D&D 5E It's Canon - Greyhawk's Sun rises in the South and Sets in the North (or possibly the other way around)

[Hussar]

Look at the cliffs @Coroc.

Considering the Darlene map is scaled at 1 hex=36 miles, and this peninsula is only a quarter of a mile long, you could put this anywhere. And, note, that when Anna Meyer added it to the Greyhawk maps that she does, it is oriented north to the top because of the river. Saltmarsh is in Keoland, on the south shore, across from Monmurg and south of the Dreadwood.

 

[Stormonu]

On the population - though the map is undersized, this is a medieval setting and housing will be quite different than the modern nuclear family. It's likely that households are multi-generational; grandparents & parents (& aunts & uncles) living in the same house, along with 5-7 or more children of various ages sharing the house as well. Even the idea of having seperate bedrooms wasn't a thing until late 1800's, so communal sleeping areas would be common. By quick count, I could see this map holding about 500+, assuming many of the buildings are single story. If most of the buildings are multi-story (especially east of the river), could easily be 750 or more.

As for the river, this is a SALT marsh, so it can be the case there is wash-back from the sea into the swamp area. (this is the case for the likes of Elkhorn Slough near where I lived in California).

 

[Coroc]

On the population - though the map is undersized, this is a medieval setting and housing will be quite different than the modern nuclear family. It's likely that households are multi-generational; grandparents & parents (& aunts & uncles) living in the same house, along with 5-7 or more children of various ages sharing the house as well. Even the idea of having seperate bedrooms wasn't a thing until late 1800's, so communal sleeping areas would be common. By quick count, I could see this map holding about 500+, assuming many of the buildings are single story. If most of the buildings are multi-story (especially east of the river), could easily be 750 or more.

As for the river, this is a SALT marsh, so it can be the case there is wash-back from the sea into the swamp area. (this is the case for the likes of Elkhorn Slough near where I lived in California).

Still 500 is a different number than 5000. IRL cities with 100.000 inhabitants were quite rare and the equivalent of megacities today, back in the middle ages, so 5000 would be a large city already.

 

[Hussar]

Put it another way, if Saltmarsh actually is 5000 people, then they could field several hundred soldiers/militia. More than enough to overwhelm the Sahuagin forces arrayed against them. And, remember, Saltmarsh is supposed to be a backwater town. The next town along the coast is supposed to be bigger. ((The name escapes me at the moment)). The sahuagin threat would need to be a LOT bigger to actually threaten settlements of that size.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Considering the Darlene map is scaled at 1 hex=36 miles, and this peninsula is only a quarter of a mile long, you could put this anywhere. And, note, that when Anna Meyer added it to the Greyhawk maps that she does, it is oriented north to the top because of the river. Saltmarsh is in Keoland, on the south shore, across from Monmurg and south of the Dreadwood.

North to top would be really hard to reconcile with the coastline shown in the regional map on page 23 (and that one is oriented north to the east to be even more confusing). But yeah, it looks like you could reconcile that orientation with Darlene's map if you wanted to, though that's because that map isn't really compatible with the coastline region on page 23.

 

[Ancalagon]

What bothers me about it is that there is no way to fit the population of 5,000 into that map

WAAAAY back in the day, in the Blacksands supplement of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system, a rule of thumb was given that on average, you can count 6 inhabitants per building. Of course some have more and some have less (or none), but it's a rought ballpark. Unless I counted terribly wrong, the place has roughly 550 inhabitants. Maybe they got a zero wrong?

 

[Ancalagon]

Put it another way, if Saltmarsh actually is 5000 people, then they could field several hundred soldiers/militia. More than enough to overwhelm the Sahuagin forces arrayed against them. And, remember, Saltmarsh is supposed to be a backwater town. The next town along the coast is supposed to be bigger. ((The name escapes me at the moment)). The sahuagin threat would need to be a LOT bigger to actually threaten settlements of that size.

Another rule of thumb: non nomadic societies rarely managed to field armies larger than 5% of their population. So about 250 soldiers... which is not nothing.

 

[Helldritch]

I am on the side that considers that they put one more zero than they should have. Saltmarsh has always been a big village or a very small town. 500 souls living there are more likely than the 5000 written.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I am on the side that considers that they put one more zero than they should have. Saltmarsh has always been a big village or a very small town. 500 souls living there are more likely than the 5000 written.

Yeah, that's definitely a real consideration. The problem is that the way the town is described in the text, it can't really work with that small of a population. It needs probably at least 3,000 or so to support the sort of society described.

Not specifically related to this product, but I sometimes wonder about the background perspective of writers of settlements. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if sometimes people that have only ever lived in larger metropolitan areas end up writing information about small settlements and have no idea how to do it right. I've lived in basically every size of population center found in the US, so I have a pretty good grasp of what settlements of different sizes are like, which sometimes leaves me shaking my head. (I realize that there can be differences outside of the US, but not to the degree that would affect what I'm talking about.)

 

[Helldritch]

I read it and with a 500 population it can work. It is a bit of a stretch but it can work out if you take into account that about one and a half to twice the town's population live outside it. Dwarves are a bit away in the mine (where else could they be...) and the farmers and their workers would be in outlying farms as well as independent fishers that would live near the coast.

It would be a bit stretched but could still be believable. Add a very good smith living near a horse farms because he hates the mayor. A lone wizard and his two apprenctices living at the edge of the woods or marshes and a few other NPCs like that and the setting is suddenly very believable.