I was just looking over my copy of THe Guide to Korvosa, and I'm noticing a pattern here. Why are the populations of these huge cities so small? Korvosa 18,000, Magnimar 16,000. This number seems very small for the size of the city by the map. I know that the general view is that in the past cities we smaller, but Rome at it's height had over a million people living in it, swelling to two million when Hannibal lay seige. Magnimar is comperable in size to the city I live in and we have 250,000 people. Any thoughts?
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D&D cities as described in the Dungeon Master's Guide are very small by modern standards. Paizo seems to be going by the book with this.
The Warhammer Fantasy game has a similar problem with very small populations, too. They explain it by saying that the printed number is only the actual number of registered citizens on the tax rolls. As such, it does not include any visitors or semi-permanent residents and it tends to count all the occupants of one household as one person.
So a place like Korvosa may have a populations of 18,000 (example, I didn't go look up the actual figure), but there may be several thousand sailors, merchants, college students, etc. in addition to that total, and there may be anywhere from half again to several multiples of that figure in the slums, tenements, and flop houses.
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Also, don't forget that in Magnimar in particular a large portion of the city is migrant. Its mentioned in the article on Magnimar that up to half of the homes are empty for much of the year, either because they are owned by distant merchants or because the native Varisians are so nomadic that they are only there occasionally.
-Tarlane
Creative Director
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yeah... We're pretty much sticking to the DMG numbers for city sizes. Which, honestly, are WAY too small. Paris in medieval times had millions living there. Rome had millions living there over 2,000 years ago. The cities in the DMG are very underpopulated, but thems the rules. For now. I suspect that once we get to doing city stuff in the Pathfinder RPG, we'll revisit this table, at which point Magnimar and Korvosa might end up being called large towns or small cities or something... their populations won't be changing though. Varisia's supposed to be a pretty backwoods colonial place as it is.
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yeah... We're pretty much sticking to the DMG numbers for city sizes. Which, honestly, are WAY too small. Paris in medieval times had millions living there. Rome had millions living there over 2,000 years ago. The cities in the DMG are very underpopulated, but thems the rules. For now. I suspect that once we get to doing city stuff in the Pathfinder RPG, we'll revisit this table, at which point Magnimar and Korvosa might end up being called large towns or small cities or something... their populations won't be changing though. Varisia's supposed to be a pretty backwoods colonial place as it is.
I'm glad to hear you're thinking about changing the chart. As it is, I usually double the number.
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yeah... We're pretty much sticking to the DMG numbers for city sizes. Which, honestly, are WAY too small. Paris in medieval times had millions living there. Rome had millions living there over 2,000 years ago. The cities in the DMG are very underpopulated, but thems the rules. For now. I suspect that once we get to doing city stuff in the Pathfinder RPG, we'll revisit this table, at which point Magnimar and Korvosa might end up being called large towns or small cities or something... their populations won't be changing though. Varisia's supposed to be a pretty backwoods colonial place as it is.
So the capital cities of Cheliax and similar countries will actually be multi-million person metropoli? Excellent!
Also, with Korvosa I thought that I read somewhere that they only count the adult population. If that's true then Korvosa may actually be easily twice the population that is stated. BTW, can somebody confirm this bit of info. I don't want to be carrying around this info with me if I'm wrong(LOL!).
Paris in medieval times had millions living there. Rome had millions living there over 2,000 years ago.
James, I'm OK for Rome, but I'm not so sure about Paris. Wikipedia actually lists between 200,000 and 400,000 people in Paris during the Middle Ages.
Our modern sense of "big city"is horribly skewed when compared to medieval and rennaissance metropoli.
Comparisons of populations:
Ancient Rome at the height of power was thought of about a million.
Moscow in the 1500's had a population of around 200,000.
All of Britain in the 1500's had a population of around 3 million for the entire region.
London in the 12th century was only 20,000 (twice the size of York (its closest rival). By 1300 it expanded to over 80,000.
In 1400s Paris was the largest city in Europe with a population of 275,000.
Given that, 18,000 for what is essentially a colony city of an empire is a very respectable population.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
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Paris in medieval times had millions living there. Rome had millions living there over 2,000 years ago.James, I'm OK for Rome, but I'm not so sure about Paris. Wikipedia actually lists between 200,000 and 400,000 people in Paris during the Middle Ages.
Nonetheless... those numbers are well above the range listed in the DMG. So my point stands.
And when it comes to area occupied, medieval and rennaissance cities were much more spread out than our modern cities. no skyscrapers or such and the limited forms of sanitation required and encouraged building out instead of building up.
James, very glad to hear about the changes to the population levels chart though. It is something that has been needed for a while since they never allowed for an actual metroplis even close to the largest european cities of comparable times.
I imagine the fantastical aspects of depredation keeps the populations in many areas down. How many people die when a magical plague hits a city? a demonic incursion? githyanki raiding party? a dragon on a rampage? feuding between noble houses in the city ("Yeah, my family got caught in an feud between two houses..house wizard fireballed a rival and my family got caught in the blast.")
-Weylin Stormcrowe
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I was just looking over my copy of THe Guide to Korvosa, and I'm noticing a pattern here. Why are the populations of these huge cities so small? Korvosa 18,000, Magnimar 16,000. This number seems very small for the size of the city by the map. I know that the general view is that in the past cities we smaller, but Rome at it's height had over a million people living in it, swelling to two million when Hannibal lay seige. Magnimar is comperable in size to the city I live in and we have 250,000 people. Any thoughts?
Medieval London had 36 an acre...how many acres does it look like? A halfling City might have a family an acre.
Fuel Requirements:
Each Citizen requires 10,000lb firewood per year.
It takes 9 Wagon loads to move the timber for a family.
Now if you take the population (18000)...multiply by 4.5(81000)...divide by 365 days(222 firewood hauling wagons per day)
Do they have 50 years of renewable firewood support (a forest of 28,125,000 square miles) within five days travelling distance (3108 wagons on 14 day loops for firewood alone)?
If they dont then vast percentages of the population is without fuel - meaning disease, sickness, uncooked food.
Medieval London had 36 an acre...how many acres does it look like? A halfling City might have a family an acre.
Fuel Requirements:
Each Citizen requires 10,000lb firewood per year.
It takes 9 Wagon loads to move the timber for a family.
Now if you take the population (18000)...multiply by 4.5(81000)...divide by 365 days(222 firewood hauling wagons per day)Do they have 50 years of renewable firewood support (a forest of 28,125,000 square miles) within five days travelling distance (3108 wagons on 14 day loops for firewood alone)?
If they dont then vast percentages of the population is without fuel - meaning disease, sickness, uncooked food.
Well, you seem to forget that wood isn't the only fule source that there is. In Magnimar they could well be burining Peat harvested from the swamp to the south. Korvosa could be trading in coal with the dwarves to the north (can't remember the city off the top of my head.) and then you throw magic into the mix, different wood types that burn longer, Whale oil, Kerosene, Naptha, and for that matter contained fire elementals and and powering a city doesn't seem to be that big of a problem. If a city the size of Rome could do it 2000 yrs ago without magic, I see no reason a fantasy setting with magic could not.
Oh and as far as the wagon thing. Both Magnimar and Korvosa are sea ports. The only wagons that they would have to have running are the ones onloading ships. Though Magnimar does have its share of lumber mills, the mills tend to produce finished wood for building. though the idea of floating logs down river isn't all that new of an idea. So, the question is five days travel by land or five days travel by boat?
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Well, you seem to forget that wood isn't the only fule source that there is. In Magnimar they could well be burining Peat harvested from the swamp to the south. Korvosa could be trading in coal with the dwarves to the north (can't remember the city off the top of my head.) and then you throw magic into the mix, different wood types that burn longer, Whale oil, Kerosene, Naptha, and for that matter contained fire elementals and and powering a city doesn't seem to be that big of a problem. If a city the size of Rome could do it 2000 yrs ago without magic, I see no reason a fantasy setting with magic could not.
Oh and as far as the wagon thing. Both Magnimar and Korvosa are sea ports. The only wagons that they would have to have running are the ones onloading ships. Though Magnimar does have its share of lumber mills, the mills tend to produce finished wood for building. though the idea of floating logs down river isn't all that new of an idea. So, the question is five days travel by land or five days travel by boat?
Actually Rome didnt do it. It is now considered that the majority of foods were pickled in vinegar and sea-salt. Cannibalism of children happened in Rome like it happened in Medieval Paris. Firewood was used by less than five percent of the Roman population (the top five percent), the rest went without and consequently Disease was rampant.
PEAT FUEL PER PERSON/YEAR: 28,000lb. You require three times as much Peat as you would firewood...so that is three times as many wagons (continuously supplying fuel). mind you the yield per acre is better - 1,639,024,391lb per acre @ 15' deep peat.
Fireelementals? For those at the top who want heated bathhouses...
Actually Rome didnt do it. It is now considered that the majority of foods were pickled in vinegar and sea-salt. Cannibalism of children happened in Rome like it happened in Medieval Paris. Firewood was used by less than five percent of the Roman population (the top five percent), the rest went without and consequently Disease was rampant.
PEAT FUEL PER PERSON/YEAR: 28,000lb. You require three times as much Peat as you would firewood...so that is three times as many wagons (continuously supplying fuel). mind you the yield per acre is better - 1,639,024,391lb per acre @ 15' deep peat.
Fireelementals? For those at the top who want heated bathhouses...
And yet Rome survived. By the way if your figures are correct, One Acre of peat would fule a city of 58,537 for for one year. Not bad. Except that you need to then factor all of these numbers into family units. Say four people to a family (I'll aim small, Mother, Father, two kids)and that same acre of peat then supports 234,148 people.
As for the number of wagons? What is your fixation on wagons? Wagons mean nothing in a sea port. You said 222 wagons a day for a town of 18,000. So assuming 4 wagon loads a crew per day six men to a crew would mean that 333 men doing nothing but hauling wood 4 loads a day woul be able to supply a city the size of Magnimar. (And I used 4 loads as a low estimate due to the lack of technology. But five miles isn't acurate when a river is put into play, or maybe a sawmill. (There seem to be alot of them in RotRL).
You seem to think that this type of population is impossible, even though history has shown that it is. All the math in the world doesn't change the fact that cities far larger than D&D allows BTB have exhisted and flurished for thousands of years. Jumping from fire wood to canabalisim is a stretch. Yes Canobalisim has happened throughout human history (Even to this day.) please don't infer that just because someone doesn't have a cook fire that they're going to eat little Timmy. Yes medieval cities were rampant with disease. That had alot to do with raw sewage running in the streets, vermin carrying diseases, a lack of clean water, and a lack of even the most basic of medical care.
I'm glad that you think that this is some unfathomable logistical problem, but history has shown that it isn't.
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And yet Rome survived. By the way if your figures are correct, One Acre of peat would fule a city of 58,537 for for one year. Not bad. Except that you need to then factor all of these numbers into family units. Say four people to a family (I'll aim small, Mother, Father, two kids)and that same acre of peat then supports 234,148 people.
As for the number of wagons? What is your fixation on wagons? Wagons mean nothing in a sea port. You said 222 wagons a day for a town of 18,000. So assuming 4 wagon loads a crew per day six men to a crew would mean that 333 men doing nothing but hauling wood 4 loads a day woul be able to supply a city the size of Magnimar. (And I used 4 loads as a low estimate due to the lack of technology. But five miles isn't acurate when a river is put into play, or maybe a sawmill. (There seem to be alot of them in RotRL).
You seem to think that this type of population is impossible, even though history has shown that it is. All the math in the world doesn't change the fact that cities far larger than D&D allows BTB have exhisted and flurished for thousands of years. Jumping from fire wood to canabalisim is a stretch. Yes Canobalisim has happened throughout human history (Even to this day.) please don't infer that just because someone doesn't have a cook fire that they're going to eat little Timmy. Yes...
1. Rome didnt survive...The Generations that follow the Golden Age of the Empire (as you think it was) live in its ruins, not in its palaces.
During the Cholera Outbreaks they were ankle deep in dead children.2. Wagons mean everything (even in a Seaport). You say a single wagon hauling 4 loads a day...from where? the wharf? 8 Miles is a daytrip for a Wagon. Even if you switch over to peat (and have it a mile off in that swamp) that is thirteen wagon loads per citizen per year (employing two labourers - one on wagon and one to dig). 234,000 wagon loads of fuel.
3. Salt & Fish - being a port the majority are eating pickled fish (as opposed to cooked fish). Unfortunately pickling/preserving the fish in salt now takes 36 times the basic fuel requirement just to boil salt from water.
4. Lassie ate Timmy because Lassie was hungry...
PS here is one for your scary communities: Nhulunbuy- Aboriginal Elders do the round abducting young girls to rape - calling it mens business - the women are so terrified they grab their daughters and hide. We are talking about elders who all went to a funeral with "wives" in the 12-15 year old range. The Australian Federal Government asked these elders if there was a Paedophile problem in the community - the elders directed the Gov to Taxi drivers running escort agencies...and the conclusion was: No! No Paedophile activity here.
1. Rome didnt survive...The Generations that follow the Golden Age of the Empire (as you think it was) live in its ruins, not in its palaces.
During the Cholera Outbreaks they were ankle deep in dead children.2. Wagons mean everything (even in a Seaport). You say a single wagon hauling 4 loads a day...from where? the wharf? 8 Miles is a daytrip for a Wagon. Even if you switch over to peat (and have it a mile off in that swamp) that is thirteen wagon loads per citizen per year (employing two labourers - one on wagon and one to dig). 234,000 wagon loads of fuel.
3. Salt & Fish - being a port the majority are eating pickled fish (as opposed to...
Ok, Dude, I'm out. IT's very clear you have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm done wasting my energy argueing with you. History has already proven your arguement wrong, and though Rome or Paris may not have been perfect little utopias They did happen, and they did survive. All the math in the world isn't going to change that.
Also, with Korvosa I thought that I read somewhere that they only count the adult population.
Oooh, I'm not sure where that came from, but I rather like it. That might be a good way to look at it until we can get revise that table.
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Ok, Dude, I'm out. IT's very clear you have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm done wasting my energy argueing with you. History has already proven your arguement wrong, and though Rome or Paris may not have been perfect little utopias They did happen, and they did survive. All the math in the world isn't going to change that.
I'm waiting for you to prove something. Anything.
And just because you remember the name of the Ruin you live in...doesnt mean you live in the same city or are a citizen of its civilization.
Rome Died when its labourers could no longer travel over land freely to bring in the resources that supported its economy.
Paris needed to bring in Grain from Austria by river barge (a grain barge every fifteen minutes arrived at the riverdocks). Unfortunately due to economic bankruptcy, Paris starved. There are mass graves outside the city to prove it (and plague was a small factor in starvation and failed management) The rest is the inability to feed your labourers so they can haul produce and farm.
It doesnt matter how many ships your port has. They will not be used to bring in fuel from another port a hundred miles away when fuel can be found a Wagon-ride away from the city walls.
Back to your original Post - Lets look at Medieval England: 95% rural, 5% Urban - Colchester(2,200), York(8,000), London(50,000), and 20 other large towns(around a 1,000 in pop).
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Also, with Korvosa I thought that I read somewhere that they only count the adult population.Oooh, I'm not sure where that came from, but I rather like it. That might be a good way to look at it until we can get revise that table.
The big number is the Adult poulation (+10%-40% to add children (edition 3.0)).
And Charcoal Production (the smokeless fuel needed for metal work) yields @ 10%-20% from the firewood from which it is made.
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I'm waiting for you to prove something. Anything.
Ok, here's what I've proved. I've proved that every time I reply to something you post, you change the topic. Where the hell did grain shortages in paris come from in a discussion about firewood? You make the assumption that a culture that built The Coliseum, The Parthanon, and the library at Alexandria couldn’t figure out the logistics of firewood. At one point you jumped from firewood to cannabalisim and pedophilia. You have pulled out large numbers that mean nothing, and doesn't change the fact that The Roman Empire lasted for over a thousand years! My grandfather use to say if you can't dazzle them with brilliance baffel them with BS. That's all you've been doing. Next time you see one of my posts do us both a favor and skip it.
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Ok, here's what I've proved. I've proved that every time I reply to something you post, you change the topic. Where the hell did grain shortages in paris come from in a discussion about firewood? You make the assumption that a culture that built The Coliseum, The Parthanon, and the library at Alexandria couldn’t figure out the logistics of firewood. At one point you jumped from firewood to cannabalisim and pedophilia. You have pulled out large numbers that mean nothing, and doesn't change the fact that The Roman Empire lasted for over a thousand years! My grandfather use to say if you can't dazzle them with brilliance baffel them with BS. That's all you've been doing. Next time you see one of my posts do us both a favor and skip it.
I'm waiting for you to prove something. Anything.
Now that is just offensive...
One: You keep telling me that a port is capable of living off its ship traffic alone and that wagons are irrelevent. That right there is BS.
A Port is a Specialized Economy (involved in portage of goods and persons by ship) - it is not a closed, self sustainable economy. That means it must bring in everything it does not produce by wagon and/or Ship.
Fuel and food is crucial to the survival of the city and most well managed cities will put in a year reserve (to survive sieges). Portage as a consequence employs labour and if you dont feed that labour they cant do their work which means that people like you starve to death.
Two: Rome was no doubt a large city but it had an army of Slaves, and thousands of Wagons and Carts to move that food and fuel required to sustain a million non producing freeloaders. Without Wagons, it would have taken its entire population working as porters to move every thing they need from one side of the city to the other.
Cities are the unsustainable knife in our civilization's belly - not the jewels in it's crowns.
Three: And the Commonwealth of Catal Huyuk lasted five thousand years and was the precursor to all other civiliztions (A city of sheep farmers covering 32 acres - trading in wool and obsidian).
One day they will find the mass graves where Rome dumped its dead...if they didnt simply dump them at sea from barges.
Actually the Roman Republic was founded in 510 BC (with Rome itself having been founded in 753 BC). So the Republic/Western Empire lasted for 986 years.
The main reason that the population of the city itself collapsed at the end of the empire and into the Dark ages was lack of clean water and the resulting outbreak of disease due to to destruction of many of the city's aqueducts by the various 'barbarian' tribes who rampaged throughout Italy.
From 2nd edition to 3rd edition, a lot of Forgotten Realms cities were "downsized" with the "its always been this way" revision stamp. Ordulin, the capital city of Sembia, a major trade nation, had a population of 90,000 in 2nd edition, and with no explanation in 3rd edition the population became 36,000.
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The Parthanon is in Greece. It was built by the Greek civilisation, not the Romans. I have no information on the labour used to build it.
The Library of Alexandria was, I suspect, started by either Alexander the great (a ruler of Macedonia, and the person whom 'Alexandria' was named after) or one of his Egyptian successors. Again I have no information on the method of construction for this building.
Just for the fact fans.
The Parthenon is in Athens; it was built by a slave-using society that was, for a brief period, the dominant power in the Aegaean.
We know very little about the library at Alexandria, although it probably did exist. There were many Alexandrias during the Hellenistic period, but in this case it refers to the one in Egypt.
The Library grew out of a Museion and was probably/possibly built by Ptolemy II Soter. All of our sources for it are literary, so we have little idea of the structure.
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I support small cities, except in the case of capitals of self-aggrandising empires during their swollen pomp or cities whose powerful mages devote vast energies to feeding and cleaning the citizenry.
Thank you for the information on the formation of the Roman republic; I hadn't realised it was quite as early as that, although I think that it was not until Emperor Augustus in 27 BC that the republic officially became an empire?
Sanitation problems seem to be a major Real World problem when it comes to contributions for deaths in densely populated areas. I get the impression that breakdown of infrastructure (or the logistics of large refugee camps) can cause problems when natural disasters such as earthquakes hit densely populated cities?
The empire did officially begin in 27 BC.
As a side note, Rome wasn't the only large city in the empire. It has been estimated that Alexandria was of comparable size. A 32 CE census showed 180,000 adult male citizens in the city. Its total population was believed to be nearly 1 million.
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Our modern sense of "big city"is horribly skewed when compared to medieval and rennaissance metropoli.
Comparisons of populations:
Ancient Rome at the height of power was thought of about a million.
Moscow in the 1500's had a population of around 200,000.
All of Britain in the 1500's had a population of around 3 million for the entire region.
London in the 12th century was only 20,000 (twice the size of York (its closest rival). By 1300 it expanded to over 80,000.
In 1400s Paris was the largest city in Europe with a population of 275,000.
Given that, 18,000 for what is essentially a colony city of an empire is a very respectable population.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
I was reminded of this by a conversation today about the plague.
Figures for Europe from the 14th century to the end of the 17th century are horribly skewed by the bubonic plague.
As an example; the plague halved the population of Britain from 1300 to 1350, and kept on bubbling up again to knock off 10% to 40% of the population every so often until 1666.
So to use Europe in that time as an example requires us to inflict an unusually fierce and resilient plague upon Varisia and surrounding lands. The bubonlic plague also seems to have been especially succesful at killing off urban populaces.
James, I'm OK for Rome, but I'm not so sure about Paris. Wikipedia actually lists between 200,000 and 400,000 people in Paris during the Middle Ages.
That could be your problem right there.
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“A century ago, the death of Cheliax’s god Aroden fractured not just the country’s domestic holdings but indefinitely severed its links to numerous colonies, including those in Varisia. Korvosa, the oldest and largest of Varisia’s cities, made overtures of fealty to Cheliax’s diabolical new Magistrix—overtures which went ignored.
Abandoned, discord erupted in the city between traditionalists to the dead Chelish theocracy and revolutionaries eager to embrace Cheliax’s new rule. Realizing that infighting would doom all they had accomplished, many of the traditionalists left Korvosa, migrating west and ultimately founding the city of Magnimar. Today, both Korvosa and Magnimar fancy themselves the center of culture in Varisia. Both cities have birthed or claimed numerous vassal townships in the surrounding lands. Other races have also come as well, integrating with the human populace or claiming their own territories.
The natives of the land also remember a time when Varisia was theirs alone and swear the land will once again be theirs.” – RISE OF THE RUNELORDS (PLAYERS GUIDE)
There you go: a potential reason for Korvosa having a high Area: Population ratio - considering a century ago half the population left town, inversly Magnimar is new, designed to be roomy...
Thread necromancy time! (This is the one on city populations that the search pulled up that WASN'T talking about gamer populations on Earth.)
Here is a page about ancient region and city populations that isn't Wikipedia.
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Meh, I like the small populations. Golarion has been through a proverbial hell of civilization-wiping events time and time again. The small populations loan themselves to the feel that adventurers really are the first and last line against the extinction of civilization as Golarion has witnessed it. And Golarion *is* in the age of lost omens, where the patron deity of the most common civilized race of humans: Aroden, god of humanity, is dead.
^Admittedly, it does leave more food and room for non-Humanoid creatures . . . .
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James, I'm OK for Rome, but I'm not so sure about Paris. Wikipedia actually lists between 200,000 and 400,000 people in Paris during the Middle Ages.That could be your problem right there.
Wikipedia has been shown to be, on average, about as accurate as published encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica. So there's no reason to snub data from it.
However, using Paris as your primary example is not a good idea. Firstly this is because estimates of the populations of Paris (and also London) are victims of a certain degree of bias based on "competition" between Pro-French and Pro-British historians.
Another problem is that the "middle ages" is a thousand-year period in history. Any city would have gone through a wide variety of population levels during that period. Even according to pro-French historians Paris had a population of under 50,000 people for the first half of the middle ages.
Thirdly, Paris has a couple of things going for it that most cities don't. Firstly, in around 900 AD it became the capital of France, and as the government bureaucracy grew this caused the city to expand faster than any other in France. And secondly, Paris had a university, founded around 1160, which was rare for medieval cities of the era (London did not have one, for example). So the draw of students also increased the population ahead of most cities.
Magnimar and Korvosa are the prominent cities of their regions, but neither is a capital city like Paris. Varisia is pretty sparsely populated. Magnimar is only 100 years old, whereas Paris was founded in around 250 BC.
So looking at a major city like Paris for inspiration on what Magnimar should be like is probably a mistake.
If you are looking at Earth analogues you need to set down a date for the period you are emulating.
If we are sticking to the middle ages, we could get some data from there. As I mentioned, using stats about London and Paris can be tricky. So it might be better to look at other, secondary towns. The city of Lincoln in England was England's second-largest town in 1190 AD, and it had a population of about 8,000. So by medieval standards, 16,000 should be considered a "large city." They were rare.
But if you want to place Golarion in a later era then you could look at different periods. Technologically Golarion seems to have the same technology as Earth from around 1750-1800 AD. That's a lot later than the middle ages and populations were much much higher. A town of 16,000 in that period is a local hub but hardly a metropolis.
However, you still need to consider that not only is Magnimar a very young city but also there aren't large groups of people emigrating to the area.
Another thing to remember is that the population of any pre-industrial region is going to be at least 90% rural. Magnimar is kind of a weird case because as a port it likely trades imports upriver with towns like Nybor, Galduria, and Wartle, so the total rural population will be spread over this "triangle" of farmland that has at its corners the towns of Galduria, Nybor, and Magnimar. I can't find populations for these other towns, but if we assume that between them and Sandpoint they add up to about 7,000 total then the urban population of the "triangle" area is 23,000, with another 230,000 people living in the countryside. So 253,000 people, spread out over an area of about 6000 - 7000 square miles gives a population density of between 35 and 42 people per square mile. This is actually quite reasonable for a prosperous region in the middle ages and is a little low for 1800, but then Varisia is supposed to be a "frontier" country.
The population figures from the original DMG were clearly based on the high medieval period. Since RotRL was originally published for D&D 3.5 it used these numbers. If you want to update the figures for a later period, go ahead.
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Small populations of Golarion is less of an affront to suspension of disbelief than cultural and technological stases lasting thousands of years.
It takes some difficulty to accept that arms and armor interred in tombs in ancient Thassilon or Taldor's Armies of Exploration are sufficiently similar to "modern day Golarion" counterparts as to have comparable stats. If I can accept that, I can accept population sizes.
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Small populations of Golarion is less of an affront to suspension of disbelief than cultural and technological stases lasting thousands of years.
It takes some difficulty to accept that arms and armor interred in tombs in ancient Thassilon or Taldor's Armies of Exploration are sufficiently similar to "modern day Golarion" counterparts as to have comparable stats. If I can accept that, I can accept population sizes.
You make a good point, although I'd again point to the civilization-wiping Golarion seems fond of imposing from time to time. Having read all of the RotR Anniversary Edition, I get the impression that ancient Azlant and Thassilon were basically Crystal Towers and Togas futurists, and Earthfall literally blasted everyone into the stone age.
But at the end of it, it is all a matter of suspension of disbelief. For the both of us, it looks like the setting has succeeded.