Land area and population estimates for the nations of Avistan

[Michael Thayne]

I got thinking about the relative military strength of the various nations of Avistan, which got me wondering about their populations, which in turn got me wondering about their land areas. So I downloaded the following map from the wiki: https://pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/a/a1/Inner_Sea_region_map.jpg

Then I used some image editing tools to work out the area, in square miles, of each marked region in the Avistani part of the map (maybe at some point in the future I'll do Garund). Here are my results, in every case rounded to three significant figures:

* Absalom: 11,300
* Andoran: 136,000
* Brevoy: 67,700
* Cheliax: 375,000
* Druma: 60,400
* Five Kings Mountains: 31,700
* Galt: 114,000
* Hold of Belkzen: 68,700
* Irrisen: 84,500
* Isger: 46,600
* Kyonin: 33,300
* Lands of the Linnorm Kings: 120,000
* Lastwall: 41,000
* Mendev: 57,100
* Molthune: 74,600
* Nidal: 90,300
* Nirtmathaas: 53,600
* Numeria: 106,000
* Razmiran: 21,800
* Realm of the Mammoth Lords: 110,000
* River Kingdoms: 217,000
* Taldor: 256,000
* Ustalav: 98,200
* Varisia: 289,000
* Worldwound: 161,000

But what about population? Looking at the populations for the largest cities in the various regions, primarily capitals, it reminded me of figures I'd seen for historical cities in medieval Europe. I looked up the details in the widely-cited article Medieval Demographics Made Easy (Google it) and tried the math for Cheliax. In most cases, I found the sizes of the largest cities were consistent with what you could generate using Medieval Demographics Made Easy. In a few cases, such as Taldor, the largest city was 5-10% larger than it "should" have been, but I honestly wondered if Paizo had used the article's guidelines straight, and I had merely made a slight mis-estimate of land area.

There were also a few more extreme outliers, which seem to have been intentional—Absalom, of course, is explicitly an island port that relies on food imports to survive. Iadara (capital of the elven nation of Kyonin) may have been made intentionally on the large side, especially for a city in the middle of a forest, because Elves Are Just Better. And we're likely meant to understand that Nerosyan (capital of Mendev) relies on a steady flow of crusaders from the south to maintain its large population.

If Paizo really used Medieval Demographics Made Easy when planning out Avistan, this means most if not all of the regions above should have a population density between 30 and 120 people per square mile. The exact population density within this range will depend on terrain and climate. The Realm of the Mammoth Lords is likely near the bottom of this range, while Andoran and Taldor are likely near the top. Most nations will be somewhere int he middle.

One odd case is Karlsgard, largest city in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. Its canonical population of 72,080 wouldn't be out of place in southern Avistan—but it's way up north in the setting's Scandanavia stand-in, in an area explicitly stated to be terrible for farming to boot. The explanation seems to be that it's positioned at one end of the land route between Avistan and Tian Xia. Possibly it imports food in much the same way Absalom does.

[Darth Game Master]

Hmm. Some of these have probably changed a bit with 2nd edition but that's probably close enough for the most part. So the equivalents to modern Earth nations' areas, roughly, are:

Cheliax- Tanzania
Varisia- Zambia
Taldor- Afghanistan
River Kingdoms- collectively between mainland France and Kenya in area
Sarkoris Scar (Worldwound)- Paraguay
Andoran- Germany
Lands of the Linnorm Kings- collectively the size of Oman or Poland.
Galt- Italy
Realm of the Mammoth Lords- Ecuador
Numeria- Burkina Faso
Ustalav- Guinea
Nidal- Laos
Irrisen- Guyana
Molthune- Senegal
Belkzen- Cambodia
Brevoy- Uruguay
Druma- Tunisia
Mendev- Bangladesh
Nirmathas- Tajikistan
Isger- North Korea
Gravelands (Lastwall)- between Iceland and Guatemala in area
Kyonin- Azerbaijan
5 Kings Mountains- United Arab Emirates
Razmiran- Croatia
Absalom/Isle of Kortos- decided to compare to a similarly sized island instead, Timor

If my math is right this also gives mainland Avistan a land area of about 2,713,500 square miles, nearly the size of Australia. And yes, it would be great if you did northern Garund as well!

[CrystalSeas]

Here's the most current version of the map of Golarion

Mapping Golarion project

[Michael Thayne]

> Some of these have probably changed a bit with 2nd edition but that's probably close enough for the most part.

Yes, I believe the changes are that three nations lost land area: Cheliax lost the archduchy of Ravounel (now an independent state), Nirtmathaas lost the mountains along its westernmost edge (now the Hobgoblin nation of Oprak), and Varisia lost the territory that became New Thassilon. Well, Varisia was never unified but you know what I mean. A couple other places underwent significant changes but I don't think any borders changed.

[zimmerwald1915]

Michael Thayne wrote:

> Some of these have probably changed a bit with 2nd edition but that's probably close enough for the most part.

Yes, I believe the changes are that three nations lost land area: Cheliax lost the archduchy of Ravounel (now an independent state), Nirtmathaas lost the mountains along its westernmost edge (now the Hobgoblin nation of Oprak), and Varisia lost the territory that became New Thassilon. Well, Varisia was never unified but you know what I mean. A couple other places underwent significant changes but I don't think any borders changed.

The two southern Linnorm Kingdoms may have lost some marginal land to New Thassilon too.

[Darth Game Master]

Michael Thayne wrote:

> Some of these have probably changed a bit with 2nd edition but that's probably close enough for the most part.

Yes, I believe the changes are that three nations lost land area: Cheliax lost the archduchy of Ravounel (now an independent state), Nirmathas lost the mountains along its westernmost edge (now the Hobgoblin nation of Oprak), and Varisia lost the territory that became New Thassilon. Well, Varisia was never unified but you know what I mean. A couple other places underwent significant changes but I don't think any borders changed.

Correct, I think Molthune lost a bit of territory to Oprak as well. I more meant that it's harder to measure the exact territory changes using the 1st edition map.

[James Jacobs]

Interesting thread! That said..

Michael Thayne wrote:

...If Paizo really used Medieval Demographics Made Easy when planning out Avistan...

We absolutely did not.

The game world was designed first to serve as a backdrop to set stories and adventures in, not in an attempt to accurately model nations based on historical Earth.

The medieval world is only one inspiration for Golarion, in fact. There's arguably MUCH more inspiration for the regions of Golarion taken from the ancient world and from the modern world than simply the medieval world. Additionaly, the presence of magic and the supernatural (and all that's associated with it, particularly the presence of multiple bestiaries of monsters) pretty much throws an accurate analog with "Medieval Demographics" out the window.

It's still a fine place to start from if you want to explore the implications, but you may find the results of those explorations clashing against what we print, is all I'm saying.

[Michael Thayne]

James Jacobs wrote:

The medieval world is only one inspiration for Golarion, in fact. There's arguably MUCH more inspiration for the regions of Golarion taken from the ancient world and from the modern world than simply the medieval world.

This is obviously true flavor-wise—from Osirion being inspired by ancient Egypt to Galt being inspired by late 18th century France. But in terms of the populations given for cities, it seems distinctly medieval Europe, with no cities as large as Rome at its Imperial peak or 18th century Paris. Possibly this was not intentional, and merely the result of indirect influence from authors who did go to the trouble of looking up medieval demographic numbers. But intentional or not, the result is definitely medieval.

[CrystalSeas]

Offers sympathy to James

[FormerFiend]

I suppose the various positive elements of magic applications allowing for greater population growth vs the sheer number of horrible creatures that want/need to kill people might work to balance each other out to where you get something approximating the end result.

[Rangdos]

Michael Thayne wrote:

I got thinking about the relative military strength of the various nations of Avistan

Varisia is a nation?

Realistically I don't see what armies and castles will do against super wizards, so don't worry about it. Let the superheroes fight and whichever superteam wins is the side that wins the war.

[zimmerwald1915]

Rangdos wrote:

Varisia is a nation?

Well, it's a "geographical expression," anyway ;)