The White Council

Re: Minas Tirith (was Re: Populous)

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : At the time of LOTR Minas Tirith's population had evidently : : : declined (unoccupied houses etc) from its peak. The only : : : general guide we have is the number of combatants that Gondor : : : could raise . Unfortunately we are not given any numbers for : : : the Minas Tirith militia, if it existed. One interpretation of : : : a phrase in LOTR would give the fiefs of the south (of Gondor) : : : the ability to raise 30,000 armed men in an emergency. The : : : south here would probably include the sizeable towns of Dol : : : Amroth and Pelargir as well as the rural population. This : : : population probably far exceeded that of Minas Tirith alone.

: : 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.

: : : 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.

: : 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.

: I agree mostly with Michael but dispute some points that I shall return to later (especially concerning Rome, a favorite subject of min). A further point is one I stated before, a long time ago; Gondor's location and geographical area was much like the heartlands of the Roman empire (heartlands around the birth of Christ (which was in 4 or 5 B.C.!!)), how come then that it is less populated than Denmark and the other primitive parts of the Free Germania. It should be much heavier populated, even after the German invasions that dealt the death stroke to the western empire, that area was very heavily populated (in contrast to the border areas- like Ithilien/Calednarhon- which were, to some extent, depopulated by the incessant warfare and the empire's taxes). : ;-) Neithan Turambar

Anglo-Saxon England may be a better point of reference in comparing population densities. At the time of the Doomsday Book, England had a population of C.1 million, in a country of 50,000 square miles. That was far less than the population of England in Roman times, although it still made it one of the more densely populated parts of Europe in the 11th Century.