Myrthia

[TurtleSoup]

My first project, please excuse any incoherence with the backstory, lore, demographics, etc... I just started on this!

This is for a personal project, I intend to construct a small, isolationist country, with no outside connection with any part of the unexplored world.

This feudal kingdom, currently is technologically and culturally analogous to the late Georgian, early Victorian history, this is where the inspiration for the culture will come from.

It's for a Changeling: The Lost campaign, I prefer a fictitious setting with a more simple and unrefined background.

The following artistic and political map is for the human world, the "real" world.


Phase 1:
Because I am a lazy bum, and can't be bothered to visualize, I resorted to my cheap, chocolate milk method.


Phase 2:
Line-art time (Done)


Phase 3:
Some artistic flavor (WIP)


Bonus:
Political Map (WIP)


Some information, demographics experts please advise me :p

Human Realm

Country: Myrthia
Size roughly 264.000km²
Approx Total Urban Areas 4711km²


Total population: **3.5M**


8 provinces

159 Municipalities
6 are major cities exceeding the 100.000 population.
OVER 600K
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF CITY 97.3 km2
583.8km² Total

Density 1027 Per km²


14 Boast an average population between 60.000 and 80.000.
**970-980K**
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF TOWN 63.2 km2
884.8km²Total

Density 1107 Per km²

9 boast a population between 40.000 and 60.000
**465K-480K**
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF TOWN 59.2 km2
532.8km² Total

Density 900 Per km²

31 boast a population between 20.000 and 40.000
**775K-885K**
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF TOWN 35.3 km2
1094.3km² Total

Density 808 Per km²

36 boast a population between 8000-10.000
**315K-325K**
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF TOWN 19.4 km2
698.5km² Total

Density 465 Per km²

53 boast a population between 5000-8000
**290K-345**
Area
• AVERAGE SIZE OF TOWN 17.3 km2
916.9km² Total

Density 376 Per km²


...Yeah maybe I should downsize and make this a smaller island belonging to a larger country...

[Falconius]

I like the way you generated the landforms

That said the numbers you are suggesting seem wrong to me, presuming this is a medieval or renaissance era world. Particularly the giant land areas the towns and cites take up. Even in modern terms they seem very large. Also in your format of the area you include an area measurement labeled "total" which I'm not sure what that is referring to.... Oh wait that refers to the size of the country? Maybe? The population densities seem high even for the modern period, but particularly high for medieval era. General rule of thumb for crazy population density is that the high numbers will come from places that have a very very small area to measure.

[Azélor]

The population density is too low for urban areas.
1000-1500 person per km2 is comparable to a modern wealthy suburb. Which mean an average of 2-3 people per households, large houses with a lot of space between them.
This is something you would not find in cities at he time.
In the Victorian era, families might have 5-6 people on average with several families living in the same house.
Such a low density makes the city dysfunctional/inefficient. It is still true today that urban sprawl is a problem but we have more means of transportation to mitigate it.
Back then, most people still had to walk/use a horse to move around the city. Having a spread out city was impractical.

[TurtleSoup]

Thank you both for your reply, after considering both explanations which are quite different I will go with Azélors advice, because he gave me a very practical reason!

Just a question, do cities and village/settlements have a different density? I assume I must drastically up the density especially in the big cities, whilst "village" or "settlement" areas could have a lower density... Probably fewer but larger households each tending to their farms and such...

I will have to read more about Victorian era demographics.

[Falconius]

I don't think you'll ever go wrong taking Azelor's advice,

About the density, if you measure the population density of a town or city you will end up with numbers extremely high, but if you measure the numbers into a country as a whole you'll end up much lower density. For instance the old city of Akko I measure to be roughly around 0.2 km^2 but the 1922 census had the population at 6000 (and at that time I don't think there was much settlement outside the old city). The territory of British Mandate Palestine had a population density of around roughly 24 people per km^2, while Akko itself measured in the double digit thousands per km^2. That's what I mean about the density being radically different depending upon what you are measuring and how small an area you measure.

[Azélor]

I don't know much about the Victorian era demographic. I just assume it follows the same logic as pre-industrial era cities.
Industrial era cities tend to be bigger because or the larger available workforce and the lower cost required to move goods over long distances.
The density would be close.