: The 30,000 figure should be taken to represent what the fiefs could normally spare if they were not under direct attack. It should be construed as every available man.

I was basing my figures on a bare minimum in order to allow the 30,000 figure. Tolkien's world seems to have been (with a few exceptions) rather sparsely populated, so I was being very niggardly with numbers on that account.

: : Taking rough estimates - enough able bodied men to tend the
: : fields back home, older men and boys unable to fight, then a
: : minimum figure for the male population of southern Gondor would
: : seem to be about 90,000 - say 100,000 in round numbers, with
: : the womenfolk up to 200,000.

: This is way too small. Minas Tirith itself probably had a population in excess of 100,000. Regions such as Lossarnach were said to still be heavily populated. Minas Tirith had been reduced to the position of a border fortress, but not the status of a border town.

: : Taking a tithe of this figure (which seems about the right
: : ratio for a pre modern ratio of rural to urban population)
: : gives Minas Tirith a population of 20,000. Enabling the local
: : Minas Tirithians to mount 3,000 men on the walls in the seige -
: : which again is seems a roughly equitable number.

: This is also too small. Denethor had forces stationed in Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and Cair Andros. He was able to send Faramir into Ithilien with about 300 Rangers. The army based in Minas Tirith was more likely 5-10,000 men strong. You would need a population of at least 10 times as many men in a pre-industrial economy to support that many combatants, and I've seen some historians suggest up to 20 times as many men.

But Denethor's standing forces were likely to have been recruited from Gondor as a whole, not merely from MT.

: Rome had a little over half a million men in its army and navy at the height of its power and a population of around 50,000,000 people according to most estimates I've seen.

: : So I would say a likely figure for MT at the time of LOTR would
: : be between 10,000 and 30,000 people, declining from a peak of
: : 40,000 to 80,000 in its prime.

: More likely Minas Tirith's population peaked well above the 100,000 mark. Perhaps as many as 200,000 people could have lived in the city at some time in the past.

: Another indication of the large population base (besides the fact that the townlands around the city extended out for miles) was the fact that only SOME of the people knew Sindarin well enough to speak it, but these alone outnumbered all the speakers of Sindarin in Lorien, Rivendell, and Lindon.

: Lorien, at least, was still able to field an army of probably several thousand Elves.

Taking a more generous tack then a comparison with Byzantium in the 9th century might be informative.

The Byzantine army numbered some 40,000 professional soldiers in the Tagmata, plus around 150,000 in the semi-professional Themata. Adding the levy for MT and Anorien to the 30,000 of the Southern Fiefs of say a further 10,000 we get 40,000 non-standing troops. Some of these do not seem to have been of the semi-professional type (though Dol Amroth's appear to be). So I would half this figure for comparison to the Thematic troops (who were paid and given land). Gondor's standing forces probably did not much exceed 10,000; certainly by all parallels they should have been considerably less numerous than the part-time soldiery.

Therefore a Gondorian figure of around 30,000 professional and semi-professional troops is comparable to the 190,000 Byzantine equivalent. A ratio of 1 to 6.3. Constantinople at the time probably had a population of a quarter of a million. If the ratio of troops to capital population is reasonably valid then a figure of around 39,500 for Minas Tirith emerges. Larger than my bare minimum calculation but not hugely.

For the population of the Gondorian capital at its height a similar sort of estimation is possible. Anumber of assumptions are needed :)

Imrahil says that 7,000 troops would have scarcely made up the vanguard of the Gondorian army of old. Presuming the army he refers to is one of the two field armies we know of then 7,000 van, 14,000 main battle, 7,000 rear guard x2 gives a professional army of 56,000. Compared with the Byzantine Tagmata of 40,000 it suggests a population for OSMENIL of 300,000 and perhaps one for Minas Tirith of around 100,000.