Population densities in Roman-Age Europe?

['Jamie Polichak' jamiepolichak@hotmail.com [gothic-l]]

Try the Germanic group too. Germanic-L at yahoogroups.com They regularly deal with eastern and northern European population distributions. Though not always in English.

Population is also highly dependent on geography, especially the climate part.  Britain is warmer than much of interior Europe, especially in the east, for its latitude. Even with the Pruth and Dniepr, there would likely be a large difference between the coast of the Black Sea and elsewhere. For example, the Dniepr tends to freeze in winter, while the Thames does not (aside from the Little Ice Age of the 17th-19th centuries).

Roman towns would also probably tend to be larger than non-Roman towns. Outside the core region around the Mediterranean (and even parts there), many towns were specifically constructed at a regular size with a regular plan and with a set number of people intended to inhabit them.

Also, Wikipedia gives a population of 1.5 million for England in 100 BC (Prior, Francis. BC Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans year=2004. London: Harper Perennial.) and 3.25 million in 1100 AD (John Hatcher and Mark Bailey, Modelling the Middle Ages, Oxford University press, 2001, pg. 29).

There was also a drop after 1100, with 3 million left in 1350 (Black Death), but continuing to 2.75 million in 1541.

3 (or 3.7) million sounds far too high for 1-4th C AD Roman Britain. It wasn’t until the 17th century that England made it past 4 million inhabitants and stayed there.
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