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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6409228" data-attributes="member: 4937">Based on my exposure to maps of medieval/early modern cities, my guess is that 80-100,000 is a much better estimate of the population of gamerprinter's (amazing) map than 40,000.  In fact, it might be a bit on the low side depending on the scale he indicates on the map.Keep in mind Venice peaks out at something like 180,000 persons, and Venice is tiny.  Depending on the scale of gameprinters map, 160,000 people isn't completely out of line since a large scale would allow those domiciles to be multi-family insulas with 40 or more persons per building.  Some of Rome's larger insulas housed hundreds of residents, much like large modern apartment buildings.Another thing to consider is the structure of grand buildings.  Most wealthy homes and certainly palaces were constructed something like a modern condominium with a shared common area.  Each section of the home was an apartment with a salon, antechamber, chamber, and wardrobe (in the case of the best apartments) that collectively functioned as a sort of private home for the resident (roughly a living room, den, bedroom, and bath in modern terms).  Only the greatest would sleep one to a bed, and they would probably have servants that slept in the outer less private portions of the apartment and/or lesser servants sleeping in the hall at the doorway.  Most bedchambers would have a married couple, or several close family members (2-3 sisters, or several cousins, for example).  So the bigger wealthier houses, much like the houses of the poor, are also multi-family dwellings with large extended families plus their live in servants and retainers.  Living without your extended family around you is a recent development, and even having your own room probably involved more wealth than was common even for the wealthy until the relatively modern era.   Ancient, medieval and early modern cities would approach New York density without having nearly as much vertical space.As long as I'm critiquing Magical Medieval Europe's numbers, and keeping in mind its been years since I read them, their figures for urbanization are too highly dependent on Northern Europe.  In areas with more moderate climates, long distance trade, and strong organization, urbanization could rise rather higher than the figures that they tend to give.   Roman Italy for example was about 40% urbanized.  I wouldn't be surprised to find similar numbers for Southern China.  Given the 'magic' in the magical medieval Europe, I tend to prefer a higher degree of urbanization than the 20% or less they tend to suggest.  It's also a bit easier for me to manage since I don't need quite so many dots on the map (to say nothing of names).</blockquote>

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