Two mistakes - I list The Wold as bigger than the Westemnet, and the Eastfold as bigger than the Westfold and West-march. The correct order should be Eastemnet > Westemnet > The Wold > West-march > Westfold .> Eastfold > The Folde. First mistake was just me being dumb, second mistake was because I originally thought that Aldburg was part of the Eastfold, not the Folde, and even then, the Eastfold still probably would've been smaller than the West-march, so I'm still dumb. While I have you - I'm working on two videos at the same time. One is Helm's Deep. The other is a video on Amazon LOTR. Given the recent wave of hysteria that has been gripping the internet, I'm throwing my hat in the ring.
Recent wave? Seems to me there has been one ever since the show was first announced. Oh, and the measurements may be uncivilized but try telling a hobbit that!
@@istari0 It's more of a response video to several big UA-camrs who have made videos about it within the last month or so. And I'm not worried about Hobbits, I think I can handle some shin kicks.
Population of Rohans has to be pretty small. Here's the challenge: historical IRL semi-nomadic people based around horse rearing average 0.5 people per square kilometer. Horses and nomadic animals need a lot of fodder. It's either a lot of grass or a lot of grain. For territory of 136000 km2 that's a population of 68000. Nomadic peoples famously could put forth absurdly large numbers of mounted warriors, between 1/5 and 1/7 of total population, basically every family would send a warrior. This is pretty well documented across Pechenegs, Cumans, Mongols, and Turks. It's possible that Rohan's population was that small, less than 100K, however dangerously low it seems. Given that Rohan has been historically contested on almost all sides it would make sense that a) full muster has been fixed at 12000 riders for a long time, since the population replenished about at a pace it was diminished, and b) Rohirrim were based around horses, since they needed to remain mobile both for living and warfare, and every family probably had a dozen horses or more. Where other settled peoples invested in farms, Rohirrim invested in horses. Horses are expensive to feed and maintain and only highly developed medieval settled societies with lots of grain could afford large numbers of horses, like England and France beginning 12 century. Rohan wasn't it. c) Rohirrim became absolute master of demolishing everything in their wake on horseback. This also reinforces that Saruman was not fucking around, he had a serious opponent to contend with. Inversely, Rohan should not be a medieval society very much like England in 9-11 centuries, they simply lack the infrastructure. Territory of modern England in 10th century had population density of 10 people per km2 with a population of over 1 million people. Aragorn's hunting party would be stumbling on a small village every 5-10 km or so, and a larger walled town every 30km. It's possible that as this video suggest most of Rohan's population was huddled along White Mountains, but the population density and level of development would need to be insane there, rivaling those of Italy throughout most of it's existence, to make Rohan's population over several hundred thousands. Therefore I would argue that Rohans' population was at most 200K or a little over, with a narrow strip of towns along the Misty Mountains in Eastfold and Westfold, where trade happens, and a semi-nomadic population roaming everywhere else in the northern parts of Rohan. During the viking age, Norway had 200K people, Denmark and Sweden each had 500K or so, and neither polity had problems engaging in near constant warfare and still thriving.
Good information. Rohan has interested me since seeing the movies and its emphases on Man. The books were always Elves for me, especially the Silmarillian. Somehow the Rohirrium seemed such more approachable and valiant people than those of Gondor.
I think that was intentional. Rohan was a normal human kingdom, no elvish, dwarvish or Numenorian "magic" attached to it, and it also lacked the "high culture" of Gondor or the wisdom of the elves. It was meant as an underdog, a kinda small vassal state of the great and powerful Gondor, that gets to shine and show more dignity and heroism that the heirs of old myths. Rohan I think was meant to represent how humanity could do good going forward into the fourth age.
As far as I remember, the people of the Wold, and both Emnets are semi nomadic due to their large flocks of horses! When the flock grazed an area empty, they move on in these great plain areas to the next fertile location!
Yes, please, more "regions of" content. Although for proper states like Rohan or Gondor (or for contemporaries, Mordor or Lindon or Dale or the Shire, or for non-contemporaries Arnor or its daughter kingdoms) these should really be provinces. Regions sound more like unadministered wilderness. Also, I'm pretty sure the map is wrong and Rohan doesn't extend to the Anduin past the so-called Walls of Rohan (that is, the cliffs at the western edge of the Emyn Muil). If it did, Rohan would have Amon Hen and half the Argonath in its territory, but those sites are only ever associated with Gondor (even if they are largely unadministered by the time of the War of the Ring).
What a great video. Would love to hear you talk about other "countries" and it's regions. Also love the visuals you put it, must be pretty hard to find good material. Keep it up!
A march is a military frontier, its purpose is to fall (with the levy delaying things a bit) and to be retaken eventually by the central army. The march's existence, its distance from the center, and the time it takes to conquer ensure that the central army can actually be mustered and supplemented with other regions' levies.
@@elliotcrossan6290 With most of its population on the Anduin, in the vales of the White Mountains, and on the coast, where it belonged? It wasn't needed to defend the Westmarch, because the Westmarch was doing its job of being strategic depth. Also, it hadn't been summoned by whatever Rohan's equivalent to the Red Arrow is, so it wouldn't have known to be there even if it was needed. Which it wasn't.
Don't worry so much about Rohan being so empty towards the end of the Third Age. Things are even worse in Eriador and Rhovanion. One has the impression that the Grim Reaper was very active in the Third Age.
great video man, nice numbers and good tips of the map, always something new! the ice age killed a lot of Rohan population otherwise it wouldnt have been so bad by the time of the ring war do the Rhovannion next ;)
Too high in my opinion! They have no major cities, just a few fortified places and a large part lives as nomads with the horses! They could assemble what, 12.000-15.000 riders if they had enough time before they rode to Minas Tirith... that’s fighting men! Let’s say they might have 10 times as many men that aren‘t fighters, so we have a population of adult men between 140.000 and 170.000, add to that the same amount of women, so roughly 350.000 adult men and women! With children, I would estimate th population between 700.000 and 1.000.000, given that we have no clue how many children the casual family has! It also has to be considered, this is no society which knows a real division of labour... the majority are peasants and herdsmen... in a region that isn‘t known to be extremely fertile! So there are certain restrictions to feed a people And these are already very optimistic estimations
I think Michel Morio's estimate is pretty good. 1-2 million seems a little high for me. I'd put the number between 400,000-700,000. I'm going to eventually do videos on this subject. They'll be tough to tackle, but I also think they'll be a lot of fun.
@@DarthGandalfYT also what do you think was the real population of Edoras I would argue that the city described by Tolkien was the same size as Early Medevial London around 10,000 maximum 15,000.
@@Georgios1821 For late Third Age Gondor, I would say 2-3 million. At it's height, definitely above 10 million. As for Edoras, Theoden was able to muster 1,000 riders from there (and the surrounding homesteads), and that was on top of the 600 Elfhelm had mustered earlier. So that's 1,600 soldiers from Edoras. It probably had a greater ratio of soldier to civilian considering it was the royal capital, so I don't think 10,000 is a bad guess. The Rohirrim weren't very urbanised, so they wouldn't have large cities.
"Civilized measurements" 😂 If it's true that the British built the modern world, then modern 'civilization' was built off 'uncivilized' measurements. You may take from that what you will...
I tried to think of a witty remark here, but I weighted so long without an ounce of inspiration. So I pounded out this explanation instead. And on reflection I have no scruples in this decision.
Two mistakes - I list The Wold as bigger than the Westemnet, and the Eastfold as bigger than the Westfold and West-march. The correct order should be Eastemnet > Westemnet > The Wold > West-march > Westfold .> Eastfold > The Folde. First mistake was just me being dumb, second mistake was because I originally thought that Aldburg was part of the Eastfold, not the Folde, and even then, the Eastfold still probably would've been smaller than the West-march, so I'm still dumb.
While I have you - I'm working on two videos at the same time. One is Helm's Deep. The other is a video on Amazon LOTR. Given the recent wave of hysteria that has been gripping the internet, I'm throwing my hat in the ring.
Recent wave? Seems to me there has been one ever since the show was first announced. Oh, and the measurements may be uncivilized but try telling a hobbit that!
@@istari0 It's more of a response video to several big UA-camrs who have made videos about it within the last month or so. And I'm not worried about Hobbits, I think I can handle some shin kicks.
@@DarthGandalfYT I seem to remember reading about some people who ended up deeply regretting underestimating hobbits!
Population of Rohans has to be pretty small. Here's the challenge: historical IRL semi-nomadic people based around horse rearing average 0.5 people per square kilometer. Horses and nomadic animals need a lot of fodder. It's either a lot of grass or a lot of grain. For territory of 136000 km2 that's a population of 68000. Nomadic peoples famously could put forth absurdly large numbers of mounted warriors, between 1/5 and 1/7 of total population, basically every family would send a warrior. This is pretty well documented across Pechenegs, Cumans, Mongols, and Turks. It's possible that Rohan's population was that small, less than 100K, however dangerously low it seems. Given that Rohan has been historically contested on almost all sides it would make sense that a) full muster has been fixed at 12000 riders for a long time, since the population replenished about at a pace it was diminished, and b) Rohirrim were based around horses, since they needed to remain mobile both for living and warfare, and every family probably had a dozen horses or more. Where other settled peoples invested in farms, Rohirrim invested in horses. Horses are expensive to feed and maintain and only highly developed medieval settled societies with lots of grain could afford large numbers of horses, like England and France beginning 12 century. Rohan wasn't it. c) Rohirrim became absolute master of demolishing everything in their wake on horseback. This also reinforces that Saruman was not fucking around, he had a serious opponent to contend with. Inversely, Rohan should not be a medieval society very much like England in 9-11 centuries, they simply lack the infrastructure. Territory of modern England in 10th century had population density of 10 people per km2 with a population of over 1 million people. Aragorn's hunting party would be stumbling on a small village every 5-10 km or so, and a larger walled town every 30km. It's possible that as this video suggest most of Rohan's population was huddled along White Mountains, but the population density and level of development would need to be insane there, rivaling those of Italy throughout most of it's existence, to make Rohan's population over several hundred thousands. Therefore I would argue that Rohans' population was at most 200K or a little over, with a narrow strip of towns along the Misty Mountains in Eastfold and Westfold, where trade happens, and a semi-nomadic population roaming everywhere else in the northern parts of Rohan. During the viking age, Norway had 200K people, Denmark and Sweden each had 500K or so, and neither polity had problems engaging in near constant warfare and still thriving.
Good information. Rohan has interested me since seeing the movies and its emphases on Man. The books were always Elves for me, especially the Silmarillian. Somehow the Rohirrium seemed such more approachable and valiant people than those of Gondor.
I think that was intentional. Rohan was a normal human kingdom, no elvish, dwarvish or Numenorian "magic" attached to it, and it also lacked the "high culture" of Gondor or the wisdom of the elves. It was meant as an underdog, a kinda small vassal state of the great and powerful Gondor, that gets to shine and show more dignity and heroism that the heirs of old myths. Rohan I think was meant to represent how humanity could do good going forward into the fourth age.
Hehe. "Civilized measurements" This video is already good.
As far as I remember, the people of the Wold, and both Emnets are semi nomadic due to their large flocks of horses! When the flock grazed an area empty, they move on in these great plain areas to the next fertile location!
Yes, please, more "regions of" content. Although for proper states like Rohan or Gondor (or for contemporaries, Mordor or Lindon or Dale or the Shire, or for non-contemporaries Arnor or its daughter kingdoms) these should really be provinces. Regions sound more like unadministered wilderness.
Also, I'm pretty sure the map is wrong and Rohan doesn't extend to the Anduin past the so-called Walls of Rohan (that is, the cliffs at the western edge of the Emyn Muil). If it did, Rohan would have Amon Hen and half the Argonath in its territory, but those sites are only ever associated with Gondor (even if they are largely unadministered by the time of the War of the Ring).
I didn’t realise how big Rohan was until I played lord of the rings online.
Detailed and well done. What about the Blue mountains and Lindon? Could you cover that?
What a great video. Would love to hear you talk about other "countries" and it's regions. Also love the visuals you put it, must be pretty hard to find good material. Keep it up!
Everyone asks "where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?", but nobody asks "where was Gondor when the West-march fell?"
A march is a military frontier, its purpose is to fall (with the levy delaying things a bit) and to be retaken eventually by the central army. The march's existence, its distance from the center, and the time it takes to conquer ensure that the central army can actually be mustered and supplemented with other regions' levies.
@@zimmerwald1915 yeah okay, but WHERE WAS GONDOR!
@@elliotcrossan6290 With most of its population on the Anduin, in the vales of the White Mountains, and on the coast, where it belonged? It wasn't needed to defend the Westmarch, because the Westmarch was doing its job of being strategic depth.
Also, it hadn't been summoned by whatever Rohan's equivalent to the Red Arrow is, so it wouldn't have known to be there even if it was needed. Which it wasn't.
@@zimmerwald1915 I know 😂 just playing off the Théoden meme
Funnily enough, Gondor actually helps Rohan retake the West-march in the aftermath of the Long Winter.
Excellent video
Don't worry so much about Rohan being so empty towards the end of the Third Age. Things are even worse in Eriador and Rhovanion. One has the impression that the Grim Reaper was very active in the Third Age.
the biggest regional difference is that Helm's Deep can recruit Helmingas which somehow still suck as archers
At least they're a good melee unit.
Cheers
This makes me want to play Lord of Universalis
Next the Regions of Gondor.
great video man, nice numbers and good tips of the map, always something new!
the ice age killed a lot of Rohan population otherwise it wouldnt have been so bad by the time of the ring war
do the Rhovannion next ;)
So how much population do you estimate Rohan had by the time of the War of the Ring? 1-2 million?
Too high in my opinion! They have no major cities, just a few fortified places and a large part lives as nomads with the horses!
They could assemble what, 12.000-15.000 riders if they had enough time before they rode to Minas Tirith... that’s fighting men! Let’s say they might have 10 times as many men that aren‘t fighters, so we have a population of adult men between 140.000 and 170.000, add to that the same amount of women, so roughly 350.000 adult men and women! With children, I would estimate th population between 700.000 and 1.000.000, given that we have no clue how many children the casual family has!
It also has to be considered, this is no society which knows a real division of labour... the majority are peasants and herdsmen... in a region that isn‘t known to be extremely fertile! So there are certain restrictions to feed a people
And these are already very optimistic estimations
I think Michel Morio's estimate is pretty good. 1-2 million seems a little high for me. I'd put the number between 400,000-700,000.
I'm going to eventually do videos on this subject. They'll be tough to tackle, but I also think they'll be a lot of fun.
Good afternoon,
I am starting a petition to change the name of the the region of "Wetwang" to literally ANYTHING else.
Please sign below.
So basically Rohan had the population of Anglosaxon England 1-2 million at best.
Probably not as high as two million, but I think 750k-1.5mil is a good estimate.
@@DarthGandalfYT can you do the same for Gondor her population must at least above 5 million and likely around 10
@@DarthGandalfYT also what do you think was the real population of Edoras I would argue that the city described by Tolkien was the same size as Early Medevial London around 10,000 maximum 15,000.
@@Georgios1821 For late Third Age Gondor, I would say 2-3 million. At it's height, definitely above 10 million. As for Edoras, Theoden was able to muster 1,000 riders from there (and the surrounding homesteads), and that was on top of the 600 Elfhelm had mustered earlier. So that's 1,600 soldiers from Edoras. It probably had a greater ratio of soldier to civilian considering it was the royal capital, so I don't think 10,000 is a bad guess. The Rohirrim weren't very urbanised, so they wouldn't have large cities.
Rohan’s population is 500 K with a military of 12 K.
Says so In the books.
You make fun of our use of miles. WHO DO YOU THINK WE LEARNED IT FROM?
I have nothing to do with the British. I'm well within my rights to make fun the imperial system ;)
@@DarthGandalfYT fair enough 😂😂 I’m in the military and we use the metric system for most things as well
Civilised measurements. Lol
"Civilized measurements" 😂 If it's true that the British built the modern world, then modern 'civilization' was built off 'uncivilized' measurements. You may take from that what you will...
I like to think that the British Empire fell due to native population demanding independence to escape from the oppression of the stone (st).
I tried to think of a witty remark here, but I weighted so long without an ounce of inspiration. So I pounded out this explanation instead.
And on reflection I have no scruples in this decision.