Post by Arthur on Nov 20, 2010 10:14:32 GMT -6
Population Density:
How Many In Arthur’s Britain?[/center]
Arthur's Britannia is riddled with villages, several miles or so apart, covering the entire countryside. It is important to remember that communities the size of a village or hamlet are not self- supporting in any real meaning of the term, they exist in vast networks. With one exception, the frontier country, where isolated towns have no choice but to exist. But these towns will tend to be large and walled, usually under a Lord or Noble. On the frontier, food and goods are usually delivered by merchant caravans rather than produced locally.
The average population density for our Britannia is from 30 per square mile, with lots of rocks, lots of rain, and lots of ice. No land is wasted if it can be settled and farmed. There are many factors that determine the population density, but none as important as arable land and climate. If food will grow, so will peasants.
• Britannia is one of the least populous countries, with only 42 people per square mile, most of them clustered in the southern half of the isles.
Town and City Population: How Many In Those Walls?
For roleplay purposes, UB settlements will be divided into Villages, Towns, and Cities
Villages range from 20 to 500 people. “Unto Britannia” will have hundreds of them. Villages are agrarian communities within the safe folds of civilization. They provide the basic source of food and land-stability in a feudal system. Usually, a village that supports orchards or grain fields) is called a "hamlet".
Towns range in population from 500 - 10,000 people. Cities and towns tend to have walls only if they are frequently threatened.
Cities tend to be from 10,000 or more people, with an average in the middle of that range. A typical large kingdom will have only a few cities in this population range.
Towns and Cities of any scale are the result of traffic. Coastlines, navigable rivers and overland trade-routes form a criss-crossing pattern of trade-arteries, and the towns and cities grow along those lines. The larger the artery, the larger the town. And where several large arteries converge, you have a city. Villages are scattered densely through the country between the larger settlements.
Population Spread
- 89 % of the country's population live in villages.
- 2 % of the country's populous will live in isolated dwellings, or collections of huts with a total population of under 20, or will be itinerant workers and wanderers. Settlements too small to be called villages….
- 6 % of the populace lives in Towns.
- 3 % of the people live in either Cities.
City Size :
Cities of UB cover one square mile of land per 8,850 people, on average. This is a density of about 41 per acre or 60 per hectare, so the land within the walls of a typical city of 10,000 would be 165 acres—hardly a city by modern standards, in terms of population OR size. Camelot may have up to twice this density eventually.
Miscellaneous
Agriculture :
At the medieval level of technology, a square mile of settled land, including requisite roads, villages and towns, will support 80 people. This takes into account normal blights, rats, drought, and theft, all of which are common in most worlds. Please note that the number of people a square mile of agricultural land will support is not the same as the maximum population density for a kingdom. Villages and towns tend to cluster tightly along the arteries of travel defined by the lines between the cities—leaving gaps of wilderness in the middle.
Castles :
Ruins of a castle depend on the age of the region, military history, and remoteness of the area. Active castles are much more common; ruins are rare because the solid ones are constantly put back into service! The role of these castles is something too world-oriented. Most will mark the landholdings of Lords, Barons, and Dukes, but some may be outlaw, mercenary, or bandit strongholds. Some may even be the outposts of Saxons and their clans.
Law Enforcement : This is an area for growth as Camelot and the Kingdom of the Britons grow.
Livestock :
The livestock population, on the whole, will equal 2 and half times the human population, but 68% percent of this will be fowl (chickens, geese and ducks). The rest will be dairy cows and "meat animals:" Pigs are superior as food animals, since they eat less individually, and are not picky eaters. Sheep will be extremely common if the region has a wool market. Cattle for labor and milk will be found occasionally, but cattle raised specifically for meat are only found in very prosperous areas. Deer will be the prize for any table.
Merchants and Services :
In a village of 400 people, just how many inns and taverns are realistic? Not very many. Maybe not even one. When traveling across the countryside, for the most part, people will have to camp on their own or seek shelter in people's homes. Provided they are friendly, the latter option should be no trouble. A farmer can live in a single place all his life, and he will welcome news and stories of adventures, not to mention any money the heroes might offer!
Support Value (SV) :
Each type of business is given a Support Value (SV). This is the number of people it takes to support a single business of that sort. For instance, the SV for shoemakers (by far the most common trade in towns) is 150. This means that there will be one shoemaker for every 150 people in an area. These numbers can vary by up to 60% in either direction, but can provide a useful baseline. Think about the nature of the town or city to decide if the numbers need to be changed. A port, for instance, will have more fishmongers than the table indicates.
To find the number of, say, inns in a city, divide the population of the city by the SV value for inns (2,000). For a village of 400 people, this reveals only 20% of an inn! This means that there is a 20% chance of there being one at all. And even if there is one, it will be smaller and less impressive than an urban inn. The SV for taverns is 400, so there will be a single tavern.
Business..........SV
Shoe Makers....... 150
Furriers....... 250
Fishers....... 1,200
Spice Merchants....... 1,400
Taverns.......400
Blacksmiths.......1,500
Healers.......1,700
Masons.......500
thatchers.......1,800
Carpenters.......550
Weavers.......600
Chandlers.......700
Rope Makers.......1,900
Inns.......2,000
Coopers.......700
Tanners.......2,000
Sculptors.......2,000
Wine-makers (ale and mead).......900
Cutlers.......2,300
Woodcarvers.......2,400
One noble household....... per 200 population
Maidservants.......250
Magic-Shops.......2,800 - The "Magic Shop" means a shop where wizards can purchase spell ingredients, scroll paper and the like, not a place to buy magic swords off the shelf.