Are there any references on the population of the old world?

[Sinsigel]

I've browsed this forum and it seems this topic hasn't been mentioned yet. So here it goes.

Are there any datas concerning the population of the factions of warhammer, or the number of men raised for war? There are some posts estimating Ulthuan's population in Ulthuan Net, but I can't figure out the ground for such caculation.

The latter(manpower) came to my mind when I read the Empire section in the BRB, right after the magic section. Along with the explanation of the empire is a fanciful illistration depicting the armies of the empire. What really stunned me was the sheer size of the war host, covering the entire slope of a mountain with soldiers, LITERALLY.

The only bits of information about the army strength I could gain access to was from HE army book. There are only two such cases: the phoenix guards are always 10,000 strong, and there was an incident where 200 norsemen charged 10,000 lothern sea guards.

So......any advice on this one?

[Condottiere]

Most of the estimates would be based on possible Renaissance populations, times the geographical area under scrutiny.

[Spike Fiend]

I'll bet there are more!

There are numerous references in the Warhammer Books to diseases, raids by Greenskins or Beastmen and (sometimes) invading armies that kill "thousands" every year (larger events, such as Gorthor's rampage, are said to kill "millions"). And yet, for every slaughter of a realm or a loosely spread race, there are always many more people/tribes/etc. where they came from. And illustrations of both earlier and present day battles always depict huge numbers of troops or creatures...

[GitzBlasta]

Probably not possible to do anything but guesstimate populations. The Empire is possibly up to 12 million, Brettonia up to 6 million, Orcs & Goblins will number in the millions, as will Beastmen. Wood Elves might be 100,000 or so?
High Elves and Dark Elves must be roughly similar (or one would have defeated the other), and I'm going to say... roughly.... 3 million each? They can still have thousands of soldiers as every adult is a soldier.
Chaos marauders will be in the millions, with actual warriors at several hundred thousand.
Lizardmen I can't even begin to imagine how many! Apart from millions of skinks!

Undead don't count - they don't have a population as they're all dead!

[BigbyWolf]

Undead don't count - they don't have a population as they're all dead!

Undeadist!

[spetswalshe]

The WFRP books have some information; Sigmar's Heirs notes Middenheim as having a population of 95,000 (reduced to 15,000 after the Storm of Chaos), and the relatively untouched-by-the-Storm Altdorf, Nuln and Talabheim having 105,000, 85,000 and 72,000 respectively - though it should be noted that refugees from the Storm are likely to have increased these numbers. Aside from provincial capitals, the vast majority of settlements don't even come close to 10,000. This is probably (given it's WFRP) very well researched and based on medieval/renaissance period figures, but it doesn't always mesh with the Army books 'millions!' word salad.

[GitzBlasta]

It's got to be said that the numbers given by GW don't make much sense. But if you think that mediaeval England had a population of between 5 and 7 million but the major cities had populations roughly similar to what the Empire has. Also, France in the Middle Ages had a population of around 17 million, with equally sparely populated cities. These countries still managed to field large armies. Especially France. The vast, vast majority of the population lived in small towns, villages, farmsteads etc.
Admittedly they didn't have Beastmen and marauding Goblins everywhere but I still don't think its impossible for them to have populations as high as I've previously mentioned!

[Condottiere]

Since the Warhammer world has twice the diameter of ours, the geographical areas are likely to be quite larger in scale.

[Fenix Felder]

im sure someone did a guestimate of bretonia population using formulas and the like that seemed well studied and convincing and that could also be used to guestimate the population of other civilizations. Though i can't remember who the author was. can someone look for it?

[Tactical Retreat!]

Probably not possible to do anything but guesstimate populations. The Empire is possibly up to 12 million, Brettonia up to 6 million, Orcs & Goblins will number in the millions, as will Beastmen. Wood Elves might be 100,000 or so?
High Elves and Dark Elves must be roughly similar (or one would have defeated the other), and I'm going to say... roughly.... 3 million each? They can still have thousands of soldiers as every adult is a soldier.
Chaos marauders will be in the millions, with actual warriors at several hundred thousand.
Lizardmen I can't even begin to imagine how many! Apart from millions of skinks!

Undead don't count - they don't have a population as they're all dead!

That sounds like a pretty good guess IMO. I'd scale down the number of Wood Elves though. From the scale of the battles they have partaken in in the fluff and the fact that they live in a dark, evil, magical forest I wouldn't put their numbers above 30-40 thousand.

Skaven are weird too, cause there can't possibly be enough food underground to feed such a large population as the background would imply (many times larger than the Empire).

Dwarfs I'd say about a million, with maybe a fifth of that living in the Empire, Brettonia and random places outside the World's Edge mountains.

Chaos Dwarfs no more than a hundred thousand. They only have one real city, the rest is a bunch of mines and fortresses.

Ogres... ehh no idea. Not too many considering how much they eat and the fact that they don't grow food, just hunt.

Beastmen might be a a million or two in the Old World. They don't have any agriculture or civilisation either so their population can't be too big.

[Condottiere]

The last time this came up, I estimated that Bretonnia had a population of fifteen million, and the Empire one of thirty million.

[ChaosReigns]

Beastmen might be a a million or two in the Old World. They don't have any agriculture or civilisation either so their population can't be too big.

Isn't the total Beastmen population supposed to outnumber the total human population in the Empire? Not sure how or if that's even possible, though.

[RobC]

I'm afraid this is a topic that's raised frequently, but one we can't answer with any clarity.

There are some official population figures given for towns and cities in 2nd edition WFRP books. These are usually disputed because they seem very low, but when compared to real-world stats from the equivalent time period, they aren't too far off. The key thing is to remember that most of the populace lived outside towns and villages before the industrial revolution.

For every city, town and village there are several miles of surrounding farmsteads.

[fenrisnorth]

The war hammer world has twice the diameter of Earth? Wouldn't that mean that it has eight times the gravity? Well, I guess that answers all the arguments about whether real world physics apply to non magical situations.

Or maybe the humans of that world are just half the size? Which would help explain how large monsters can fly.

[Condottiere]

Since gravity is probably the same, chances are that the core isn't as dense; most fantasy games explain that magic is integral to the reason that large monsters can fly without looking like pterodactyls.

[spetswalshe]

Please - the Warhammer world is obviously tubular. There is literally no explanation for why such a short race like the Chaos Dwarfs would insist on wearing such large hats other than they know something we don't.

[R-Love]

Skaven are weird too, cause there can't possibly be enough food underground to feed such a large population as the background would imply (many times larger than the Empire).

Skaven have a readily available food source that's not in danger of running out any time soon. It's called Skaven

Please - the Warhammer world is obviously tubular. There is literally no explanation for why such a short race like the Chaos Dwarfs would insist on wearing such large hats other than they know something we don't.

Or there just trying to compensate for something...

[Tactical Retreat!]

Isn't the total Beastmen population supposed to outnumber the total human population in the Empire? Not sure how or if that's even possible, though.

Yeah I know but I can't see that being true.

I mean that would mean supporting a hunter-gatherer esque society with tens of millions of members in an area the size of central Europe, all the while competing with space against millions of humans, orcs, goblins, skaven, wood elves, undead and what have you.

It's even worse considering that they are supposed to be concentrated in the Drakwald forest, and well; a forest is a forest. Not an all you can eat buffet.

A few million would still be a lot.

The Empire's population would likely be smaller than the Holy Roman Empire's considering that they didn't have to share land with substantial numbers of other races, who you are constantly at war with and who can prey on anything smaller than a walled town.

Dwarfs couldn't be THAT many considering that their numbers of holds are very limited and that they seem very urbanised. In the end there is only so many people you can support in a city before logistics make it impossible for it to grow further. Especially when it is populated by thirsty dwarfs drinking their bodyweight in beer every day and you live in a frickin snowy mountain range.

[Condottiere]

Depends on how efficient the Empire's agricultural sector is, since I suspect that they sustain both it and the Dwarves. Unless the Elves, Estallians, Tileans or Arabyans export their surplus.

[Sir Charles]

I mean that would mean supporting a hunter-gatherer esque society with tens of millions of members in an area the size of central Europe,

Except as previously mentioned the warhammer world is twice the size of the real world, so they are in an area twice the size of central Europe.