S'mon said:
"For sheer internal consistency, the population density can't be equal to that of Earth in historic time. The ecosystem can't support a Renaissance-era population density plus monsters and dragons. Given the wide variety of various predatory monsters, you probably have to give them between one-half and three-quarters of the territory and game."
- So monster-inhabited fertile territory is 'unihabited' wilderness, just likes deserts, swamps etc. This doesn't change the fact that human-inhabited, monsterless territory (ie likely all the habitable territory within state borders, otherwise those states are unable to protect their populations) ought to have much higher population densities than the given figures.
The state borders are run out to the area where they bump inot other state borders. There is tons of marginally or entirely unihabited land in some of the nations. Karrnath has full time occupation of only roughly half of it's claimed land area. It can make up the difference in control with undead (not generally included in census figures). Similarly, Breland has abandoned a lot of semi-rural territory to focus on a more urban-based culture. With their population down so far, there's no need to face the greater dangers of truely remote farming. As the cites get up to speed, and the transport infrastructure recovers, some enterprising noble is no doubt going to start creating incentives for people to move back out into the countryside into lands that are ancestrally designated, but presently fallow. Karrnath is looking to open up it's northern coast, for example.
All the nations are pretty much in a slump, population-wise - they are not only finishing up a lengthy war, but one that escalted heavily in its closing years. Population probably hasn't been this low since the absoutely earliest days of Galifar, and could be expected to climb steadily as a lot of the wartime emphasis shifts back to reconstruction.
Finally, you can deduct the land area of Cyre from your calculations almost entirely, and a number of outlying areas have cultures you would expect to have low populations densities. Most of the Demon Waste is unfit for permanent humanoid occupation, so folks would be concentrated int he areas that can be sustained. The nomad in the east are logically going to have low density (not to mention some serious predator issues). Elves are typically expected to have low population density, and the ones of this world look like they up hold that axiom.
Basically, where it's urban, its urban. And a awful lot of places where its not, it's really, really, not.
So, who wants a commision to set upa new town? Title included - act now, prime sites are filling up!
