Gondor: Population and Casualties

Hello. I am a newbie around here but am trying to do some research for a story in progress and was wondering if anyone has knowledge of:

1) Estimated Population of Gondor circa 3010 TA
2) Estimated casualties sustained in defense of Gondor for the years 3010-3018 TA
3) Estimated Population of Gondor at start of 3018 TA
4) Estimated Polupation of Minas Tirith at start of 3018 TA
5)Estimated number of Gondorian casualties dead from June 3018 TA through the destruction of the ring.
6) Number of Gondorian casualties wounded in same period as number 5

I am in part trying to figure out ratio of men to women in the adolescent/young adult range the end of all the wars. The other is to get a mental grip on what the population/age structure might look like.

Thanks in advance for the assistance. [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[Kuruharan]

1)We don't know, and there is really no reliable way to give an educated guess, except to say that it was probably more populated than the majority of Eriador.

2)We don't know that either, but I would guess that it was a relatively insignificant number if looked at from the size of the total population.

3)Refer to answer #1.

4)Same problem. It was evidently a big city, but also partially depopulated. So the question remains, How large? and How depopulated?

5)Several hundred at least, but we don't know for sure.

6)The number of wounded was probably around three times greater than the number killed.

I hope this lack of clarity helped. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ April 13, 2003: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

[Morwen Tindomerel]

I sympathize with your quest, Conspiracy Theorist, having struggled to calculate the demographics of Eriador. Unfortunately as Tolkien was not into solid numbers you're on your own.

1) Estimated Population of Gondor circa 3010 TA

Pick a number, any number, that seems logical to you. Personally I favor three million, that being the approximate population of England c. 1400 after the Black death, Hundred Year War, etc.

2) Estimated casualties sustained in defense of Gondor for the years 3010-3018 TA

Pick another number. Historical parallels might be useful here. See if you can find out the casualty rate sustained by the French during the Hundred Year War.

3) Estimated Population of Gondor at start of 3018 TA

I do doubt that losses could have been extreme enough in so short a time to put a serious dent in the demographic.

4) Estimated Polupation of Minas Tirith at start of 3018 TA

Here's a fun one. Pick the population of a comparable Medieval city, maybe one of the Italian city-states? then cut it in half as Tolkien says the city 'lacks half those who could have dwelt there at ease' or something like that.

5)Estimated number of Gondorian casualties dead from June 3018 TA through the destruction of the ring.

Pick another number.

6) Number of Gondorian casualties wounded in same period as number.

Ditto.

Good Luck!

[Salocin]

This sounds more like a topic for the Quiz Room. If you act like you know the answer you may actually get someone to come up with it! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Manwe Sulimo]

Answer to #4: Not that many. Minas Tirith was almost empty save from the people defending it. Women and children had been evacuated to the southern fiefs, as well as old men and anyone who couldn't fight. And then, of course, probably half of the people remaining were sent to Osgiliath or Ithilien.

[Rumil]

Aha, wild speculation called for!

As Tolkien really didn't give us any firm information on population sizes, I think its up to us to discuss the subject. I've got a useful little book which includes information on populations in Dark Age and Medieval Europe, so will dig this out and see if I can post some useful figures.

In the meantime though, as has been said, the population of Britain was about 3 million after the Black Death etc. However, during the 'darkest' bits of the Dark Ages, around 700AD, it's estimated to have been nearer 1 million.

Explanations for population decline are various, including plagues, warfare, climate change, crop faliures, even asteroid strikes!

I think the Middle Earth situation ties in with a belief that when the rightful king is absent from a country, its fertility declines, both in terms of crops and people. This probably goes way back, I remember hearing that in Ancient Egypt the pharaohs had to carry out some very peculiar rituals in order to ensure that the Nile kept on flooding every year to irrigate the crops. Likewise in one of the King Arthur films (with lots of irritating plate armoured knights as I remember), when the King returns, the land blooms and spring comes again. I'd imagine this sort of belief arose because during times of weak kingship there is often endemic civil war (see Stephen and Matilda). As well as battle casualties there would likely be bad harvests because men were forced to fight rather than tend their fields.

In Gondor of course, there may be more specific mechanisms to consider. Sauron had unleashed great plagues on the West previously in the third age. I'd bet that his 'broils and smokes' emanating from Mount Doom were spiked with endocrine disrupters (chemicals which may reduce fertility).

[Morwen Tindomerel]

Endocrine disruptors, very cute Rumil [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

We must also remember that the Race of Men is still very young, having been in existence only seven thousand or so years, (and they've been rough years!) so the total Human Population in Middle Earth is undoubtedly *much* lower than that of Medieval Earth.

[ April 15, 2003: Message edited by: Morwen Tindomerel ]

[Salocin]

Now neccesarally. The race of men in ME seemed to have started from quite a few houses with quite a few people to begin with and at first they spread out very quickly. The people in Europe, on the other hand, had to go meandering through central Asia before they got there, and after getting to a pretty decent prime (Rome) had a horrendous fall in population due to meteors, climate changes, plague, ect. so it is very probable that the populations of middle and mideval earth are very close. One must not forget that there were many races of men populating the east and south(Not just the Easternlings, Southrons, and Haradians). We really only hear about a third of middle earth and the other two thirds were populated almost exclusively by men since they did not have elves to share land with and were alied to Sauron so they did not have him attacking them constantly and releasing plague, endocrine disruptors, and other population downers on them.

[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) ??

[Morwen Tindomerel]

I'll accept those numbers as an approximation at least. I did a little research myself and discovered that Renaissance Florence had only 60,000 people and most of the cities of Italy had half that number or less, (Naples and Venice were the exceptions with over a hundred thousand people).

The Dunedain's long lives were balanced by low fertility. Four children was an exceptionally large family, one or two was more usual. It seems that their birthrate had fallen below replacement levels even before the Line of the Kings failed, (remember what Faramir says about 'childless lords' spending their time studying genealogy and heraldry).

The Dunedain of the North undoubtedly suffered a similar drop in population though for different reasons. In their case the low birthrate coupled with high casualties from the Witch Wars and later Ranger operations would have had the same effect. Yet it is strongly implied that Aragorn's people for all their troubles are hardier and longer lived, and perhaps even more numerous than their Southern kin.

We must remember only a minority of Gondor's population is Dunedain, even in part. Most are descended from the dark, stocky peoples native to the region or from the blond Northmen. This is probably why the few remaining Dunedain make such a fuss about their 'pure bloodlines', (the concept of hybrid vigor is evidently alien to them).

[Lalaith]

What an interesting discussion!
If I might add a couple of observations - our own history shows us that city populations can rise and fall quite dramatically. Rome, at the peak of the empire, had one million inhabitants. So did Mexico City at the time of the Aztecs. But both cities dwindled to a fraction of this when their power waned. So too, Gondor could been a much more populous city in its prime, than it was at the time of the war of the ring.

[Burzdol]

I agree with Lalaith. In their peak, they could be up to about 1 million at very most.

~Burzdol~

[Reginald Hill]

Using the numbers that Tolkien gave us in the population of Rohan could make finding the population of Gondor easier. During the muster of Rohan we see

well nigh five and fifty hundreds of Riders fully armed, and many hundreds of other men...

Therefore we can guess that Rohan mustered around six thousand men. Seeing as how the next battle would be a very important battle we can guess that the riders at Edoras would make up much of the healthy male population (excluding the people that were too far away to participate in the muster). Next we could guesstimate that most of these men would have wives and a number of children. Remember that an agricultural society usually produces more children because they were useful on the farm (I know it sounds horrible but from what I've learned from history class it is true). We can also add in a number of older relations (mother-in-laws, grandparents, etc.) I'm guessing that the number would be around 35,000 to 45,000 (though I may be way off). Now we know that Gondor had a significantly larger population. All we have to do is guess how many times larger it was. The reason why I am going to these seemingly far lengths to prove the population is that Tolkien disliked allegory and although the assumptions stated above are likely to be true there is no way to prove it. I think it would be more accurate to use information from the book instead of speculating about which historical period Gondor would fit in best. Please excuse the length of this post! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Rumil]

Hi Reg, fair point,

though I'd reckon that in an agricultural society it would take quite a number of 'ordinary herdsmen' to support a Rider of Rohan with his expensive horse, chainmail etc. I seem to remember that Theoden claimed he could put 10,000 horsemen in the field, but only took 5500 (or 6000) to Minas Tirith so that he could protect his flanks and strongholds. Also there were a number of 'local militia' if you like, such as the defenders of Helm's deep.

[Morwen Tindomerel]

45,000 is an impossibly small population for an entire Kingdom, it's got to be in the hundred thousands at least. As Rumil suggests Theoden undoubtedly drew his riders from a warrior caste supported by a much larger peasant class.

[Reginald Hill]

Woops! I forgot about the riders that Theoden left in Dunharrow. As for the math it is hard for me to contemplate how big any of these countries were. I always thought that the Riders of Rohan were just a militia themselves and that they wouldn't need so many people to support them. I know that there were some knights at the Battle of Pellenor Fields, but I think that they would be more of an honorary guard for the king. Also, basing the population on the size of a country isn't reliable because we know that The Wold, which is a large portion in the north, held nearly nobody. I would guess that the Eastemnet would have a small population too. Most of the country were plains and most of the population lived near the mountains if I am not mistaken. Maybe someone with a better sense of numbers could try again with the info we know about from Rohan. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]