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

[GitzBlasta]

There can be millions of Beastmen, like mentioned above regarding Skaven they have their own food source - other Beastmen.
My guesstimates for the Dwarfs - i'd say at least a couple of million spread throughout the world. Just 1 millions seems too few for them to be such major players in the Warhammer World.
Skaven - their population varies massively. When Skaven hordes erupt onto the surface its due to population pressure. The Skaven population would then range from (guesstimating here!) a low of 15 million to a high of 30 or so million. They have the entire world to live in (albeit underground) so only a huge population would force them onto the surface. Also, most Skaven are basically, just rubbish so will die in droves.

I'd assume Ogres are in the region of 2 million. A significant enough number for them to hold their own in their region of the world and still have Ogres go off to see the sights and fight the fights elsewhere in the world.

I can't remember if I'm forgetting any races here :P

[GuyLeCheval]

I think there are lots of more Skaven. The warhammer world is twice as big, and they should easily rivar the amount of chineses here...

[GitzBlasta]

But they'd probably just win if there were over a billion of them! Individual Skaven might suck but if a billion cruddy Skaven burst onto the surface they'd just... win...

[Tactical Retreat!]

There can be millions of Beastmen, like mentioned above regarding Skaven they have their own food source - other Beastmen.
My guesstimates for the Dwarfs - i'd say at least a couple of million spread throughout the world. Just 1 millions seems too few for them to be such major players in the Warhammer World.
Skaven - their population varies massively. When Skaven hordes erupt onto the surface its due to population pressure. The Skaven population would then range from (guesstimating here!) a low of 15 million to a high of 30 or so million. They have the entire world to live in (albeit underground) so only a huge population would force them onto the surface. Also, most Skaven are basically, just rubbish so will die in droves.

I'd assume Ogres are in the region of 2 million. A significant enough number for them to hold their own in their region of the world and still have Ogres go off to see the sights and fight the fights elsewhere in the world.

I can't remember if I'm forgetting any races here :P

Physics fail. A species' major food source can't be itself. Doesn't work that way.

Do we actually have any conclusive proof on the size of the warhammer world? cause the Black library novels don't usually seem to hint that the world is that big; travel between major cities in the empire goes relatively fast instead of the incredibly slow crawl we would have if the nation was basically the size of Europe.

Dwarfs aren't really a major player in the world. The reason they still can influence it is because every male in the population can and will fight, and they have more males than females. One million would still mean that they could muster a combined army of 500 000 or so, which is incredibly large by medieval standards even if it is spread out.

Ogres being two million... well I guess. They cover such a huge area. Not much more though.

[GitzBlasta]

Why can't a species' major food source be itself? Skaven are pretty mean! I can well imagine them 'farming' sentient creatures for food.

[Tactical Retreat!]

Why can't a species' major food source be itself? Skaven are pretty mean! I can well imagine them 'farming' sentient creatures for food.

It comes down to physics and biology, not culture or morals or anything like that.

the fact is that all living things need energy. Animals get this by consuming matter that contains chemical energy (say meat). Their metabolism then converts this energy to different forms to keep the creature alive, such as making it walk, keeping it warm etc. The energy that gets converted to heat leaves the body and goes out into the atmosphere.

So. A race can't just keep eating itself and still preserve its numbers, because the output will always be bigger than the input (even if you eat everybody that dies they will still have expelled a lot of the energy they have consumed in their lives as heat) so there would never be enough food for everybody unless you kill more than you grow, so the population would rapidly decrease.

You always have to get your energy from somewhere else. That's why there are ecosystems. Plants harvest the sun energy and turn it into chemical energy, rabbit eats plants, human eats rabbit. You can't have an isolated race just eating itself for a long period of time, it's simply impossible.

Okay this explanation isn't the clearest but the basic stuff is in there.

Why it is important is because Beastmen populations would need to hunt other animals in order to survive, and since that is a very land-inefficient way of living there couldn't be too many of them. Especially not since all the really good and lush areas would be claimed by the Empire/Brettonia and the Beastmen would be stuck deep inside the dark woods.

EDIT: Skaven I have no idea about. They could probably have farming of some sort so my explanation might not apply to them. On the other hand I wonder how much living and farming space they really have down there...

[Condottiere]

Skaven roast haunch may be on the menu for Sunday dinner, but during the weekdays it's MacDonald's and leftovers.

[MrSatan]

Wasn't there fluff about the skaven farming and eating the corrupted 'black grain' that grew in the farms around the city they turned into Skavenblight?