What would the actual population of Skyrim be?

[Lurknir]

I saw a page counting the number of NPC's in all of Skyrim and the number of people in total was about 700 I think and most of the big towns/cities had around 40-50 people including guards.

Obviously because it's a game there can't be tens of thousands of people in the game. But excluding this, what would you say the actual population of Skyrim be? And that's counting guards, bandits, vampires and excluding any other creatures.

 

[JoeReese]

I've wondered that. I'm sure it would be much more crowded than what we see, but I could only guess at how crowded. Taking a WAG at it (Wild-assed guess) I'd say maybe maybe forty to sixty in a place like Rorikstead, a couple hundred in Riverwood, and probably four or five thousand in a "city" the size of Whiterun or Windhelm, plus the outlying villages. That's not taking into consideration the relative lack of housing in the game. I'm sure there'd be more houses, huts, tents, and hovels.

 

[raido KASAI]

three

 

[Fraekith]

Maybe we'll find out what could have been in Skyrim in the Elder Scrolls VI. Never know though. Elder Scrolls Online was a big let down for me, hopefully they don't do anything dumb with the new ES game. Still have a long wait for that though.

 

[raido KASAI]

Maybe we'll find out what could have been in Skyrim in the Elder Scrolls VI. Never know though. Elder Scrolls Online was a big let down for me, hopefully they don't do anything dumb with the new ES game. Still have a long wait for that though.

I doubt ESO would have much of an influence on TES6. Bethesda was pretty much uninvolved in ESO development beyond giving ZeniMax intellectual property permissions to use their content.

I wouldn't mind them making some sort of co-op available in 6, something like what Diablo has been. MMO limitations tend to make gameplay have to be scaled back so the lowest powered system can play it fairly well with the rest of the globe.

 

[Fraekith]

I wouldn't mind them making some sort of co-op available in 6

I honestly don't care for co-op/online in Elder Scrolls games, but everyone has their own preferences.

 

[raido KASAI]

I wouldn't mind them making some sort of co-op available in 6

I honestly don't care for co-op/online in Elder Scrolls games, but everyone has their own preferences.

I wouldn't want it as a major part of gameplay or required in any way, but it might be cool to use a friend or two as followers

 

[TheQahnaarin]

I'm pretty sure tamriel is close in size to Europe which in the medieval age had a population of like 20-25 million I think. So a place like Cyrodill would have the bulk of that and probably kinda evenly divided around the rest, but skyrim, being so north, and seeming kinda sparse, may mean a little less. I read somewhere and I can't remember where that Whiterun was one of the biggest cities in tamriel behind Stros M'kai, imperial city, mournhold and maybe one other. Something says daggerfall's population is 100 000. I'd guess skyrim is about 2 or 3 million. Of course a census would fail because of all the bandits and that.

 

[DrunkenMage]

Skyrim would have a few million, major cities having hundreds of thousands. Solitude would have the largest population, due to the major port and Whiterun due to being the tradehub of the entire province.

The "Old Holds" have less, and aren't visited much by travelers.

There are more villages than shown, and would be small towns dotting the landscape.

Orcs also would number in thousands, their strongholds have been there since the Companions first arrived. Their number would be higher now since the Jarls aren't launching attacks on them anymore. (Mostly failed and futile attacks, with many Jarls having died in the process of trying to remove them from their Hold)

 

[Toxius]

I remember there being mentions of more villages in Skyrim that seem to have mysteriously disappeared.
Like completely vanished in skyrim... sure even though it's been a long time.

 

[T. Rakinson]

Some of these numbers seem a bit too large. I may be wrong, but I believe I heard once that Skyrim was roughly about 13 miles from the Cyrodillian border to the Sea of ghosts (an unreliable source, but its something to go on). I'd say Skyrim is comparable in size to a small county, tops.
Also you have to consider who actually count as populace. As well as Societal outcasts such as bandits, forsworn, witches/warlocks e.t.c. you have to think whether secondary civilisations, such as those of the Giants or Falmer, & their people also count. Then there's Merchants, Morrowind refugee's, Mercenaries (alliteration!) & other comings & goings who all stop by at major settlements.
I think we all know what Skyrim's Mortality rate would be like.

When taking all that into account I would say the regions Average population would never rise above a five-digit value. Its not even a case of there not being enough room, the main Problem is that someone dies every few minutes, whilst the youth never seem to grow up.
Anybody else up for a Skyrim National Census?

 

[raido KASAI]

I remember there being mentions of more villages in Skyrim that seem to have mysteriously disappeared.
Like completely vanished in skyrim... sure even though it's been a long time.

The missing villages are more a result of limited processor/program abilities than any simple design choice. If you look at the earliest games in the series, villages were everywhere but GPU loads were exponentially less back then than now.

Daggerfall had roughly 15000 villages, though generally randomly generated and not that unique, and a general population of 750K in a land of 65000+ sq mi. Comparatively Skyrim is about 15 sq mi.

I'd guess the population is in the 20,000-40.000 range due to size an much space in the region generally sparsely populated

 

[Toxius]

The missing villages are more a result of limited processor/program abilities than any simple design choice. If you look at the earliest games in the series, villages were everywhere but GPU loads were exponentially less back then than now.

Daggerfall had roughly 15000 villages, though generally randomly generated and not that unique, and a general population of 750K in a land of 65000+ sq mi. Comparatively Skyrim is about 15 sq mi.

I'd guess the population is in the 20,000-40.000 range due to size an much space in the region generally sparsely populated

yeah I know, it was practically impossible to travel without fast travel. You could try your luck in the wilderness but you might just get fed up after the 2 day's run and still found like nothing.

Now lore wise in the population. We have around the basis of +/-500 men and women, depending on their loss from the snow elves. Also now we have to take in consideration of other Atmoran Refugee. Also deaths and births per a season/year/month or whatever. Then there has to be some sort of supporting evidence. There's also been a war recently, with both sides having "countless loses" and that could explain the missing population somehow, and the missing houses? Well they could have been disassembled for timber, iron and whatever materials. I just know I'm tired, and would agree that your 20,000-40,000 is closest to being correct.

One thing though, if they ever decide to make a Elder scrolls based in hammerfell, the Alik'r Desert must not be just one small, pitiful excuse for a desert. Also I haven't played TESO, which I don't count as a proper Elder scrolls game, and if the Alik'r Desert is featured in there I just hope it's big, and filled with caves, secrets, weapons and all sorts of fun stuff.

 

[raido KASAI]

The missing villages are more a result of limited processor/program abilities than any simple design choice. If you look at the earliest games in the series, villages were everywhere but GPU loads were exponentially less back then than now.

Daggerfall had roughly 15000 villages, though generally randomly generated and not that unique, and a general population of 750K in a land of 65000+ sq mi. Comparatively Skyrim is about 15 sq mi.

I'd guess the population is in the 20,000-40.000 range due to size an much space in the region generally sparsely populated

yeah I know, it was practically impossible to travel without fast travel. You could try your luck in the wilderness but you might just get fed up after the 2 day's run and still found like nothing.

Now lore wise in the population. We have around the basis of +/-500 men and women, depending on their loss from the snow elves. Also now we have to take in consideration of other Atmoran Refugee. Also deaths and births per a season/year/month or whatever. Then there has to be some sort of supporting evidence. There's also been a war recently, with both sides having "countless loses" and that could explain the missing population somehow, and the missing houses? Well they could have been disassembled for timber, iron and whatever materials. I just know I'm tired, and would agree that your 20,000-40,000 is closest to being correct.

One thing though, if they ever decide to make a Elder scrolls based in hammerfell, the Alik'r Desert must not be just one small, pitiful excuse for a desert. Also I haven't played TESO, which I don't count as a proper Elder scrolls game, and if the Alik'r Desert is featured in there I just hope it's big, and filled with caves, secrets, weapons and all sorts of fun stuff.

Hammerfell would be cool, especially Stros M'Kai and he other islands in the bay. There would be dwemer ruins everywhere

 

[Lewsean]

People are measuring based on the size that the game engine is limited too, do you really think one region makes up 13 square miles lol? It's obviously not made to scale. The battle of red ring consisted of over 5-10 legions vs god knows how many thlamor, I'm guessing each legion is the same size as a Roman Legion which means there were over 90,000 soldiers(Not counting civilians) fighting north of Cyrodill alone.. That leads me to beleive Skyrim probably has 2-3 million or so people living there, probably about half the size of sweden/portugal size countries. (Due to the setting of the TES universe I estimate civilian population based off of medieval numbers, lots of countryside etc etc)

 

[DrunkenMage]

The Imperial City alone would have a population of one million or at least reaching one million. With it being heavily based on Rome.

Skyrim is harsh, and it's population wouldn't go into grand numbers. Many Nords leave Skyrim and go into larger numbers on the coasts of provinces such as Cyrpdiil, Hammerfell & High Rock to ply their trade... Or as a Nord himself once put it "You notice all the Nords around here? It's partly because Nords like ships and sailing. Mostly, we're sick of freezing our asses off in Skyrim."

 

[zuko514]

Aside from war, the mortality rate should be decent.It seems a lot of the disease can be heal with divine blessing and restoration. Judging from how advance the civilization are in game, it is safe to say skyrim has more population then dark age Europe less than Europe at beginning of industrial revolution. It would some what close to the population the population of Gaul and Britania during the height of roman empire. 2-5 millions I guess
http://www.tulane.edu/~august/H303/handouts/Population.htm

btw I think co-op could be a good idea. I would be kinda cool to assassinate a player from another world for the honor of night mothers.

 

[raido KASAI]

People are measuring based on the size that the game engine is limited too, do you really think one region makes up 13 square miles lol? It's obviously not made to scale. The battle of red ring consisted of over 5-10 legions vs god knows how many thlamor, I'm guessing each legion is the same size as a Roman Legion which means there were over 90,000 soldiers(Not counting civilians) fighting north of Cyrodill alone.. That leads me to beleive Skyrim probably has 2-3 million or so people living there, probably about half the size of sweden/portugal size countries. (Due to the setting of the TES universe I estimate civilian population based off of medieval numbers, lots of countryside etc etc)

I'm not basing it off anything other than what Bethesda has described as the size. They said Skyrim was roughly the size of Great Britian. The navigable size is roughly 1/3 less as there are areas you can't access.

 

[Lewsean]

People are measuring based on the size that the game engine is limited too, do you really think one region makes up 13 square miles lol? It's obviously not made to scale. The battle of red ring consisted of over 5-10 legions vs god knows how many thlamor, I'm guessing each legion is the same size as a Roman Legion which means there were over 90,000 soldiers(Not counting civilians) fighting north of Cyrodill alone.. That leads me to beleive Skyrim probably has 2-3 million or so people living there, probably about half the size of sweden/portugal size countries. (Due to the setting of the TES universe I estimate civilian population based off of medieval numbers, lots of countryside etc etc)

I'm not basing it off anything other than what Bethesda has described as the size. They said Skyrim was roughly the size of Great Britian. The navigable size is roughly 1/3 less as there are areas you can't access.

I'm going off of what they said in regards to Daggerfall and it being a 1:1 scale.

 

[Daelon DuLac]

According the voicing, about 12. The rest are clones so don't really count as "Population".