World Design Questions

[Azélor]

I just want to point out that the era described by Gumboot mostly reflect the end of the medieval era, when the population expanded due to technical advances. The Europe from before the 13th century was different as villages where more or less isolated from each other. Many regions where mostly unsettled before that. As an example, the population on England tripled in 150 years or so.

[Gumboot]

I just want to point out that the era described by Gumboot mostly reflect the end of the medieval era, when the population expanded due to technical advances. The Europe from before the 13th century was different as villages where more or less isolated from each other. Many regions where mostly unsettled before that. As an example, the population on England tripled in 150 years or so.

I'm not sure I'd completely agree with this. Villages still existed in dense networks where land was cultivated, there was just less settled land, as you say. The general guides as far as density still applied for the areas that were settled, so you'd tend to get high density areas with wilderness in between, and over time, as populations grew, that wilderness was cleared and cultivated, thus while the average population density of large regions (such as entire states) increased, the local density of cultivated areas remained pretty constant at around 180 people per square mile right through the entire period (the reason being that local population densities are driven more by grain yield). Great Britain's population may have increased significantly through the first half of the middle ages as the heavy mouldboard plough was introduced, but England's didn't increase quite as much as you suggest. There were about a million people there in Roman times (England was one of the empire's biggest grain producers), and this had increased to about 1.5 million by 1000AD and peaked at 3.5 million in 1348 (in other words it tripled over a period of about 1,200 years). The big difference is that by the 14th Century all of the British Isles was equally densely populated, while during the "Dark Ages" only Roman Britain was so densely populated with most of the remainder in wilderness state.

[Azélor]

I'm not sure I'd completely agree with this. Villages still existed in dense networks where land was cultivated, there was just less settled land, as you say. The general guides as far as density still applied for the areas that were settled, so you'd tend to get high density areas with wilderness in between, and over time, as populations grew, that wilderness was cleared and cultivated, thus while the average population density of large regions (such as entire states) increased, the local density of cultivated areas remained pretty constant at around 180 people per square mile right through the entire period (the reason being that local population densities are driven more by grain yield). Great Britain's population may have increased significantly through the first half of the middle ages as the heavy mouldboard plough was introduced, but England's didn't increase quite as much as you suggest. There were about a million people there in Roman times (England was one of the empire's biggest grain producers), and this had increased to about 1.5 million by 1000AD and peaked at 3.5 million in 1348 (in other words it tripled over a period of about 1,200 years). The big difference is that by the 14th Century all of the British Isles was equally densely populated, while during the "Dark Ages" only Roman Britain was so densely populated with most of the remainder in wilderness state.

Yes the density was high at some point such as in northern Italy I am sure but the techniques and tool (and climate too) also allowed higher density. So you end up having better yeild. It is said that some places saw a massive increase in population such as Flanders because it used to be wilderness before. Well that was before 1315.

According to my book of history, here are the population number for England (Scotland excluded)

1100 :1.1 million
1250: 2 millions
1350: 4 millions
1400: 2 millions
1550: 3,5 millions

I think it's still a big increase

[waldronate]

Central place theory is always a fun place to start.

[Falconius]

Rivers may split occasionally and form small islands but they always meet up again and given enough time will go back to one channel. Where they split for real is in river deltas that empty into the ocean, I suspect because the land is too flat for one egress to handle the volume of water being emptied, and because it's so wet it has no where else to go. Here is a link to a discussion about these issues.