How many wildlings and Westerosi are there?

[Free Northman]

Sure, but the distance between Karhold and Winterfell is at the most half that between Winterfell and King's Landing. I could see it being significantly faster because of the Kingsroad, but months using horses to go to Karhold? I find that a bit hard to believe to be honest

Look, I don't know about the travel times. Depending on the distance covered per day - 30 miles?, I'd expect travel between the regional capitals to be fairly straightforward. But reaching a peasant village in the next valley, if there's just an overgrown deer track to go by, that's a different story altogether.

[MGorgon]

Nope. It took somewhere between three months and half a year. On the Kingsroad.

That's probably the reason Egypt was named the breadbasket of Rome...

6 months??? That makes me wonder how realistic it is that the north/south even give a crap about each other with the frequency that they do. It's hard to picture only 2-3 years passing in the 5 books so far

[Free Northman]

6 months??? That makes me wonder how realistic it is that the north/south even give a crap about each other with the frequency that they do. It's hard to picture only 2-3 years passing in the 5 books so far

Indeed. A single kingdom the size of Westeros, based on a medieval technology level seems unlikely to me.

The South alone is larger than the entire Western Europe, and that had a dozen or more bitterly opposed Kingdoms, cultures and societies constantly at war with one another during the Middle Ages.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

6 months??? That makes me wonder how realistic it is that the north/south even give a crap about each other with the frequency that they do. It's hard to picture only 2-3 years passing in the 5 books so far

That's exactly the point - they don't.

Between Torrhen kneeling and Roberts Rebellion, the North wasn't involved with anything in the South. Neither the Dance of Dragons nor any of the Blackfyre Rebellions involved a single House of the North. And the Targ King visited Winterfell once in 283 years. And a second time the (at the time) utterly unimportant Egg.

Apart from the title, the picture on coins and a little bit of taxation, nothing changed after the Conquest.

[MGorgon]

That's exactly the point - they don't.

Between Torrhen kneeling and Roberts Rebellion, the North wasn't involved with anything in the South. Neither the Dance of Dragons nor any of the Blackfyre Rebellions involved a single House of the North. And the Targ King visited Winterfell once in 283 years. And a second time the (at the time) utterly unimportant Egg.

Apart from the title, the picture on coins and a little bit of taxation, nothing changed after the Conquest.

Interesting. It's hard to wrap your head around just how enormous Westeros really is. I might've gotten the month travel estimate from the tv show and not the books, so that's where the confusion came from.

What would be very interesting is population graphs over the millenia in Westeros. Given how brutal their winters can be, their lack of technological development could be explained by half the population starving or freezing to death during the really bad winters.

[BinkyBonks]

Nope. It took somewhere between three months and half a year. On the Kingsroad.

That's probably the reason Egypt was named the breadbasket of Rome...

Do you have a particle of evidence that most of the city of Rome's food came from Egypt as opposed to Italy as I said?

If you don't have evidence, then you can shut the hell up and cut it out with these irrelevant, trolling comments.

[BinkyBonks]

London in the Middle Ages had something like 40,000 inhabitants, compared to Imperial Rome's 1 million people.

There is no comparison.

King's Landing has a million inhabitants.

WTF kind of drugs are you taking? Get it in your head: Westeros is not medieval Europe. The whole point of my previous posts was to argue that Westeros is actually more similar to the Roman Empire in all sorts of interesting ways.

[BinkyBonks]

Indeed. A single kingdom the size of Westeros, based on a medieval technology level seems unlikely to me.

I suggest you pick up a history book. It's been repeatedly pointed out to you that Rome's technology was inferior to medieval technology. And yet, it's an example of a Westeros-sized empire.

[Kim87]

Do you have a particle of evidence that most of the city of Rome's food came from Egypt as opposed to Italy as I said?

If you don't have evidence, then you can shut the hell up and cut it out with these irrelevant, trolling comments.

Depending on the era, that is actually true. Rome was very dependent on food imports. Just do a quick google search.

Edited for spelling*

[romantic]

Please everyone, I find this a very interesting topic and would hate it to be shut because posters are criticising each other :fencing: rather than the argument. :cheers:

Previously, I ( :dunce: ) had no idea of the sheer size of Westeros nor its population. The impression I got from the books was that a lot of people were killed in the recent fighting and the land was depopulated but, according to the discussion here, this is simply not true. I find it reassuring to know that the north may still have the manpower to support the Starks in their eventual return (I hope they return!) and there is a significant population in Westeros to defend against the white walkers and wights when they come south.

So, if there are still lots of people I would assume food is going to be the biggest problem when the years of winter hit for a number of reasons:-

a. the inability or, at the very least, the decreased ability to produce food during winter;

b. the increased number of non-productive (or less productive) people due to injuries, illness and deaths amongst the men and therefore a greater proportion of children, elderly and women (though many women would step up their own contribution as in WW2);

c. the recent fighting which has destroyed much of the recent harvest in the centre and north of Westeros and stopped replanting of crops;

d. the wealth/money wasted on the fighting which could have been used to buy in food from southern Westeros or Essos; and,

e. the size of the debt that the throne already owes the Lannisters, the Iron Bank, etc. which might make it harder to borrow more money.

So, could a bigger population might make the question of food supplies even more crucial?

(off-topic but these types of discussions make me realise how hard it is to be an author today because of the huge amount of discussion that can follow any book release. No wonder there is a big delay between books).

[romantic]

Martin has further said that the Iceland depiction of the Lands Beyond the Wall in the TV series is incorrect, as those lands are actually more like the areas around Michigan - heavily forested, rather than ice fields as depicted in the show.

Meaning that the North itself (south of the Wall) is similar to the Northern United States, rather than to Canada or Alaska.

This is another thing I didn't realise. Maybe because I saw the tv series first but I thought north of the wall was pretty much snowbound. I was always mystified how people could survive let alone how plants could grow. Thanks.

[Jedi Master Hot Pie]

Sigh.

The known urbanised population of Westeros is in the region of 1.5 million people.

Giving Westeros a population of say 10 million, as you seem to be suggesting, would mean that 15% of the entire population is urbanised. This is not possible in the real medieval world.

This is DOUBLY impossible in the Westerosi world, with its erratic seasons.

Martin has further said that the Iceland depiction of the Lands Beyond the Wall in the TV series is incorrect, as those lands are actually more like the areas around Michigan - heavily forested, rather than ice fields as depicted in the show.

Meaning that the North itself (south of the Wall) is similar to the Northern United States, rather than to Canada or Alaska.

Now, for the Reach to field an army of around 100,000, it would have to be FAR more populous than medieval France, which NEVER raised an army even CLOSE to that size.

This is the part that you don't get.

Raising an army of 30,000 doesn't mean that that is close to the living number of men in your population. It means that is at best 1% of your population.

And as Martin said, the North's army was understated due to the difficulty in gathering men over long distances in the North.

Robb DID leave 30,000 men behind. Due to his haste, and due to the last Harvest that was underway at the time.

So the full 50,000 men that the North can truly raise, given time, represents 1% of it's population, more or less.

The bottomline is that you simply have no true understanding of the sheer size of Westeros.

The North's wildness, lack of communications lines, roads etc. means that to a subsistence farmer living 100 miles from Karhold, the War probably doesn't even exist. He was never even reached by the summons to war, and is blisfully going about his daily business, unaware of what's going on in the South.

Once Winter arrives, he will pack up and head to his nearest stronghold. And then the true population size will reveal itself.

I never said the population was 10 million, don't put words in my mouth.

I simply implied that 40 million people living in Westeros is unrealistic.

Wait, what? How often does the USA get summer snows?

You're forgetting, once again, that peasantry joined the fighting in Westeros. The Tyrells don't have 100,000 soldiers. They can have 100,000 soldiers if they want to, but how many of them are actually real soldiers? Where does this 1% come from?

It doesn't mean that, not in Westeros. Whilst I'm sure Robb did not even take 20% of the male population, enough left so that those left behind would feel the effects of 20,000 men leaving. If 20,000 men is 1% of the population, why the hell did the Karstark's crop go to rot? Why aren't there enough men to tend to the fields?

He didn't leave 30,000 men behind. Where are all those men now? It seems the Boltons, Stannis (of which 1/3 of his army is Southron) and Manderly's barely have a combined force of 10,000. If men could come to Winterfell as far away from Karhold (which is apparently from Warsaw to Barcelona) and Bear Island, why did Robb have issues raising enough men? Apart from rural villages, most men in the North should've known about Robb gathering his army. We know that the Dustins/Ryswells, Boltons and Manderly's withheld portions of their armies, but that does not equal 30,000 men. Once again, your 1% figure has been stomped by POVs we get in the books, the facts we know from the books and the implications we're getting from them.

[Clueless Northman]

So according to the estimates 2% of the population would serve in standing armies. So there should be 800,000 soldiers in Westeros, with 120,000 of those being from the North.

Rome never had a standing army higher than 500.000 troops, even when it had more than 75 mio people.

Medieval armies were significantly smaller, even proportionally to the countries' population.

Considering this and the numbers in the books, I'd say that the total fighting power of Westeros is of 500.000 men at best. And that's counting the troops that would stay in their own kingdom as reserves and local security forces.

Then, what we should consider when speaking of depleted forces, is that it's more people with any idea of how to fight (so immediately usable manpower) rather than the total workforce of 15-50 y males).

I think this is one of the weak points of the story, the population numbers does not add up. That the north would have been left so depopulated by losing 20 thousand men is just silly. The place is freaking huge. Yet we are told so several times in the books.

Indeed.

The problem is that Martin was basically basing his story on Medieval Europe, which was mostly a bunch of small countries, and even when the big ones got involved, battles never had more than 20.000 men on one side (including 100-years war).

Westeros is way bigger than Europe, so even a 40 mio population figure is quite ridiculously low. Considering that France oscillated between 12 to 20 mio between 1100 and 1700, picking a density quite a bit lower than France's low point wouldn't be a bad guess for The Reach, which probably is the area that can support the highest density (outside King's Landing and the Iron Islands).

I think the key factor is that, with such a medieval world, Westeros lacks logistics. You could have battles of 150.000 guys on each side, given the size of the kingdoms. It's just that, unlike ancient Rome and China, and possibly unlike Valyria, Westeros is backwards, has barely any road system, is a nearly completely agrarian society with just a handful of big cities.

Still, that means that the North should be able to field way more than 50.000 troops - but it couldn't send them in one single big army; there's no way they could be supplied.

Try and talk about a subject you know something about. Ancient Rome had a population of the order of 1.5 million. There is nothing impossible about most of the population being concentrated into urban centres. All it requires is the right infrastructure...such as that which is rendered broken by the War of the Five Kings, leaving the whole city to starve.

Westeros simply never had such a level of organization, infrastructure and logistics.

Besides, even the Roman Empire never reached 15% urbanization.

And, unlike Westeros, Rome could field a larger standing army not only because of logistics, but also because it used slaves on a large scale, including for agriculture. A medieval world like Westeros has free people tending their own fields, or their lord's, who mostly lived off the land.

Do you have a particle of evidence that most of the city of Rome's food came from Egypt as opposed to Italy as I said?

If you don't have evidence, then you can shut the hell up and cut it out with these irrelevant, trolling comments.

YOU are the troll.

Do you have any notion of ancient history? Did you ever read anything about ancient Rome? I mean, I'm pretty sure even Wikipedia would be enough to educate you.

[Hedge Lawyer]

I've seen lots of supposed facts about the size of Westeros bandied about in this thread, but I don't remember reading anything in the books to support them. Where does the idea that Karhold is the size of Great Britain come from? Where does this notion of basically Asia-sized Westeros come from?

One of the major points of AFfC was to establish that the general population of the middle of Westeros was so devestated by the war, and so little food was able to be harvested, there was basically no chance for the Riverlands, Westerlands, the North, and Kings Landing to be prepared for the winter. It certainly didn't imply that there were millions of peasants left working the fields. The devestation seemed to be like 30 Years War in Germany levels.

[Jedi Master Hot Pie]

I've seen lots of supposed facts about the size of Westeros bandied about in this thread, but I don't remember reading anything in the books to support them. Where does the idea that Karhold is the size of Great Britain come from? Where does this notion of basically Asia-sized Westeros come from?

One of the major points of AFfC was to establish that the general population of the middle of Westeros was so devestated by the war, and so little food was able to be harvested, there was basically no chance for the Riverlands, Westerlands, the North, and Kings Landing to be prepared for the winter. It certainly didn't imply that there were millions of peasants left working the fields. The devestation seemed to be like 30 Years War in Germany levels.

People have used the apparent length of the wall and used it to calculate the size of Westeros, and estimates appear to show that it is around the size of South America.

I feel this is a bit too large as the 300-mile long wall thing seems a bit exaggerated, but some of the places in Westeros are larger than what we think they are.

[Free Northman]

People have used the apparent length of the wall and used it to calculate the size of Westeros, and estimates appear to show that it is around the size of South America.

I feel this is a bit too large as the 300-mile long wall thing seems a bit exaggerated, but some of the places in Westeros are larger than what we think they are.

People didn't just use the length of the Wall willy nilly. Martin stated that the Wall can be used as a measuring tool to determine distances on the map. Furthermore, Martin stated independently that Westeros is a South America sized continent.

These are not things we dreamed up out of the air. This is straight from Martin himself.

And it is corroborated over and over again in the text. Stannis says Deepwood Motte is 300 miles from Winterfell as the crow flies. If you look at the map, and the length of the Wall, it is bang on the money.

The size of Westeros is not disputed. Using the Wall, you can see that it is between 2500 and 3000 miles from the Wall to Dorne. It is a massive continent.

[Free Northman]

I never said the population was 10 million, don't put words in my mouth.

I simply implied that 40 million people living in Westeros is unrealistic.

Wait, what? How often does the USA get summer snows?

You're forgetting, once again, that peasantry joined the fighting in Westeros. The Tyrells don't have 100,000 soldiers. They can have 100,000 soldiers if they want to, but how many of them are actually real soldiers? Where does this 1% come from?

It doesn't mean that, not in Westeros. Whilst I'm sure Robb did not even take 20% of the male population, enough left so that those left behind would feel the effects of 20,000 men leaving. If 20,000 men is 1% of the population, why the hell did the Karstark's crop go to rot? Why aren't there enough men to tend to the fields?

He didn't leave 30,000 men behind. Where are all those men now? It seems the Boltons, Stannis (of which 1/3 of his army is Southron) and Manderly's barely have a combined force of 10,000. If men could come to Winterfell as far away from Karhold (which is apparently from Warsaw to Barcelona) and Bear Island, why did Robb have issues raising enough men? Apart from rural villages, most men in the North should've known about Robb gathering his army. We know that the Dustins/Ryswells, Boltons and Manderly's withheld portions of their armies, but that does not equal 30,000 men. Once again, your 1% figure has been stomped by POVs we get in the books, the facts we know from the books and the implications we're getting from them.

There is so much evidence. I will give one small example.

Martin has stated that the North can raise a similar army to the Vale.

Littlefinger said that the Lords Declarant could have 30,000 men at his gates in no time. That's just the Lords Declarant, which are only a portion of the Vale's strength (a mere 7 powerful lords).

So the full power of the Vale would be much more than 30,000. At least 40,000, and more likely around 50,000. But then, in the Vale, it is easy to raise this force, as the population is densely packed together. In the North, it is much more difficult, and lords are more hesitant to release their men.

Hence, Robb raised 18,000 in a hurry. But the rest (to bring him up to a similar level as the Vale's full strength) are still distributed over the vast North, slowly trickling in to White Harbor now, and joining Stannis army, or most probably waiting for a Stark to retake Winterfell before they flock to his banner.

[Free Northman]

And regarding Lord Karstark's harvest going to rot, what exactly constitutes lord Karstark's harvest?

Let's use the Starks as an example. Castle Cerwyn is a mere one day's ride from Winterfell, meaning that the lands one day's ride from Winterfell in that direction would be part of Lord Cerwyn's farmland. Hence, the Stark's own harvests may not stretch much more than one day's ride from Winterfell.

If Eddard sent all his men off to war, and his fields are left unharvested as a result, he cannot just grab Lord Cerwyn's peasants in to come and harvest it for him, because Lord Cerwyn's peasants are busy harvesting their own fields.

Therefore, while Lord Karstark's harvest may be going to rot, it does not mean that the harvest of his bannermen a mere 3 days ride from Karhold are also going to rot. Now, we've already shown that the Karstark bannermen occuppy an area larger than England.

Therefore, to use England as an example, if Karhold equates to London, then if the harvests around London are going to rot, it doesn't mean that the harvests in Yorkshire or any other part of England are rotting too.

It is just that Lord Karstark and Lord Umber took a lot of men from their immediate area, in a hurry to get to Winterfell, but the rest of their huge territories may well be largely untouched.

[Free Northman]

Now let's have a look at the map of the North, and apply some simple logic.

Lord Karstark has been used as an example.

He brought 2300 men to Winterfell. It is likely that the Umbers brought a similar number.

Compare that to the Manderlys, who brought a mere 1500 or thereabouts. Manderly rules an area as large or larger than that of Lord Karstark. Yet White Harbor is located about 600 miles south of Karhold, and 1000 miles south of the Last Hearth.

How much more fertile and populous would Manderlys "southern" lands be compared to that of the Greatjon? Far more populous, is the answer. So given a similar sized territory, but with a population density 3 or 4 times higher due to the better climate, fertility of the lands etc., Manderly should be able to raise an army at least 3 or 4 times the size of the Karstarks.

Yet he sends a paltry 1500 men to join Robb? Clearly, Manderly has close to 10,000 men in total.

A similar argument applies to the Barrowlands and the Rills. 1000 miles south of the Umber lands, yet we learn that the Northern half of the North sends 12,000 men to join Robb, while the entire Southern half sends a mere 6000 additional men, including the 1500 from the Manderlys?

No, something is very wrong with that equation. The Southern half of the North should be sending at least twice the number of men gathered from the Northern half, yet we see the opposite is in fact the case, with the Northern half sending twice as many men as the more fertile southern half.

Clearly this links strongly with Lady Dustin's comments that she kept back the greater part of her strength in Barrowton (the second most populous settlement in the North), and with Lord Manderly keeping his strength back to protect the Eatern coast.

Basically, what we are left with is this simple equation:

The remote Northern lords gathered the men most immediately available around their keeps and the keeps of those of their lesser bannermen that responded. But due to the urgency and distance they had to cover, they couldn't wait for men from every remote corner of their vast, wild territories.

They ended up brining 12,000 men to Robb, as stated in Bran's chapter at Winterfell, but due to the reasons given above, that is obviously not the full strength of their regions. Given more time, that could well have been 20,000 men altogether. (The 3000 Mountain Clansmen and maybe 3000 Skagosi who didn't join would have raised this "army from the North" to 18,000 in its own right)

In the southern half of the North, the contribution was even worse, with only 6000 men joining from the Barrowlands, the Rills, the Neck and all the lands ruled by Lord Manderly and the other lords from the southeast - who only joined Robb's army at Moat Cailin, as shown in Catelyn's Chapter there.

This 6000 was probably out of much more, as the "southern" North must undoubtedly have at least twice the population of the "northern" North", (but more likely it has 3 times the population density of areas like the Umber lands and the lands of the Northern Mountain Clans)

Therefore, if the "northern lords" can raise 18,000 (including the 3000 Clansmen and 3000 Skagosi), then the southern lords should be able to raise at least double that - but let's cap it at say 30,000, for argument's sake.

If you add it all together, you are looking at a force MUCH larger than Robb's 18,000.

45,000 - 50,000 seems to be a minimum.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

I never said the population was 10 million, don't put words in my mouth.

I simply implied that 40 million people living in Westeros is unrealistic.

Yes, it's pretty unrealistic. It should be at least twice that, maybe four times, to match medieval Europe in density.

Wait, what? How often does the USA get summer snows?

You're forgetting, once again, that peasantry joined the fighting in Westeros. The Tyrells don't have 100,000 soldiers. They can have 100,000 soldiers if they want to, but how many of them are actually real soldiers? Where does this 1% come from?

Where do the peasants join the fighting? Yeomanry doesn't count, that was the same in the Middle Ages.

It doesn't mean that, not in Westeros. Whilst I'm sure Robb did not even take 20% of the male population, enough left so that those left behind would feel the effects of 20,000 men leaving. If 20,000 men is 1% of the population, why the hell did the Karstark's crop go to rot? Why aren't there enough men to tend to the fields?

You do realize that at least half the male population are children? And you do realize how much workforce you need to grow food without modern machines, modern plants, modern weedkillers. And you do realizw that the men the Karstarks took aren't spread equally over the area but the area around the castle itself had to provide the lions share?

He didn't leave 30,000 men behind. Where are all those men now? It seems the Boltons, Stannis (of which 1/3 of his army is Southron) and Manderly's barely have a combined force of 10,000. If men could come to Winterfell as far away from Karhold (which is apparently from Warsaw to Barcelona) and Bear Island, why did Robb have issues raising enough men? Apart from rural villages, most men in the North should've known about Robb gathering his army. We know that the Dustins/Ryswells, Boltons and Manderly's withheld portions of their armies, but that does not equal 30,000 men. Once again, your 1% figure has been stomped by POVs we get in the books, the facts we know from the books and the implications we're getting from them.

Well, considering that Manderley alone can man 50 galleys (about 7,500 men) and has landforces to spare, he alone has probably about 15,000 men available. The Boltons have about 6,000 altogether, Stannis has about 1,000 Southerners and at least 4,000 Northerners, there were still men coming to his army. Furthermore the Reeds are a noble House as powerful as anybody else and haven't comitted anything yet, probably another 5,000 available. The same holds true for the Skagosi. Umber still has at least 1,000 men. That's at least 36,000 men, not counting Dustins, Rhyswells, Tallharts, Glovers, Flints of Flints Finger, Karstark, Cerwyn, Hornwood and Winterfell itself. Did I forget any Houses?