A note on the size of "cities"

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Rias
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A note on the size of "cities"

Post by Rias »

I'm working on some of the race documentation pages, and while writing about the cities that are in some of these lands I got to worrying a little about interpretations of the term "city". I wanted to put a little note out there to help folks keep in mind that these aren't modern-day sprawling metropolis size cities, spanning the horizon as far as the eye can see.

As usual, I'm afraid of giving Actual Numbers, but after poking around looking for historic city sizes a bit today (and some fantasy ones too) I'd say even the grandest cities of Nuum or Ivial or Aetgard are going to be maybe ... 5 or 10 square miles at the largest? And that includes stuff like surrounding farmland and outlying villages and claimed foresting/hunting wilderness and such, so that's definitely not all dense urban buildings and streets of the main city. This is only after some very brief looking at numbers so I may come in and give an updated estimate of scale later, but hopefully this helps prevent any mental visions of massive modern-sized metropolises when the cities found around Arad - even the big ones - are certainly not on that kind of scale.

These particular types of details aren't things that I've thought as much about until now, so if there's someone out there who's into sense of scale for settlements with fantasy worldbuilding and wants to weigh in with suggestions or links to guides or anything like that, I'm happy to get whatever advice and resources I can take! I prefer to tend toward realistic on this stuff, instead of "it's huge and logic-defying because magic and fantasy".
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nobody
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Re: A note on the size of "cities"

Post by nobody »

I tend to think in terms of population rather than land area, but probably the true ideal would be to think about both (or, population density).

First, fantasy sources:
https://blogofholding.com/?p=6741 - good look at fantasy demographics, and not too long of a read. Particularly read the four paragraphs following "OK, on to those sweet demographics!" if nothing else.

https://blogofholding.com/?p=6729 - a delightful map of a real world city from 1631. I did not verify the scaling, but it is described as being two miles wide at it's widest. Looking at the map, the city proper is probably 3-4 square miles and the farmland around it (doubtless covering well beyond the map provided) is very likely going to exceed the 10 square miles suggested. The population is in the neighborhood of 40,000.

Real world sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_ ... prov=sfla1 - I particularly recommend the sections for Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, and that last foot notes takes us to...

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/sbook1.asp - a delightful source that I have not yet properly delved into, though the heading "Western Collapse and Recovery" with subheadings "Crisis, Recovery, Feudalism?" and "Economic Life" look especially promising. Also, turns out, that comment about generic D&D setting having a population density like early middle ages europe also links to a different section of this site.
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saladbowl
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Re: A note on the size of "cities"

Post by saladbowl »

https://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/ is my go-to. https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/ is based off the same source but simplified, and works in miles instead of kilometres.
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Taliaferro
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Re: A note on the size of "cities"

Post by Taliaferro »

Not a lot to add; just a neat map and a corresponding video on the growth of London over the centuries.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1d92 ... 1cde4e.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgRxKlpLbpY

Seems odd that there's no population drop in 1665/1666. Something unpleasant seems to have happened in the middle of the 14th Century, though.
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