How many people would a 1500 ish colony need

Question

How many people would a colony with around 15th century technology (i.e. Bows, crossbows melee weapons mostly, a few guns and cannons) need to survive? A few things to mention would be that charms, magic, and alchemy are fairly common practice and are used to help mainly with farming and hygiene. The magic in question is fairly versatile and can be used by mostly anyone however magic isn't able to preform miracles such as bringing back the dead or reversing time or anything major like that, it is able to fertilize land to an extent and help nurture crops to grow. The magic is also capable of healing most minor wounds (those who've studied healing spells are able to do much more then your average user) and able keep most people in relatively good health. Most man power would generally be diverted towards protection and defense from the fairly hostile surrounding environment and natives with the remaining being split between farming and other necessities to survive.

Please edit your question to tell us more about the purpose of the colony, and more about the "fairly hostile surrounding environment and natives". A trading post will attract a different kind of native hostility than disease-ridden settlers who try to displace the natives off their land. More people means better fortifications and better organization to defend against attacks...but also requires more crops. — user535733, Oct 02 '20 at 15:56
"Most man power would generally be diverted towards protection and defense": in pre-modern times, a prosperous society could afford about 2% to 3% of its men (1% to 1.5% of the total population) to shirk work and march around in a soldierly fashion. Your assumption that a pre-modern society could devote most of its man power to unproductive activities is unbelievable. (You must realize that soldiering is expensive; soldiers must eat, and they don't grow their own food; soldiers need clothes, weapons, shelter, and money and they don't make those. Soldiers are parasites.) — AlexP, Oct 02 '20 at 16:08
Hello Soka! Welcome to [worldbuilding.se]. When you have a moment, please take our [tour] and review our [help] to better understand our site. Also, please review this question which fundamentally answers yours (I would have voted to close as a duplicate, but there are difference between 1500s earth and a space colony). It would help A LOT if you reviewed that question and explained what else you need to know. — JBH, Oct 02 '20 at 17:32
Are we talking "Prisoner colony" or are we talking "trade outpost" or "Religious refugees"? The most militaristic society of all time I know (PRE-Peloponnesian War Sparta) had 90% of all male citizens in the army, but 0% of them were farmers. They also owned about triple their own population in helots. — Trish, Nov 01 '20 at 17:07

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '20 at 17:00

According to this excellent Historical urban community sizes.

Cities around the year 1450

Como - 10,000
Beijing - 672,000
Antwerp - 20,000
Florence - 54,000
Genoa - 120,000
Lyon - 60,000
Rome - 33,500
Cairo - 380,000
Vijayanagar - 500,000
Chan Chan - 60,000–100,000
Tabriz - 200,000

This is a very short list with varying numbers to actually demonstrate my answer which is:

Several thousands at least but it largely depends on the context.

For example the first city comes at a mere 10,000 but the second has an insane population number of 672,000.

So that leaves you to determine a number between 10000 or more than half a million?

Actually no.

The real population size would be determined by other factors such as economy, geography, politics...etc.

For example, and this continues to this day in many parts of the world, if you have a city where there is a lot of wealth that probably means many job opportunities which leads to more people moving there and trying to find a job.

Standard of living is also a thing as a minimum wage job at X might be more than what you can find at Y.

This can be offset by high costs of living leading people to live outside the city or live in crowded apartment buildings inside or around the city.

Another factor might be the ruler or rulers. They might decide that the city only supports a certain number of people or class or groups...etc and anything else is kicked out or kept at the gates for month as they try to plead a case. Camps would follow real quick if that is allowed. Again context.

Here is an example. Roman relied on slaves quite a bit and so for any Roman city you might have more slaves than say a medieval town. Those slaves were very cheap labor and did not bother you or demand a guild or anything.

But introduce guilds and syndicates and have the labor demand something and then the overall number of people is reduced.

Obvious factors such as the size of the land or the ability to feed the people or weather...etc are too obvious.

Basically I'm saying there are too many factors here. Many of which are unknown and we don't know what is the purpose or overall world looking like.

Now it's true that a lot of working hands would need to exist to farm the fields and cut the wood and clean the roads...etc but that does not require too much people and, again, falls into the category of several thousands.

So honestly I would just go with what makes sense for you world and story.

Do you want a huge urban city with sprawling paved roads and uniformed police or a more simple city with wooden houses and smaller population...etc.

Also magic is a game changer. But that is determined by how powerful it is and so we lack the information there.

If your magic includes making food out of thin air, like in the The Stormlight Archive for example, then agriculture is not that big of a problem and whoever can do that will be able to support more people on less lands. This might evolve into all sort of things actually.

Imagine that farming is almost impossible, weather or magic or soil or whatever, and so only few wizard can magically summon food and I think we can all see where that is going. But I digress.

Another example is a world of mine where potions are used to provide plentiful harvest so they have much bigger crop yields than even today.

So a smaller number of workers working on a small piece of land can provide for a larger group of people.

And you said colony which I'm treating as city so far.

But that could mean that say those people where part of a fleet and arrived at a certain location and established this place so the colony might be just people off the fleet or the second generation of those people. But that again falls into the category of what is going on? If they arrived into a hostile land and had to constantly fight then the city would be limited to what is fortified and their numbers would be few with a lot of focus on military power.

But if they arrived into a place with nice people or mixed feelings they might grow exponentially if they were welcomed there and trade with the people and took many local wives...etc.

So like I said we need a lot more to craft a specific answer. But generally speaking you are free to decide that unless you created a very specific context for that colony

Cities were never self-sufficient. They were never intended to be self-sufficient. Those 10,000 people in Como did not survive by growing their own food, felling their own timber, and growing their own flax, hemp and sheep. A city functions as a hub of commerce and industry; to have 10,000 people in Como you need 100,000 people around Como feeding and clothing the citizens. — AlexP, Oct 02 '20 at 21:51
@AlexP, You are right. But that math is obviously wrong. I mean if you need to support every 10000 with 100,000 then who supports the 100,000? There is also like a million thing he can do and make to reduce the number of people in a city to be more self sufficient. Ultimately most kingdoms, let alone cities, would need something from the outside. But he actually said "survive" So I imagine that the Persian rug makers and hair stylists are much less needed than soldier and farmers in that situation — Seallussus, Oct 03 '20 at 02:40
The 100,000 around the city are engaged in agriculture, minining, forestry etc. They are the prime producers. Cities are consumers. Cities serve their purpose -- they facilitate trade, they produce industrial goods. But they sit atop a large layer of prime producers. It is only in modern times, with our very highly productive agriculture, that urbanization could move above a 5% or at best 10%; in pre-modern times, there was no way to have less than 10 peasants / farmers / etc. for each city dweller. — AlexP, Oct 03 '20 at 07:51
@AlexP, But your 100000 are still consumers as well. A peasant needs tools for the trade, wood for his house, spices for his food, food, water, cloth...etc. And a miner also needs that peasant and they both need a baker...etc. That is how economy works. I think what you mean is that cities consume more, which is very subjective to the point that any numbers without facts are pure folly, not that other communities don't consume at all. Lastly we lack the context. For example 50 AD Rome consumes a lot more than 1320 Cologne. Basic we lack information to come up with actual numbers. YMMV — Seallussus, Oct 04 '20 at 03:29
of your list, not a single one is a colony but there are 6 capitals and 2 city-states on it. And one of them is about 3000 years old in 1500 (Cairo) — Trish, Nov 01 '20 at 17:13
@Trish, Yes. I could be wrong. Read below "And you said colony which I'm treating as city so far." — Seallussus, Nov 01 '20 at 17:32

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 01 '20 at 20:19

The number of workers in you colony is almost irrelevant. Or rather it is SO dependent on a host of variables that any answer at all would be a lie. Especially if you include not only 1500's material technology but also practical magi into the mix.

So let's assume you have enough workers for the job.

The other requirement for a colony to be viable is genetic diversity. Being a colony, you will not be getting any new blood in anything soon. The 50/500 rule applies. You need 50 breeding individuals to prevent catastrophic inbreeding, and 500 the stabilize genetic drift. To count, the individuals should not include any closer than second cousins among the whole population. In practice, this usually means you need about 3-4x as many people to start with, as families tend to group together.

Mind you, this is 50/500 breeding individuals. Obviously they need to survive to chilbearing age, and have enough children to at least sustain the colony by replacing all deaths.

How many people would a 1500 ish colony need

2 Answers2