[Rumil]

Back again, with more dubious statistics!

First, a few things which surprised me;-

- population of all of Europe in 730AD was about 25 million
- there were only three 'cities' in Europe at that time with over 15,000 inhabitants, Toledo in Spain, Salonika in Greece, and of course Byzantium with 50-100,000 people
- The proportion of town as opposed to country dwellers in the later Middle Ages was about 2 to 3 percent.

So how does this fit into Tolkien? Well, as seems to be the case in Middle Earth, the southern and eastern peoples still had cities, and thriving trade routes. Unfortunately we only know of Umbar, but I'd imagine there were more cities further south which had been founded by the 'Black' Numenoreans.

Gondor seems (very roughly-approximately) to be of a similar size to France or Spain, which had about 3-4 million people each in this period, so the previous bid of 3 million seems good. Now I start to speculate even more wildly...

If Gondor had 3 million, then 3% of that is 90,000 , say 50,000 for Minas Tirith (of the 100,000 who could live there perhaps), 40,000 for the other cities put together. The rest would live in the countryside. (OK, I've made so many assumptions that these figures are now totally bogus, but they at least give an idea of what it could have been like!) I'll decide on 25,000 to 100,000 for Minas Tirith then. Some people were evacuated during the war, but surely others came into the city for security.

As Morwen said, there would be a similar population in Gondor in 3010 as in 3018 as few battles occurred in this period. One problem specific to Gondor might be the longevity of its citizens. In most ancient societies people lived to about 40 before disease or injury finally caught up with them. The Gondorians were different, their Lords (of Numenorean blood) lived to 100 fairly regularly. Perhaps the rest of the populace made it to 60 or 70? If the idea about reduced birth rates is any good we could expect a 'greying' population maybe?

Gondorian casualties in the War also require a bit of 'invention'. After the Pelennor Fields Eomer says that he's lost one third of his troops, so I'd imagine a similar number for Gondor, though most would have been wounded rather than killed. (The vast majority of casualties during ancient battles were not caused by fighting, but during the pursuit of a beaten army). Now of course we don't know how many Gondorian troops were in the siege of Minas Tirith or were engaged in the defence against the corsairs. I'd guess around 10,000 in Minas Tirith, 10,000 elsewhere, which would indicate around 6000 casualties in all, of whom 1500 would be dead, the rest dependent on the efficiency of the healers!

Oh well, I'm sure most won't be at all convinced by these figures, and rightly so, neither am I! Can anyone provide some other info (eg. is there anything in HoME) ??