Planning a city size
When making a medieval city map, I always struggled with how big the starting map should be. I finally found some guidelines online that have helped with determining this, so I thought I'd share what I found works in general for me.
I got the math from an article "Medieval Demographics made easy" at http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm. Based on their math, here is a chart showing some general sizes, with corresponding size in acres, sq feet, sq miles. I also included the dimensions in feet of the map if you use a square map (X&Y are the same).
Of course, this is assuming that the city fills the entire map, so if you want any areas outside the city, just make it larger. You can always fudge the size if your city is more or less densely populated but I found this works as a good starting point.
I got the math from an article "Medieval Demographics made easy" at http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm. Based on their math, here is a chart showing some general sizes, with corresponding size in acres, sq feet, sq miles. I also included the dimensions in feet of the map if you use a square map (X&Y are the same).
Of course, this is assuming that the city fills the entire map, so if you want any areas outside the city, just make it larger. You can always fudge the size if your city is more or less densely populated but I found this works as a good starting point.
| Population | Size in acres | Size in sq feet | Size in sq miles | Dimensions in feet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 1 | 43560 | 0.0015625 | 209x209 |
| 150 | 2 | 87120 | 0.003125 | 295x295 |
| 300 | 5 | 217800 | 0.0078125 | 467x467 |
| 500 | 8 | 348480 | 0.0125 | 590x590 |
| 750 | 12 | 522720 | 0.01875 | 723x723 |
| 1000 | 16 | 696960 | 0.025 | 835x835 |
| 2000 | 33 | 1437480 | 0.0515625 | 1199x1199 |
| 5000 | 82 | 3571920 | 0.128125 | 1890x1890 |
| 7500 | 124 | 5401440 | 0.19375 | 2324x2324 |
| 10000 | 165 | 7187400 | 0.2578125 | 2681x2681 |
| 20000 | 329 | 14331240 | 0.5140625 | 3786x3786 |
| 30000 | 494 | 21518640 | 0.771875 | 4639x4639 |
| 50000 | 824 | 35893440 | 1.2875 | 5991x5991 |
Comments
You might also like the Magical Medieval City Guide by Expeditious Retreat Press. It's a free compilation from their larger collection of A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, which they sell (or at least sold) through RPGNow. It's all geared toward d20 rulesets but the information is still helpful even if you use different game systems.