count only citizens (i.e. farmers).
In order to pay rents, pay tithes, and simply survive, a peasant’s feudal obligation was considerable. As a result, children worked the fields as soon as they were capable of being helpful–about 7 or 8 years of age (http://www.localhistories.org/middle.html).
Likewise, the elderly worked the fields until they were no longer helpful–a variety of factors could contribute to this, but the average lifespan in Medieval Britain (from birth) was about 30 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy). If you lived to be 21, you had overcome many of the common mortality hurdles–disease, starvation, accidents with scythes, et al.–and could expect to top out at about 64. I’ll take the unscientific approach and normalise lifespan at about 47. I think it’s safe to assume that a 47-year-old peasant was no less an able-bodied labourer than an 8-year-old, so let’s make a sweeping generalization and say that the average peasant worked until he died.
Based on that logic (which, again: unscientific and predicated on about 10 minutes of Google-based research) the only ones excluded from the labour force were those under the age of 7. So the question is, out of the 4.75 peasants in the average household, how many were 6 years or younger?
Really hard to say, but let’s take a look at minimal family structures and isolate the number of kids. If we have 1-2 parents, we’re left with 3.75 – 2.75 children–basically 3-4 kids. How many of those are under 7?
Here’s a potential clue. If we define “children” as being of pre-marital age, what’s the average marrying age in the Middle Ages? Sources vary, but a common range is the mid-twenties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_household)–let’s say 24. So let’s assume that parents have their kids between the ages of 18 and 30–that’s a 12 year span. Three kids evenly spaced in a 12 year period gives us ages 4, 8, and 12; 4 kids evenly spaced gives us ages 3, 6, 9, and 12.
So we arrive–with many convenient assumptions–1 or 2 kids under 7 per family, leaving us with 2.75 to 3.75 able-bodied workers per household, or basically between 60-80%. 😉
Great resource!
Just one question, I’m not hugely familiar with medieval society in general, at least the background bits that get left out of popular literature, and I was wondering what sort of numbers I would be looking at for military?
@Hyronious : Hey Hyronious! The answer depends on what military means. If you’re talking militia, then every able-bodied man could be conscripted, and I’m saying that’s equal to the labour force (q.v., my previous comment, minus kids under marrying age?).
If you’re talking trained fighters (i.e., at least 1st-level, or the equivalent in your game), then we can extrapolate a bit – sources consistently suggest it took 15-30 households to support a single knight (here’s one of them: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac80).
So here’s some math: If you took a medieval hundred (composed of 100 “hides,” each of which was enough land to support a single household – size varied from 60-120 acres depending on terrain and land quality), you’d reasonably expect 3.3 to 6.6 knights. If a household is 4.75 people, then a hundred’s population is 475 people, so knights were anywhere from 0.7% to 1.5% of the rural population.
But like my previous comment, wherein I expound (inexpertly) on the size of the labour force, I’m basing this on about 10 minutes of Google research. I think knights being 1% of the population is a reasonable baseline, but YMMV.
One more caveat: These figures are based on actual knights, which were expensive: They required a mount, armour, and actual weapons as opposed to dangerous-looking farm implements. A single “knight” is almost definitely worth several, lesser-equipped (but nevertheless trained) troops like archers, pikemen, unmounted spearmen, et al.
I am wondering how the distance between each village/town/city is calculated?
just a note that, since io.com is no more, the MDME page has moved to http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
and a huzzah and thanks for putting this together!
@drow : Thanks for the update – link is now fixed.
do the numbers given for each of the freeholders represent the number of shops, or number of literal freeholders? (if there is 11 tailors, should i mark 11 tailors’ buildings on my map?)
I have a criticism: The Number of castles is wayyyyy off. England and Wales alone had nearly 2000.
Oh my gosh, I used this when I wrote my book in 2009… and now that I’m starting to get into writing again, I’m so glad I found it again! Seriously love this tool.
I just re-downloaded the offline version to have an up-to-date version (based on your updates in the comments above), but the “last update” still reads 2006. Is this accurate?
Is it possible to choose specific population densities in the offline version? E.g. a density of 17 people/square mile?
Hi,
Just one quick question : S. John Ross indicated there should be 1 cleric per 40 people (there. http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm). Here, you have 1 cleric per 120 people. Why is that?
Great tool btw!
@Elvith : Thinking back, my logic was to provide more religious-types in a settlement for adventuring purposes, setting the stage for more healing/resurrection opportunities, multiple temples, and possible non-secular rivalries, etc. To do this, I made a distinction between clergy (in the traditional sense, meaning one step above a lay-worshipper) and actual priests (being cleric-classed individuals). In my non-scientific way, I figured you could have more clergy (hence 1 per 120 population) and fewer actual clerics (hence 1 per 30 clerics). In all, it seemed a little more “low fantasy” to me; YMMV.
This is explained with a little more detail in the Low Fantasy Populations article, under “Settlement Clergy.” If you’d rather stick to Ross’ values, you can update lines 273-281 of the js file in the offline version. Hope this helps!
@Erin D. Smale: The sidebar on the right side of the page blocks some of the chart. Just FYI. I tried to zoom in and out, but it made no difference.
BTW, I’m super-glad this site and this online chart still exists. Lots of places have vanished into the internet ethers. Good that this site prevails 🙂
Hi Summer – you’re right, and I should have noticed earlier. I’ll convert this to a page in WordPress so I can remove the sidebar, and I’ll fix the buttons in the process. Give me a couple of days…
And thanks for your support – I’m glad this is useful to you. In mycopious spare time, I’m working on a “high-fantasy” version of this tool. Stay tuned!
Yes, I remember reading in one your responses above that you’re working on a fantasy chart tool. Sounds cool! Looking forward to seeing it 🙂 And yes, this is still my number one tool when I need to create a medieval style society, fantasy or no.
Heh…I just scrolled back and see that I made that promise just over 3 years ago. So, by spare time, I really mean, whenever, apparently.
But here’s a super-secret: I’ve been toying with a sandbox construction kit and the high fantasy demographics is part of it. There’s progress, but not enough to share just yet…
I’m curious as to what “citizens” in the larger cities actually *do*. Like, let’s say I’ve got 13,000 citizens–do they all work the land nearby? Do they somehow walk or commute to less-nearby farmland? Do they provide labor (loading, unloading, construction)?
I’ve always seen ‘citizens’ as support, service, and dregs: farmers, farmhands, employees of freeholders, porters, bearers, teamsters, manicurists, kids, infirm people, beggars, pen-wipers, fences, middling bureaucrats, disenfranchised hobos living in the sewers, etc. Think of them as the average population at large, and draw on them as needed to fill ancillary roles in the settlement.
Could you please clarify the placement of castles/keeps/towers? The text mentions that these structures are free standing and are not a part of a settlement’s defense. Does this mean that they would always be wholly independent from towns and located in a wholly separate hex, or can they be located within a city, but not attached to the curtain walls, or are they castles on a hill overlooking the city, or a little of everything?
Thanks again.
Hi James: Good catch – I think I need to clarify the “Universities and Fortifications” section of the Low-Fantasy Populations article. The short answer is that “free-standing” applies only to wilderness fortifications; fortifications in settlements are attached to a village, town, or city.
Some guidelines for fortification placement are based on location and current usage:
* Settlement, active: part of a village, town, or city’s protection
* Settlement, inactive: part of a village, town, or city, but fallen into disuse (structurally unsound, too expensive to finish/repair, cursed, etc.)
* Wilderness, active: protects an unsettled area of a kingdom (a border, mountain pass, river crossing)
* Wilderness, inactive: protected an unsettled area of a kingdom, but fallen into disuse (damaged by elements, abandoned, overrun, etc.)
Let me know if that helps.
Erin,
That’s perfect! Thanks for the clarification.
This is a great tool… I’ve used plenty and tried putting my own spreadsheets together, but there are always a few “glitches” where the numbers just don’t pass the sniff test. Your background stats seems really good!
Is there a way to get the stats you base your calculations on? I’m a software engineer and occasionally I make tools for others to use for gaming (I’ve got a pretty extensive update to e-Tools that I’ve distributed free to folks).
Thanks!
Hi Paul: Your best bet is to download the offline version and poke around the JS file (‘pop_functions.js’) – all the math is in there. Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Hello and thank you for a great resource.
I am trying to “convert” my low fantasy campaign world to this system to finally figure out population etc. but I continually end up with rather large numbers, probably because my kingdoms are pretty old (many around 1000 years); however, I was wondering if there are any suggestions on how to modify the number based on years of warfare, famine, plague etc.
Hi R.J. – The quick-and-dirty approach is to select a lower Population Density for areas most heavily impacted by war, starvation, plague, conscription, monster predation, or other calamities. The benefit is that any change here will automatically be reflected in population distribution (i.e., overall population figure and number of settlements).
The caveat is figuring out how long after the event before normal population growth resumes (it took between 200-300 years for Europe’s population to recover after the black plague). By that metric (and avoiding more math than I think is necessary for an RPG setting), I’d only factor depopulating events within the last 250 years.
To give you an idea of how your setting might be affected by major depopulating events, check out the Wikis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death
For the number of cities in a country with 320,000 sqmi and 100 pop density, your site is consistent with rpglibrary, but ~10x higher than MDME, lucidphoenix, and qzil. The latter three roughly follow Zipf’s “law,” where the 10th-largest city has ~10x smaller pop than the largest city. Your source code declares the city pop to be 2.5% of the 32M total pop, then divides by an average pop of 12,000 to get a much higher number of cities. Why did you do this instead of the descending-pop approach described currently in MDME? Thanks.
The short answer is personal preference (which may be code for “lazy”). Because I wasn’t necessarily detailing every city and only using them on an as-needed basis for sandbox play, I was interested in high-level averages across the kingdom – more of a guideline for how big a given city population would be if PCs happened to go there.
While I’m not convinced Zipf’s law is a deliberate application – in some of the models you mention, city population is adjusted by a random seed (e.g., Hulings) – I agree that straight-up average is boring.
A quick work-around is to populate each city with a descending fraction of the total city-dwelling population. Start with the sum of ‘n’ integers, where ‘n’ equals the number of cities. Let’s say we have 8 cities, so ‘n’ = 36 [ (8 * (8 + 1) / 2) = 36 ]. Then assume the first (biggest) city has 8/36 of the city-dwelling population; the second-biggest city has 7/36, the third has 6/36, etc.
Let’s say you have a total city-dwelling population of 90,000. For 8 cities, the populations as follows:
* City 1 –> 90,000 * (8/36) = 20,000
* City 2 –> 90,000 * (7/36) = 17,500
* City 3 –> 90,000 * (6/36) = 15,000
* City 4 –> 90,000 * (5/36) = 12,500
* City 5 –> 90,000 * (4/36) = 10,000
* City 6 –> 90,000 * (3/36) = 7,500
* City 7 –> 90,000 * (2/36) = 5,000
* City 8 –> 90,000 * (1/36) = 2,500
Not entirely elegant, because you still have a static rate of reduction, but it gets a little closer to what you’re describing. Hope this helps.
Thanks for explaining your thinking and offering another approach. There’s a nice check on these models in the data here
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051806/bin/pone.0162678.s003.csv
gathered for the report here
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051806/
It has populations of 173 cities split into four regions of Europe around the year 1300.
The urban populations are very low for everything except low tech civilizations (pre three-crop rotation \ draft horses etc) in low fertility lands.
Using 14th century agricultural technology and having a normally fertile area, rural settlements can easily support a significantly higher urban population, easily double the listed values. For fertile areas (like the Mediterranean) the urban population could reach like 25-30%, pre-plague and renaissance Italy and Spain had several large cities and a smattering of smaller ones.
Oh, and I forgot to say: Thank you and Merry Christmas. 🙂
It doesn’t work anymore
Hi Shayan – All fixed now.
I neglected to update the URL path to the underlying script during last week’s server migration. Thanks for pointing this out, and my apologies for the inconvenience.
Time to necro the crap out of this thread.
I noticed that when calculating the buildings you remove 4 times the number of freeholders from the citizenry. Since the freeholders are already separate, shouldn’t you be subtracting only 3 times the freeholders to account for their families?