How much land?

[Mr. R]

Basically I'd like to know how much land does it take to support a midieval town? So how many sq mi (or sq km for the rest of the world) will it take to feed and support a town?

For a good beginning assume a population of 10000 to a max of about 50000!

[assault]

3 hours ago, Mr. R said:

For a good beginning assume a population of 10000 to a max of about 50000!

 

For the town? This is a fair sized city.

 

It will be surrounded by a bunch of smaller towns, shading down into large villages. 

 

The amount of land will be determined by the economy.

 

Somewhere between England and Flanders would work, assuming a late medieval baseline.

 

 

[L. Marcus]

The exact size would depend on many factors, not least how fertile the soil is and how dense the population. A figure often mentioned is that about ten percent of the medieval populace lived in cities, so a town of ten thousand people needed ninety thousand farmers to support them.

[pawsplay]

About five acres of good farmland will support one person, so for a 10,000 person city (like early medieval London) you would need at least 78 square miles of farmland. Assuming less good farmland and twice the population, you would need at least 300 square miles.

[Mr. R]

4 hours ago, pawsplay said:

About five acres of good farmland will support one person, so for a 10,000 person city (like early medieval London) you would need at least 78 square miles of farmland. Assuming less good farmland and twice the population, you would need at least 300 square miles.

 

 

Thanks!

[Lord Liaden]

On 8/5/2021 at 8:09 AM, L. Marcus said:

The exact size would depend on many factors, not least how fertile the soil is and how dense the population. A figure often mentioned is that about ten percent of the medieval populace lived in cities, so a town of ten thousand people needed ninety thousand farmers to support them.

 

Another factor would be access to a large body of water, the sea or a major lake. Fish would undoubtedly form a significant part of the inhabitants' diet. A city in the population range suggested in the OP, with a good port, may also import some of its food from elsewhere.

[Lord Liaden]

On 8/5/2021 at 12:30 AM, Mr. R said:

Basically I'd like to know how much land does it take to support a medieval town? So how many sq mi (or sq km for the rest of the world) will it take to feed and support a town?

For a good beginning assume a population of 10000 to a max of about 50000!

 

On 8/5/2021 at 4:16 AM, assault said:

 

For the town? This is a fair sized city.

 

 

For my own medieval fantasy game settings, I normally set the cutoff for what the inhabitants would call a "city," as distinct from a "town," at around 10,000.

 

Some scholars have estimated a very few pre-industrial cities throughout history as having populations of one million or more -- Rome, Baghdad, Chang'an, Angkor come to mind. These are almost always the capitals of major kingdoms or empires, so food would definitely be imported to support all the government officials and middle class drawn there. However, those estimates vary widely between individual scholars based on their interpretations of available sources, and over time as research uncovers new data.

[Steve]

On 8/6/2021 at 8:27 AM, pawsplay said:

About five acres of good farmland will support one person, so for a 10,000 person city (like early medieval London) you would need at least 78 square miles of farmland. Assuming less good farmland and twice the population, you would need at least 300 square miles.

Yeah, five acres is the minimum assuming good land, adequate rainfall and a long growing season.
 

It seems desert regions tend to rely on being on trade routes and people in colder climates hunted meat animals or fished to supplement their food supplies, since farming seasons were pretty short.

 

As towns grow, farmland will get chopped up for housing and businesses, which could cause food shortages if the frontier is not creating new farmland quickly enough to support the growing population.

 

You also have to factor in losses from raiding or war. Orcs and goblins love stealing stuff.

 

The Magnificent Seven helped a bunch of farmers, so PCs could be hired for this too!

[Scott Ruggels]

Now we see why the Farmer and his daughter loved The Goblin Slayer enough to let he live there and only do a few chores, plus is regular job to stay there.

[m.mavnn]

A little bit late to the party, but "Medieval Demographics Made Easy" is a great resource for answering these sorts of questions quickly.

[Christopher R Taylor]

With today's modern farming, it takes around 0.5 of a hectares to feed and support a single person.  However, modern farming techniques, plant and animal breeds, medicine, fertilizer, etc makes farming about ten times as productive as in a medieval setting, or more.  However, people tended to be smaller and many consumed much less food, so figure five times or 1 hectare (about 2.5 acres) of land per person.  Its not that medieval farmers were bad (they had crop rotation, fertilization, irrigation, etc by the 1000s, and Roman agriculture was even better), its that modern seeds produce more, modern medicines protect animals and plants better, etc.

 

Again, however, the land isn't the only way to survive.  People can fish and if near the ocean eat shellfish, so cut that down a bit, so .75 hectares per person or lower at the shore of a large body of water or ocean.

 

And, of course, magic might also affect this, rising productivity and providing alternatives to historical food production.  Naturally, this presumes no disaster like blight, famine, disease, locusts, etc destroying food sources.

 

But yes, 10,000 people is a small city, that's a huge number of people in one place in that cultural setting.  By 1400 the biggest city in Europe was Constantinople with nearly 500,000 but places like Rome, Augsberg, Toulouse, etc had fewer than 20,000.

 

Edit: I'm not sure where the 5 acre estimate is coming from, you can support a family on a farm of a couple acres, even without high tech farming techniques.  One cow puts out more milk than a family can realistically consume, and a single deer can feed a family for months.

[Lord Liaden]

Just curious, Mr. R, was your question to satisfy your own curiosity, or is there a practical reason you wanted to know?

[Mr. R]

Well I am adapting a Shadow World supplement and in the VERY sparse gazetteer of the countries, they list the seven nations that make up the main states of the Great Inner Sea Basin.  And in all cases the total population is about 175000 people in the whole country, the capital has about 13000-15000 people and the rest divided among the other 7-10 remaining cities.  Oh and this is in a nation of about 230000 sq. mi.  ( Or 0.76 people / sq. mi. ) 

 

So I was curious how much land would be cultivated around the city and how much would be empty wilderness.  So this HIGHLY civilized part of the continent is by the above numbers actually almost a Points of Light type setting.  So going by the above numbers they need 1000 maybe 5000 sq. mi. to feed all those cities.  Assume double that for export purposes.  THAT is a lot of empty wilderness!  

 

As a result I was planning to increase the populations of the main part of the setting.  Also I was planning on one city that would be the main trade hub as it is downriver of the great inner sea, along a road the leads to the west coast of the continent (inhabited by horse nomads), a Major mountain chain just to the northeast, the rest of the river leads to the northern jungles, and there is a pass leading to some norther deserts and grasslands.  And so I was wondering how big I could make it.  That lead to my question about the biggest city in your game!

[Lord Liaden]

8 hours ago, Mr. R said:

That lead to my question about the biggest city in your game!

 

With respect, Mr. R, that wasn't your question. It was my question.

[Mr. R]

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

With respect, Mr. R, that wasn't your question. It was my question.

 

 

You are right sorry.  I need to deflate my ego a bit...  PPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF.....  there.  Much more humble!

 

 

But I would have asked a similar question eventually!