How big is the smallest "City"?

[direpupy]

6 minutes ago, The Holy Goat said:

True. I remembered that wrong.

There are already people living in the winter town outside Winterfell though, and we don't know how many they are.

The World of Ice and Fire still considers New Ghis the most vital yet also the smallest of the Ghiscari cities. And the number of soldiers they can send is not solely reliant on the city of New Ghis, but on the land it controls. You don't actually think the city recruits only from the capital do you? Just like the Great Houses of Westeros they likely try to draw their forces from the surrounding lands as well. SO it's fully possible that the lands sworn to New Ghis has a population in the millions, but that that city itself isn't notably large.

True. I remembered it wrong and confused several for seven. Considering Lordsport is the biggest settlement in the Iron islands I'd put it above 5,000 people though, with Lord Hewett's Town being above 10,000.

And it's fully possible the lands beholden to New Ghis has the kind of population. Doesn't change the fact that the city itself is smaller than any of the other Ghiscari cities, as stated in TWOIAF.

I never disputed that its the smallest city i was making a guess at how big it would be. That is why i made a separate paragraph about people living inside the walls.

Read everything before you respond please.

[Nyrhex]

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

As to New Ghis, 60,000 with a mobilisation of 1.5% of the population would be 4 million people. The 1.5% is the number of people you can mobilise without destabilising your society, at least according to the study's that i have seen on the subject. However during certain periods (between harvests) you can temporarily increase that number. So maybe that is why only 6 of the 10 promised legions are present at the moment, because the rest is still bringing in the harvest. If that is the case then the population would be 2.4 million people.

The number of people living inside the walls of New Ghis is hard to speculate on, you need about 9 people working the fields to let 1 person do something else but those who work the field just outside the city would also live in the city, and not everyone who does something else would live in the city (think village blacksmith) So most likely between 10% and 20% of the population would live inside the city walls, but that is a guess from my part.

To clarify, close to a million free men, the slaves making up for 3+ million more, depending on how close the ratio is to Volantis. 

The Siege of Meereen is an ongoing project, with ships bringing more troops every day. There are 6 legions right now because that is the amount that has arrived by now. Volantis, being significantly farther away, sent it's contribution as one force on 300-500 ships. The other members of the coalition are closer and are using thier fleets to bring troops and supplies in runs, and at the same time enact a blockade.

38 minutes ago, The Holy Goat said:

There are already people living in the winter town outside Winterfell though, and we don't know how many they are.

The World of Ice and Fire still considers New Ghis the most vital yet also the smallest of the Ghiscari cities. And the number of soldiers they can send is not solely reliant on the city of New Ghis, but on the land it controls. You don't actually think the city recruits only from the capital do you? Just like the Great Houses of Westeros they likely try to draw their forces from the surrounding lands as well. SO it's fully possible that the lands sworn to New Ghis has a population in the millions, but that that city itself isn't notably large.

And it's fully possible the lands beholden to New Ghis has the kind of population. Doesn't change the fact that the city itself is smaller than any of the other Ghiscari cities, as stated in TWOIAF.

Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys.

We are told that not even a fifth of the houses are occupied in Winter Town during summer (Bran V, AGOT), giving at most ~2,500 permanent residents if they were full to bursting with under 10,000 men squeezing in.

IIRC New Ghis is an island nation, no? Where else do they control? I get that Astapor and Yunkai and Meereen control more land than New Ghis, but it really seemed like the bulk of the free population lived in the cities, with some mansions in the countryside. With ~150,000-200,000 slaves in all three cities, either the math doesn't add up somehow, or by "smallest" city the WOIAF meant economically or something. New Ghis has between a quarter to a third of the slave population of 3 cities with only the free males who serve for 3 years?

[The Holy Goat]

46 minutes ago, direpupy said:

I never disputed that its the smallest city i was making a guess at how big it would be. That is why i made a separate paragraph about people living inside the walls.

Read everything before you respond please.

I did read everything. And I agreed with you while reiterating my point.

21 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys.

We are told that not even a fifth of the houses are occupied in Winter Town during summer (Bran V, AGOT), giving at most ~2,500 permanent residents if they were full to bursting with under 10,000 men squeezing in.

IIRC New Ghis is an island nation, no? Where else do they control? I get that Astapor and Yunkai and Meereen control more land than New Ghis, but it really seemed like the bulk of the free population lived in the cities, with some mansions in the countryside. With ~150,000-200,000 slaves in all three cities, either the math doesn't add up somehow, or by "smallest" city the WOIAF meant economically or something. New Ghis has between a quarter to a third of the slave population of 3 cities with only the free males who serve for 3 years?

Yes. I'd say that the winter town has a population of 10,000+ when full. Perhaps 12,500 at most. Barrowton is probably a little larger, at ~15,000.

New Ghis likely controls the large mainland area south of the Astapori lands, where Old Ghis once was.

I for one highly doubt that the majority of the free citizens live just in the cities. There are bound to be towns, villages and settlements spread out all over the hinterlands, with mansions, farms, forts and more spread out as well, all filled with free citizens doing their thing (officers, guards, nobles, merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, town drunks etc). All in all I'd say the slaver to slave ratio would be fairly equal all over the Ghiscari lands.

"The most vital of the Ghiscari cities is also the smallest and the newest [...]" is the quote from TWOIAF. Sounds to me like New Ghis is the economically most powerful/important but the smallest in terms of population and/or area.

 

[redtree]

1 hour ago, The Holy Goat said:

 

56 minutes ago, direpupy said:

 

Oh right i missed that, so KL is pretty much like Venice+Paris+London times 2 then. Pretty big

I wonder why in medieval era cities in Asia has much bigger population compare to Europe's cities
 

[direpupy]

11 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

To clarify, close to a million free men, the slaves making up for 3+ million more, depending on how close the ratio is to Volantis. 

The Siege of Meereen is an ongoing project, with ships bringing more troops every day. There are 6 legions right now because that is the amount that has arrived by now. Volantis, being significantly farther away, sent it's contribution as one force on 300-500 ships. The other members of the coalition are closer and are using thier fleets to bring troops and supplies in runs, and at the same time enact a blockade.

Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys.

We are told that not even a fifth of the houses are occupied in Winter Town during summer (Bran V, AGOT), giving at most ~2,500 permanent residents if they were full to bursting with under 10,000 men squeezing in.

IIRC New Ghis is an island nation, no? Where else do they control? I get that Astapor and Yunkai and Meereen control more land than New Ghis, but it really seemed like the bulk of the free population lived in the cities, with some mansions in the countryside. With ~150,000-200,000 slaves in all three cities, either the math doesn't add up somehow, or by "smallest" city the WOIAF meant economically or something. New Ghis has between a quarter to a third of the slave population of 3 cities with only the free males who serve for 3 years?

Ah i thought you where talking whole population, so we are actually one the same page here.

By smallest they can mean smallest in size its not necessarily smallest in population.

[direpupy]

17 minutes ago, The Holy Goat said:

I did read everything. And I agreed with you while reiterating my point.

"The most vital of the Ghiscari cities is also the smallest and the newest [...]" is the quote from TWOIAF. Sounds to me like New Ghis is the economically most powerful/important but the smallest in terms of population and/or area.

 

then i misunderstood you sorry.

as i said in the post above perhaps its the smallest in size but bigger in population, the other cities Meereen Astapor and Yunkai seem to be in decline so they may be big but perhaps not that big in population.

[Nyrhex]

18 minutes ago, The Holy Goat said:

New Ghis likely controls the large mainland area south of the Astapori lands, where Old Ghis once was.

I for one highly doubt that the majority of the free citizens live just in the cities. There are bound to be towns, villages and settlements spread out all over the hinterlands, with mansions, farms, forts and more spread out as well, all filled with free citizens doing their thing (officers, guards, nobles, merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, town drunks etc). All in all I'd say the slaver to slave ratio would be fairly equal all over the Ghiscari lands.

"The most vital of the Ghiscari cities is also the smallest and the newest [...]" is the quote from TWOIAF. Sounds to me like New Ghis is the economically most powerful/important but the smallest in terms of population and/or area.

 

There is little to suggest that New Ghis controls the land of Old Ghis. Old Ghis suffered the end we are told of Carthage, though unlike that city Old Ghis was never resettled, and in this fantasy setting it's land was salted and there is little if any population there. Astapor to the North is where life starts, not in the land that was sundered. The ruins of Old Ghis are on one end of the Ghiscari Strait, New Ghis on it's island at the other end.

And since we are talking about an island city state, I tlooked at it as one unit, though it is just as likely that it's a small capital city and plenty of other towns all over the island. We only have the world book here, and the comparison to the port at Volantis. Though that one isn't really a contest, as the port in Volantis is massive by any standard.

[Jaak]

On 4.3.2016 at 7:07 PM, SeanF said:

The largest cities of Westeros are far bigger than the cities of Western Europe, in the middle ages (although not bigger than some contemporary Middle Eastern cities, and smaller than some contemporary Chinese cities).

Paris in 1340 probably had about 100,000 people, London about 50,000.  At the other end of the scale, a city like Exeter had about 3,000.  The qualification for a city in Western Europe was to have a Cathedral.  I don't know what the qualification is in Westeros.  There are probably quite a few places that have populations of 5-50,000, which rank as towns.

France compiled taxation lists in 1328.

In Paris, they found 61 089 households.

So population over 200 000. Possibly closer to 300 000.

How realistic would it be for the time of War of 5 Kings to have:

King´s Landing nearly 300 000 (range of Paris) in peacetime, swelling to 400 000 with refugees, and 500 000 with the quartered soldiers;

Oldtown slighly over 200 000

Lannisport over 100 000

Gulltown and White Harbour over 50 000

everything else - below 50 000?

[The Holy Goat]

48 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

There is little to suggest that New Ghis controls the land of Old Ghis. Old Ghis suffered the end we are told of Carthage, though unlike that city Old Ghis was never resettled, and in this fantasy setting it's land was salted and there is little if any population there. Astapor to the North is where life starts, not in the land that was sundered. The ruins of Old Ghis are on one end of the Ghiscari Strait, New Ghis on it's island at the other end.

And since we are talking about an island city state, I tlooked at it as one unit, though it is just as likely that it's a small capital city and plenty of other towns all over the island. We only have the world book here, and the comparison to the port at Volantis. Though that one isn't really a contest, as the port in Volantis is massive by any standard.

Who rules those lands then? There are no indication that they are utterly uninhabitable. Salting the earth is a symbolic gesture used when the conqueror wants to "curse the land", rather than an actual practical way of causing long-lasting harm to the regions ability to grow a harvest, and even if the Valyrians did use enough salt to actually hamper the harvest, it's unlikely that would last for the five thousand years since Old Ghis fell. Same with over-liming. While the soil might've been less fertile for a while after the Fall of Old Ghis, it's more liekly that the damaged infrastructure and the fact that the capital was utterly razed with most of it's leadership and population killed or enslaved, was a bigger reason why Ghis never rose again.

Either way, all the material we have on the Ghiscari cities suggest that they really aren't very populous or powerful.

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

then i misunderstood you sorry.

as i said in the post above perhaps its the smallest in size but bigger in population, the other cities Meereen Astapor and Yunkai seem to be in decline so they may be big but perhaps not that big in population.

No problem.

I find it hard to believe they are refering to area though. Usually when talking about "city size" one refers to population.

[John Doe]

2 hours ago, The Holy Goat said:

King's Landing has been stated to have a population of 500,000 in peacetime.

 

This number is supported by GRRM himself, who considers King's Landing much larger than medieval London (remember that Westeros is much larger and much more populous than Britain).

Where?

 

Medieval London... what century are you talking about? In the 11th century, it only had 15k people in it, in 13th 100k. Both are not even close to 500k.

[direpupy]

1 hour ago, The Holy Goat said:

I find it hard to believe they are refering to area though. Usually when talking about "city size" one refers to population.

Usually yes but in the case of a city in decline this may not be the case, in this we may want to look at the example of Volantis

A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VII

Old Volantis, first daughter of Valyria, the dwarf mused. Proud Volantis, queen of the Rhoyne and mistress of the Summer Sea, home to noble lords and lovely ladies of the most ancient blood. Never mind the packs of naked children that roamed the alleys screaming in shrill voices, or the bravos standing in the doors of wineshops fingering their sword hilts, or the slaves with their bent backs and tattooed faces who scurried everywhere like cockroaches. Mighty Volantis, grandest and most populous of the Nine Free Cities. Ancient wars had depopulated much of the city, however, and large areas of Volantis had begun to sink back into the mud on which it stood. Beautiful Volantis, city of fountains and flowers. But half the fountains were dry, half the pools cracked and stagnant. Flowering vines sent up creepers from every crack in the wall or pavement, and young trees had taken root in the walls of abandoned shops and roofless temples.

Yet the people still boast of the size of there city and there harbour.

A Dance with Dragons - The Merchant's Man

Close enough, thought Quentyn. The Volantenes were fond of boasting that the hundred isles of Braavos could be dropped into their deep harbor and drowned. Quentyn had never seen Braavos, but he could believe it. Rich and ripe and rotted, Volantis covered the mouth of the Rhoyne like a warm wet kiss, stretching across hill and marsh on both sides of the river. Ships were everywhere, coming down the river or headed out to sea, crowding the wharves and piers, taking on cargo or off-loading it: warships and whalers and trading galleys, carracks and skiffs, cogs, great cogs, longships, swan ships, ships from Lys and Tyrosh and Pentos, Qartheen spicers big as palaces, ships from Tolos and Yunkai and the Basilisks. So many that Quentyn, seeing the port for the first time from the deck of the Meadowlark, had told his friends that they would only linger here three days.

The Ghiscari cities are likewise in decline.

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

The Usurper's dogs. "Yes." Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. "You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?" She pointed. "Look at the walls. You can see where they've begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don't. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highborn warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?"

From the same chapter.

The red brick streets of Astapor were almost crowded this morning. Slaves and servants lined the ways, while the slavers and their women donned their tokars to look down from their stepped pyramids. They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of, and their children's children. It made her wonder how many of them would ever have children.

Decline is the whole reason they became slavers.

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys III

For centuries Meereen and her sister cities Yunkai and Astapor had been the linchpins of the slave trade, the place where Dothraki khals and the corsairs of the Basilisk Isles sold their captives and the rest of the world came to buy. Without slaves, Meereen had little to offer traders. Copper was plentiful in the Ghiscari hills, but the metal was not as valuable as it had been when bronze ruled the world. The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds. "It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers," Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

Hizdar zo Loraq admits to the decline himself.

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IV

"What is love? Desire? No man with all his parts could ever look on you and not desire you, Daenerys. That is not why I would marry you, however. Before you came Meereen was dying. Our rulers were old men with withered cocks and crones whose puckered cunts were dry as dust. They sat atop their pyramids sipping apricot wine and talking of the glories of the Old Empire whilst the centuries slipped by and the very bricks of the city crumbled all around them. Custom and caution had an iron grip upon us till you awakened us with fire and blood. A new time has come, and new things are possible. Marry me."

So when speaking of the Ghiscari city's they may have been talking area instead of population.

[Werthead]

The ASoS maps show the area around Old Ghis as "Ghiscar", with the indication that New Ghis is trying to reclaim the lands of the old empire. Old Ghis is apparently unrecoverable, but the rest of the region would appear to be inhabitable. The slaver cities have maintained Ghiscari cultural values over the area, so New Ghis would likely not find it completely impossible to begin retaking those old lands, especially if they've had centuries to rebuild since the Doom.

Ghaen is a small island (118 miles wide by 56 miles, not including the peninsulas on the south coast), it would seem far too small to hold millions of people. So, logically, they must hold territory on the mainland nearby to support such military forces.

[aryagonnakill#2]

6 hours ago, Cayrouse said:

 I imagine most cities used to be towns- Oldtown included. King's Landing used to only be the spot in which the Targs got off their ships and built a fort. Didn't stop the area for growing massively over the course of 300 years. In fact, the idea that Gulltown has been an walled settlement since before the coming of the ANDALS makes it very believable that it should be a city by now.

I wasn't referring to the passing of time, I was referring to GRRM upgrading it from town to city between Clash and Storm.  It's right there on the map in the front of the book.

[Werthead]

34 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I wasn't referring to the passing of time, I was referring to GRRM upgrading it from town to city between Clash and Storm.  It's right there on the map in the front of the book.

Hmm. In my copy, ACoK's maps doesn't differentiate between towns, cities and castles, only between the capital castles and everything else. That differentiation wasn't brought in until ASoS, at least on the initial printing. I can't find any sign of the American maps doing anything differently.

[SeanF]

I find it hard to believe they are refering to area though. Usually when talking about "city size" one refers to population.

Usually yes but in the case of a city in decline this may not be the case, in this we may want to look at the example of Volantis

A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VII

Old Volantis, first daughter of Valyria, the dwarf mused. Proud Volantis, queen of the Rhoyne and mistress of the Summer Sea, home to noble lords and lovely ladies of the most ancient blood. Never mind the packs of naked children that roamed the alleys screaming in shrill voices, or the bravos standing in the doors of wineshops fingering their sword hilts, or the slaves with their bent backs and tattooed faces who scurried everywhere like cockroaches. Mighty Volantis, grandest and most populous of the Nine Free Cities. Ancient wars had depopulated much of the city, however, and large areas of Volantis had begun to sink back into the mud on which it stood. Beautiful Volantis, city of fountains and flowers. But half the fountains were dry, half the pools cracked and stagnant. Flowering vines sent up creepers from every crack in the wall or pavement, and young trees had taken root in the walls of abandoned shops and roofless temples.

Yet the people still boast of the size of there city and there harbour.

A Dance with Dragons - The Merchant's Man

Close enough, thought Quentyn. The Volantenes were fond of boasting that the hundred isles of Braavos could be dropped into their deep harbor and drowned. Quentyn had never seen Braavos, but he could believe it. Rich and ripe and rotted, Volantis covered the mouth of the Rhoyne like a warm wet kiss, stretching across hill and marsh on both sides of the river. Ships were everywhere, coming down the river or headed out to sea, crowding the wharves and piers, taking on cargo or off-loading it: warships and whalers and trading galleys, carracks and skiffs, cogs, great cogs, longships, swan ships, ships from Lys and Tyrosh and Pentos, Qartheen spicers big as palaces, ships from Tolos and Yunkai and the Basilisks. So many that Quentyn, seeing the port for the first time from the deck of the Meadowlark, had told his friends that they would only linger here three days.

The Ghiscari cities are likewise in decline.

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

The Usurper's dogs. "Yes." Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. "You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?" She pointed. "Look at the walls. You can see where they've begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don't. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highborn warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?"

From the same chapter.

The red brick streets of Astapor were almost crowded this morning. Slaves and servants lined the ways, while the slavers and their women donned their tokars to look down from their stepped pyramids. They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of, and their children's children. It made her wonder how many of them would ever have children.

Decline is the whole reason they became slavers.

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys III

For centuries Meereen and her sister cities Yunkai and Astapor had been the linchpins of the slave trade, the place where Dothraki khals and the corsairs of the Basilisk Isles sold their captives and the rest of the world came to buy. Without slaves, Meereen had little to offer traders. Copper was plentiful in the Ghiscari hills, but the metal was not as valuable as it had been when bronze ruled the world. The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds. "It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers," Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

Hizdar zo Loraq admits to the decline himself.

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IV

"What is love? Desire? No man with all his parts could ever look on you and not desire you, Daenerys. That is not why I would marry you, however. Before you came Meereen was dying. Our rulers were old men with withered cocks and crones whose puckered cunts were dry as dust. They sat atop their pyramids sipping apricot wine and talking of the glories of the Old Empire whilst the centuries slipped by and the very bricks of the city crumbled all around them. Custom and caution had an iron grip upon us till you awakened us with fire and blood. A new time has come, and new things are possible. Marry me."

So when speaking of the Ghiscari city's they may have been talking area instead of population.

Volantis is probably like Constantinople just before the Fourth Crusade. Still a great city, but well past its best.

My overall impression is that most city-states based on slavery are stagnating, including Qarth and Slavers Bay.

[SeanF]

The ASoS maps show the area around Old Ghis as "Ghiscar", with the indication that New Ghis is trying to reclaim the lands of the old empire. Old Ghis is apparently unrecoverable, but the rest of the region would appear to be inhabitable. The slaver cities have maintained Ghiscari cultural values over the area, so New Ghis would likely not find it completely impossible to begin retaking those old lands, especially if they've had centuries to rebuild since the Doom.

Ghaen is a small island (118 miles wide by 56 miles, not including the peninsulas on the south coast), it would seem far too small to hold millions of people. So, logically, they must hold territory on the mainland nearby to support such military forces.

BTW, thanks for your new blog. The geography is very interesting.

[SeanF]

The largest cities of Westeros are far bigger than the cities of Western Europe, in the middle ages (although not bigger than some contemporary Middle Eastern cities, and smaller than some contemporary Chinese cities).

Paris in 1340 probably had about 100,000 people, London about 50,000. At the other end of the scale, a city like Exeter had about 3,000. The qualification for a city in Western Europe was to have a Cathedral. I don't know what the qualification is in Westeros. There are probably quite a few places that have populations of 5-50,000, which rank as towns.

France compiled taxation lists in 1328.

In Paris, they found 61 089 households.

So population over 200 000. Possibly closer to 300 000.

How realistic would it be for the time of War of 5 Kings to have:

King´s Landing nearly 300 000 (range of Paris) in peacetime, swelling to 400 000 with refugees, and 500 000 with the quartered soldiers;

Oldtown slighly over 200 000

Lannisport over 100 000

Gulltown and White Harbour over 50 000

everything else - below 50 000?

Thanks. Do we have any idea of household size?

I know in England in 1377, the population was about 1.7 times the number of people assessed for the poll tax, which lets us estimate city populations. Obviously, they were drastically reduced, compared to pre-Plague numbers.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

10 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 

Thanks. Do we have any idea of household size?

I know in England in 1377, the population was about 1.7 times the number of people assessed for the poll tax, which lets us estimate city populations. Obviously, they were drastically reduced, compared to pre-Plague numbers.

4-6 people on average, depending on time and place. At least for Sweden, but it had a relatively similar social structure as France did during this time so it ought to be true for them too. Though someone who knows more about France could well chime in. 

In any case, urban households probably tended to be a bit smaller than rural ones. 

[The Holy Goat]

4 hours ago, John Doe said:

Where?

 

Medieval London... what century are you talking about? In the 11th century, it only had 15k people in it, in 13th 100k. Both are not even close to 500k.

 

Tyrion V, ASOS.

Quote

 

"Not only do I see it, I believe I smell it now."

 

"Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you'll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father's own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can't really say how many are left, but there's more than I care to count, anyway."

 

 

Granted, some of those 500,000 are soldiers.

 

Also: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography

[Nyrhex]

5 hours ago, The Holy Goat said:

Who rules those lands then? There are no indication that they are utterly uninhabitable. Salting the earth is a symbolic gesture used when the conqueror wants to "curse the land", rather than an actual practical way of causing long-lasting harm to the regions ability to grow a harvest, and even if the Valyrians did use enough salt to actually hamper the harvest, it's unlikely that would last for the five thousand years since Old Ghis fell. Same with over-liming. While the soil might've been less fertile for a while after the Fall of Old Ghis, it's more liekly that the damaged infrastructure and the fact that the capital was utterly razed with most of it's leadership and population killed or enslaved, was a bigger reason why Ghis never rose again.

Either way, all the material we have on the Ghiscari cities suggest that they really aren't very populous or powerful.

I think it is safe to say that no one controls them. New Ghis may lay claim to them, but there does not seem to be anything note-wrothy left there. Salting the earth may mean little, and I made mention on how our Carthage was resettled after, but in GRRM's world this is a thing that is used in his world building.

The region is very clearly depicted as a shambling relic, New Ghis is the only faction that shows some signs of life, but they are an island nation, and are refered to as such and in contrast to the ruins on the other side of the staits. Did they establish colonies? Maybe, but we have nothing on this aside from logic that the books repeatedly try and fight off at every turn. The description of the region, plus New Ghis being established on an island far away, leads to an image of a ruined city in a wasteland. Even if there are colonies, we are talking about a small portion of the free population, with the majority being back on the home island.

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The ASoS maps show the area around Old Ghis as "Ghiscar", with the indication that New Ghis is trying to reclaim the lands of the old empire. Old Ghis is apparently unrecoverable, but the rest of the region would appear to be inhabitable. The slaver cities have maintained Ghiscari cultural values over the area, so New Ghis would likely not find it completely impossible to begin retaking those old lands, especially if they've had centuries to rebuild since the Doom.

Ghaen is a small island (118 miles wide by 56 miles, not including the peninsulas on the south coast), it would seem far too small to hold millions of people. So, logically, they must hold territory on the mainland nearby to support such military forces.

Ghiscar is the same as Andalos or the Rhoyne. It's the name of a region, any link to the population is vague at best by now. 

And not much use from working with numbers like that, GRRM hates numbers, and what we are doing with population and troops is bad enough. The land can be as fertile as GRRM wants, he can claim that the majority of the food comes from the sea, and he can say that the majority of the food is imported thanks to income from the slave trade. The theme of the region is that it's the rotten corpse of an empire, brought back to life in memory only by wannabe city states that rose up after the last empire came to a sudden and violent end.

The island and the sea and the slave economy can feed the numbers that GRRM wants. Same as Qarth being a mssive city while having a wasteland all around it, or Braavos being a trade empire by being at the ass end of the logical trade routs, or the Freys being very wealthy via trade while having thier toll bridge leading to a bog with a muddy road that sees next to no trade going through it, or King's Landing not having a bridge across the Blackwater despite needing daily food shipments from the south for the past 300 years, etc, etc.

The map is a suggestion, the scale is next to meaningless. When GRRM wants something to be big he gives a big number, when he wants someone to teleport due to plot he teleports him, and when he gives a population for a region he keeps things vague enough so he can avoid bothering with exact numbers because he hates them. So no, I don't think we can use the map to say that logically there should be colonies, because the auther doesn't work like that.

1 hour ago, The Holy Goat said:

 

Tyrion V, ASOS.

 

Granted, some of those 500,000 are soldiers.

 

Also: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography

"Not only do I see it, I believe I smell it now."

"Then take a good sniff, my lord. Fill up your nose. Half a million people stink more than three hundred, you'll find. Do you smell the gold cloaks? There are near five thousand of them. My father's own sworn swords must account for another twenty thousand. And then there are the roses. Roses smell so sweet, don't they? Especially when there are so many of them. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand roses, in the city or camped outside it, I can't really say how many are left, but there's more than I care to count, anyway."

The quote actually makes it sound like Tyrion is counting 500,000 civilians, then adds the Lannisters and the Tyrells for near 600,000 people at the time.