How big are the biggest cities in your campaign world?

[Jd Smith1]

In fantasy, seldom more than 50,000. Rome was indeed vastly larger, but it also dominated the known world.

 

[aramis erak]

Both Rome and Alexandria topped 1 million back in ancient times, so megapoles aren't impossible. As my campaigns tend to draw heaviest inspiration from the Ancient Near East, the largest cities in my campaigns tend to have over a half million, easy.

Our supplement on the City of Brass estimated the City's population at 400,000 to 3 million (from the comically reduced 4e population to the old 2e estimates). Our forthcoming book estimates the population of Golden Huzuz at 800,000, per 2e.

Byzantium has been said to have topped 1.2 million before the Ottoman Empire.... but it sprawled, and was utterly dependent upon imperial tribute to survive.

The biggest I've used in any RPG as a place players have been was a city of 10.5 billion (1e9) persons... but that was a quirk of Traveller's world gen. In no small irony, it was a size 1 world (~1600 km diameter).

For a fantasy game, one of my two homebrews had a city of about 100,000... but it was a capital, part of a trading empire, and supported strongly by the ruling cabal of wizards.

Most of the "Cities" in my game worlds only qualify as such by the "definition" of "A city is a village with a bishop and a royal charter."

 

[bedir than]

A quick google shows London had a population of about 18000 in 1086 (the Domesday Book) and about 45000 in the 1300's.

Given as the settings usually seem to assume a 1300-1500-ish level of advancement, having a few cities get a bit north of 50000 doesn't seem inappropriate. Add in some conveniences magic can bring and it might go even higher.

Im my own campaign, the biggest cities the PCs have yet encountered are in the 20K-to-30K range; there's two bigger ones on the continent that they've heard of but have yet to get anywhere near (those being my game's vague equivalents of London and Rome), and other than that they've got to go off-continent to find anything bigger.

In fantasy, seldom more than 50,000. Rome was indeed vastly larger, but it also dominated the known world.

In the Late Middle Ages, London was decent. There were dozens upon dozens of cities larger. When Rome dominated Europe, there were still many cities over 50k, though none matched Rome at its peak in the Bronze Age

Historical urban community sizes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Shiroiken]

My Free City of Greyhawk, Dyvers, and Raxus all run about 1M people. They are the exception, rather than the rule, with the rest of the population similar to the DMG listings.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Well, as I've simply included Waterdeep wholesale into my own world.... however big WD is.

Same. And the City of Brass will be included as well, assuming my players really decide to continue the campaign that long.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

In the Late Middle Ages, London was decent. There were dozens upon dozens of cities larger. When Rome dominated Europe, there were still many cities over 50k, though none matched Rome at its peak in the Bronze Age

Historical urban community sizes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yes, people using London as an example of a prominent medieval city are ignoring the fact England was a rather minor power until after the Renaissance.

The big cities in the Middle Ages were the wealthy, urban centres of the "Roman core" - the Italian city states, the southern parts of modern Spain, Thrace, and Egypt.

Amalfi in Italy was 80,000 people when London was only a 1/4 of that size. Constantinople was 500,000 and Cordoba 350,000 in the same period. Palermo, probably not much smaller than Cordoba and Seville around 100,000.

Northern Europe had been an undeveloped backwater during the Roman era, and it took a few centuries for the cities there to catch up and overtake the more established cities that hugged the Mediterranean/

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Really I think as a rule of thumb, cities can be around 10,000, important capitals of minor realms around 3 or 4 times that, and six figures for the big important trade centres. And it isn't unusual for a 1 million megalopolis to exist you just need to be able to justify it.

 

[steeldragons]

Hmmm...the "biggest"...I'm going to say 1 million. As someone noted above, Rome and Alexandria has a million.

My world, I will say, has a single megapolis of that size. The second/next largest would be around 500,000. Those are the two giant, largest cities, both known the continent over. Often looked at as "sister cities" one sits on the southeastern coast and on a western sea coast they are referred to as, "the Gem of the East" and "the Jewel of the West," respectively.

Following those two, "Metropolis" cities, which I would put 50-100k, would number...six? Maybe seven.
"Cities" 25-50k... I'm thinking only about 5.
"Large Towns" or Medium towns with something notable, say 10-25k. Maybe a dozen.
Medium towns or smaller, farming villages, hamlets, trading posts, clumps of homesteads, lone "keeps" housing a few dozen to a few hundred, etc... there are 4 or 5 I can name off the top of my head ("starting points for most campaigns). But realistically, they are innumerable/generated as needed.

I guess that sounds like a lot, but if you consider we're talking about a continent of seven different established HUMAN nations, at least four nations of other species, and wide swathes of unconquered (or conquered, fallen, and reclaimed) wilderness. So, divvied up, it's really not that many people in any given place.

 

[John Dallman]

About 250,000. The setting is more Renaissance-like than Medieval, and the city has several favourable circumstances: it's a trade hub, with very fertile hinterlands, and has a rather dynamic culture, capable of integrating immigrants in volume.

 

[Dioltach]

It hasn't come up explicitly in my current campaign (E6), but I'd say about 10,000.

Although I did once put together a setting that I never ran where the city covered the whole world. Like Coruscant, but then fantasy.