Heh. It really depends on which sources you want to read. FRCS pegs it at about 150 000 ish. In any case, 2 million is a ludicrous number for a city that size. I mean, the inside of the walls are less than 5 miles by 2 miles. 2 hundred thousand people per square mile? That's a bit much.
I just tend to assume the huge farming area necessary to support the city is factored into the population number. Kind of like how New York's population is 8.4 million, but the New York metro area's population is slightly over 20 million.Heh. It really depends on which sources you want to read. FRCS pegs it at about 150 000 ish. In any case, 2 million is a ludicrous number for a city that size. I mean, the inside of the walls are less than 5 miles by 2 miles. 2 hundred thousand people per square mile? That's a bit much.
I just tend to assume the huge farming area necessary to support the city is factored into the population number. Kind of like how New York's population is 8.4 million, but the New York metro area's population is slightly over 20 million.
The monster population maintains an equilibrium with the adventurer population.
Sounds like a good rule of thumb, so about 1 in 20,000. That would give a huge city like Waterdeep with 2 million people about 100 adventurers total. With the major factions headquartered there, like the Harper's and Force Grey, that sounds about right for traditional D&D Sword & Sorcery shenanigans.
Because Magic. Given the underground complexes beneath the city, you have to think cubic space for the population density, and don't forget a huge number of peoole are outside the walls.
The 3E FRCS lists a population of 1,347,840. A quick look in Dragon Heist didn't show any demographic statistics, but there was a sidebar stating that many versions of Waterdeep have been written, bit what really matters is the DM's personal version.
Because Magic.
Given the underground complexes beneath the city, you have to think cubic space for the population density, and don't forget a huge number of people are outside the walls.
Or, we can just accept that population size is unreasonable, and go with that.
Or we can just accept that, as I pointed up just two posts before yours, the 1.3 to 2 million figure refers to the region/city-state, not the city itself.