Map 25 – The Kingdom in the clouds

[Azélor]

I am posting the following here instead of a separate thread because it is not a proper map (not yet).

WARNING before you read further, this is mostly for world building purposes.


It started as an idea I had a while back.
This is a small province and I was wondering what it would look like if I tried to show every single plot of land on the map.
It turns out that it's not that small, it is larger than Belgium.



Info on the province:

• Name: Sanhejie: Where the three rivers meet
• Area: 31 052,70 km2 (slightly larger than Belgium)
• Population: 3 069 593
• Urban: 552 527 (18%)
• Rural: 2 517 066 (72%)
• Population density: 98.9 per km2
• Average person per household: 5.5

Land usage (estimation)

• Farming: 81,5 % (25 307 km2)
• Woodland: 7%
• Marginal woodland 2%
• Water: 3%
• Wetland: 2%
• Infrastructure 2% (roads, irrigation, dikes, etc)
• Unused land 2%

But I'm still missing the sense of scale.
So, my question is, how many farms or villages does the province has?


Finding the rural/urban population.
Based on Renaissance Italy, the urban population hovered between 16-18% at maximum. So I chose to use 18%. This gives me a rural population of 2 517 066.

Villages:

To begin, the structure of the society is based around the village and rice farming.
Rice is a very productive crop but also very labour intensive.

Therefore, people regroup and work the same field(s) instead of having each household working a small plot of land. This makes things easier as each village can be shown having only one large paddy field or several depending on what is best looking. Small hamlet are virtually nonexistent and the smallest villages usually have around 100-200 people.

To find out how many villages, I used the same principle regarding the size of cities. Most cities have an optimal size around 1km2 (according to Medieval demographic made easy). Looking at real maps, this seems to make sense for villages as well.

Divide the agricultural area by the average area of each village:
25 307 /1 = 25 307

That was easy, but it’s only a reference since the placement of villages is not optimal, there will be a lot of wasted space in between.

Large villages: population around 500

They serve as local trade hubs with some craftsmen living there. They cover a larger area but aren’t that bigger than the smaller villages.
Based mostly on observation of real world maps, the distance between these is 5 km. Which mean that people are never more than 2,5 km away from the closest large village. (now I realize the name sounds silly)
2.5km takes 30 minutes. Someone could walk that on a regular basis if required.

25 307 / 25 = 1000 (closer to 925 to be more accurate)

Towns : Population of a few thousands (3000 on average)

Towns are much larger and they have a specialized workforce. Their markets are much bigger and might have access to faraway trade if they are located close to an important road. Many towns have some government buildings and temples.

Town are further away with 20 km between them. People are never further than 10 km from the nearest town. That is a 2h hours walk

They cover an area of 400 km2

25 307 /400 = 63

I think the actual number is 72. This might be because the land continues beyond the province borders and the distribution in uneven.

Cities : Population starting generally around 5000 or 6000

Cities are large urban centre with a much diversified workforce and markets. They have specialized worker that are rare in smaller settlements. Cities are usually the centre of the county, which is a local government administration.
The placement of cities is even more dependent on the surrounding. It is skewed depending on different factors like connection to the trade network, history and other things.

I set the number of cities at 11,5. (the .5 is because one city is halfway into the other province)

Based on observation (which may not be very accurate), each city cover an area of 2500 km2.This was the number of cities already on the map and by looking at Renaissance Italy, I think it’s good.

https://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/491c...8b23ef47b7.pdf

The largest cities are in order (subject to change):

150 000 / 30 000 / 25 000 / 20 000 / 15 000 / 14 000 / 12 000 / 10 000 / 9000 / 7000 / 6000
I also count towns as part of the urban population, for almost half of the total.

Placing the settlements on the map starting with the cities





Towns:



Large villages:



Villages:



Urban area scaled properly (I think)
It looks like a magic lamp, don't you think ? Or a shoe...


Forest:

In conclusion, I wanted to work on this for the ongoing contest but I will have to find something less insane.
I will probably map this province later but for the moment I will do exactly as planned but will focus on a single county.

https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...870#post408870