Population Coverage in Civilized Lands

I was just placing small settlemnts on a hex map I am going to be using for an Eberron Pathfinder PbP game. Not quite at random, but probably not rigorously logical. I came up with about eleven locations in the vicinity of Ringbriar, in a map with fifty eight hexes where each hex is 12 miles across (anyone who has played Kingmaker should recognze the setup, though it is not necessarily a building game).

The question I am asking myself, however, is outside of those eleven villages, wheher pretty much every hex should have a hamlet or a thorp? If I look at the rural area I live in in Southern Ontario, there is a named settlement area every couple of miles (or few kilometres, for us). And most of these places date back to the late 18th and early 19th century, probably around when this area was settled by the United Empire Loyalists.

In D&D game terms, I am used to thinking that settlements are few and far between. Certainly the Eberron map is laughably sparse when compared to what the population of the various nations is supposed to be (albeit somewhat intentionally). But do most people in fact run their games with settlements within a half a day to a days travel between them? Or three or more days between villages and towns considered standard?

I guess the question for discussion is: realistically speaking, what frequency should settlements have in more or less civilized (or at least settled) lands?

Ease of travel vs wandering monsters - those are yor considerations.


Most medieval type hamlets had only 2 miles or so between them, being a nice distant to walk if need be. They would likely be clustered around a larger market town or castle too.

However in a world with wandering monsters it might also be realistic that the population would cluster inside the walls of the cities and visit the farms on a daily basis to work.


A third point is the amount of wilderness in your settled areas - large forest areas, barren moorland and marsh was common in England and so there were large areas with no settlement at all

Great topic, Kaodi. It is one which I have spent much time in my own campaign setting.

When placing settlements, there are a few variables I always look at/take into account.

1) Resources. What is in the surrounding are that contributes to people wanting to settle there? How much of what resources is available? Namely, how many people can the resources of the region support?

The primary of these, as I understand it to be the most important and common to real world settlements: Water!

Is there a river or a lake nearby? One well/central fountain for the whole village or (via some underground reservoir) does each homestead have their own well?

The more water, the more people will be willing/capable of settling there, the more numerous and larger the communities.

1a) Then I look at terrain. Are we talking nice expanses of arable/farming land? Rolling hills and fields for herding? Or is it a wooded and rocky foothill or mountainous region where the foodstuffs will be seriously different (hunting and gathering likely the norm/as important as what limited herding or farming is possible)...and generally more sparse/supporting less communities.

2) Geo-politics. Are these communities in a [relatively] safe/secured nation/kingdom? Is it a frontier borderland? Is it a secluded mountain valley that, while being claimed by this or that ruler, is difficult to get to and generally left to their own devices? Or even a settlement/region that is [for whatever reason] completely independent?

Any/all of these will have communities of varying size and frequency...out of simple safety concerns.

In safer regions, people will be more inclined to be willing to travel further than "daylight" to get to the next settlement. By the same token, communities there are likely to be larger...since people like to live somewhere known to be safe...and possibly with more frequent, smaller villages or even individual homesteads that are within a couple of hours to a day between them.

In less "kept" regions, less secure/more wild, borderland type places, I would expect to see less and smaller communities...and if there are multiple communities they will be prone to be within a day's travel (so as not to be caught "out at night").

A particularly dangerous region I would be prone to place only a single settlement...probably behind a wooden stockade within a day or two to the nearest "safe[-er] settlement."

As to your question about having a community within every 12 mile hex...I think these two elements must be taken into account. In a stable kingdom/region, with ample water and food sources, I would say sure. Even two or three within 12 miles of each other.

If I'm remembering and doing the math right...a league is how far someone can walk in an hour? 1 league=roughly 3 miles?

So 4 leagues (12 miles) would be, roughly, a half day's (relatively flat/easy terrain) walk. In other words, you could get to the market/temple/meeting in a neighboring village and get home before nightfall (4 hours to, a couple of hours for your business, and 4 hours back).

If all of that is correct, I would also note that settlements large enough to have markets (at least markets of the same products/goods) should be no closer than two hexes apart.

I am not particularly famliar with the layout of the Eberron world, so hope some of this helps...and/or can be adjusted for your use, as needed.

Have fun and happy settling.
--Steel Dragons

For my world I based it on distance more than anything (Most of the civilized lands are fairly open). Usually a 1-2 day walk between towns. farms and other small dwelling areas may exist between. (At least in the more heavily settled areas).

It tends to give a feel of civilization without a feel of a mega-tropolis style area (Unending civilization/city/etc). At least for me. YMMV.
Smoss

Historically, the average distance between settlements was a function of the prevailing technology.

If you have hamlets or thorps spaced about every two miles, it suggests that much of the traffic at the time of settlement was foot traffic. If the prevailing form of transportation is ox cart, then settlements tend to spread out to about 8 miles apart. And if your prevailing form of transportation is horse drawn carriage at the time the region is first settled, then they tend to spread out again to about 20 miles apart. Generally speaking, settlements develop in a way that is convienent for merchants and other travellers. If a road is a two day journey, someone will build an inn at the halfway point, then a farrier will set up shop to handle thrown horseshoes, and a wheelwright will set up shop to handle broken wagons, and then a carpenter to serve the others, and sooner or latter you have a village. The only time this doesn't happen is if the land isn't habitable, and that usually means that the land is not arable. In that cases, settlements are spaced according to the availability of water, but then if you have a river much the same logic applies.

Note that the road logic is going to apply even if bandits and monsters are lurking about. Settlements won't get built two days apart if there is any sort of regular commerce between the two because sooner rather than latter someone will get the bright idea to build a stockade or other fortified building halfway where caravans can stop in comparative safety on the trip. I mean, because its not actually safer to just camp in the open and hope for the best. In the extreme case, imagine this is zombie apocalypse world (and really, the average fantasy world scoffs at mere zombie apocalypses, which occur every third Tuesday). No one is going to journey anywhere on a regular basis if there isn't a safe place to hole up for the night.

The logic behind cities tends to be, "How much surplus food can be grown by the villages within a days journey of the city?" Coastal cities get a big boost here, and with enough wealth you can start trading in foodstuffs over long distance.

1) I put cities and large towns at major road junctions and important points on rivers.

For example, the capital city is at a point on a major river where deep draft ships need to switch to shallow draft barges or long boats, and also is the locus for four roads to neigbhoring countries (two paralleling the river, two not).

The second city is nearish to the moutainous border, in a fertile highland area that supplies food to dwarvish mines in the mountains.

2) Along the roads, there's either a full village or a roadhouse about every 15 miles -- that's about 4 hours ride, or 8 hours walk with a heavy load, by 3.5e rules.

Roadhouses are typically a fortified stone inn, offering food, alcohol, a place to sleep, and a place to keep horses and wagons.

3) Some areas are relatively secure, and have isolated settlements.

Three areas like this:

a) Forest. There's a strategic road connecting to the border. Along the road are several towers and encampments, with villages clustered around them. The villagers grow some crops, raise pigs in the forest, hunt, and harvest lumber.

b) Highlands. Isolated crofts along the roads and trails. They typically raise sheep. Typically one or a few families living in stone houses.

c) Plains. Isolated ranches along the roads and trails, raising cattle. Think of the farms in "The Searchers" -- fortified adobe houses for a single family, with neighbors a few miles away. Actually, if you haven't seen that awesome 1950's Western, think of Uncle Owen's Moisture Farm on Tatooine -- it's clear to me the attack on the homestead is a direct homage to The Searchers.

Kaodi said:

The question I am asking myself, however, is outside of those eleven villages, wheher pretty much every hex should have a hamlet or a thorp? If I look at the rural area I live in in Southern Ontario, there is a named settlement area every couple of miles (or few kilometres, for us). And most of these places date back to the late 18th and early 19th century, probably around when this area was settled by the United Empire Loyalists.

Click to expand...

If you want to go by actual historical information then there would be lots and lots of villages all over the place with nearly everybody living in them.

For early medieval numbers the best resource available is the Domesday Book. In 1086 or so England (NOT Britain, England) had 13,418 villages. That averages out to about 1 settlement every 4 square miles.That, in turn, translates to about 90 villages per hex on average.

Things vary somewhat by country, location and time. But the bottom line is that real world historical areas were generally far, far more crowded than D&D has its worlds.

Medieval Demographics Made Easy

The Domesday Book

Two possibly useful websites for your perusal.

Realistically, settled lands in farmable terrain will have farming villages every 2-4 miles. 2 miles is right for decent farmland, 4 miles for eg the marshlands of East Anglia. European style agriculture gives a population density of around 180 per square mile of good farmland, actual medieval historical population densities vary from a high of ca 118/square mile in France to a low of around 10 per square mile in highland Scotland, which was still tribal/clan-based rather than feudal. A rugged, sparsely populated feudal kingdom might have around 30 per square mile.

Check out 'Medieval Demographics Made Easy' online.

Fantasy nation maps tend to be extremely sparse, aping Tolkien I guess. Settlements are not going to survive if there is no trade network between them, and such a network requires they be within travelling distance, about 12 miles is a practical limit but usually they will be much closer together.

DP - ENW is really bad right now.