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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PsyzhranV2" data-source="post: 7902329" data-attributes="member: 7015332">(Shamelessly stolen from Reddit)<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/et0y19/how_did_waterdeeps_population_explode_from_132000/ffdoama?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x" target="_blank">The canonical population in 1372 was 1,347,840 (source, the 3e FR campaign guide). (more specifically: 64% human, 10% dwarf, 10% elf, 5% halfling, 5% half-elf, 3% gnome, 2% half-orc) The key is this - the CITY of Waterdeep population was 132,661, but Waterdeep is more than just the core city itself. Much like in the real world, the "greater metropolitan area" of a city is often counted in the population numbers. Especially when you take into account the fact that many medieval cities would have fewer permanent citizens and a significant number of people who lived outside the city walls, but who would fall back into the city itself in the event of an attack or siege. This is why so many sieges resulted in overcrowded conditions and bled resources so quickly - the city would be supporting far more population than it was normally designed to handle. So it's easy to believe that the Waterdeep scenario is that about 1/10th the population live within the the city walls on a permanent basis, while 9/10ths live outside. In 1372, the overall population of Waterdeep as an entity is 1.35 mil, give or take. Expanding to 2 mil over 120 years isn't entirely out of the question. The assumption would thus seem to be that any source giving Waterdeep's population as being 2 mil in the 1490s is almost certainly referring to the overall Waterdeep area (even if it explicitly refers to the "city"), and not just the literal city itself. The city itself, assuming the overall population ratio remains the same, is probably pushing closer to around 200,000 people. Which would only be an increase of about 70,000 or so people over 120 years. Again, plausible (though considering it would be a nearly 50% increase in population, which would necessitate a fair bit of new building, expansion, and potentially even extending the walls in some places to accommodate new buildings). It's also worth noting that Volo's account in Dragon Heist implies that the 120 year period between 3e and 5e was actually disruptive enough that the population in 1490 should actually be higher than it is, and that Waterdeep is only just recovering to pre-crisis levels.</a></blockquote>

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