Biggest City of Almea

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Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

I am new to the board and I have many questions about Almea I'm dying to know the answer to. One of these is about the cities on Almea.
My question is: What are the top five largest Almean cities and what are their populations? Are there any cities with over a million people?

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by zompist »

The biggest city on Almea is Inex, with just over 600,000 residents.

Verduria city is close behind.

After that come Curau and Ṭetäs with over half a million each.

There's quite a few populous Xurnese cities, but the next city with a firm figure is Jansɛ, capital of Belsao, with over 300,000.

These numbers may seem a bit disappointing, but that's because we're used to living in a much denser world. Ancient Rome had only about 250,000 people, and the first European city to reach a million was London, around 1800. Beijing reached a million at about the same time.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Turtlehead »

So what is the world population?
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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by zompist »

Trying to get your name as the last poster on all the forums was amusing about six years ago.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

Thanks for the list! :) I'm surprised that Kebropol is not on the list if it happens to be in the "most advanced nation of Almea with a relative prosperity of 102. And what about Syxeteer? I figured that since the flaids only live on a tiny island, their main city would have to be densely packed. Also, why doesn't Avela have enough people to be on the list if it's a bustling seaport and the center of Eled'e culture. I thought the list was going to be something like Verduria City, Inex, Kebropol, Avela and Syxeteer in that order. What in the world is Janse doing on the list!??! How did a city in a third world country on "the other continent" with less advanced technology beat all the others I mentioned. And not to be sexist or anything but really, a city built and run by women got on the list. This needs explaining. Are the cities I mentioned on the top 10 or even top 20. Also, what about Ztesifo!

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Astraios »

Emperor Charles V wrote:How did a city in a third world country on "the other continent" with less advanced technology beat all the others I mentioned. And not to be sexist or anything but really, a city built and run by women got on the list.
GTFO.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Lyra »

Emperor Charles V wrote:Thanks for the list! :) I'm surprised that Kebropol is not on the list if it happens to be in the "most advanced nation of Almea with a relative prosperity of 102. And what about Syxeteer? I figured that since the flaids only live on a tiny island, their main city would have to be densely packed. Also, why doesn't Avela have enough people to be on the list if it's a bustling seaport and the center of Eled'e culture. I thought the list was going to be something like Verduria City, Inex, Kebropol, Avela and Syxeteer in that order. What in the world is Janse doing on the list!??! How did a city in a third world country on "the other continent" with less advanced technology beat all the others I mentioned. And not to be sexist or anything but really, a city built and run by women got on the list. This needs explaining. Are the cities I mentioned on the top 10 or even top 20. Also, what about Ztesifo!
Do you fail to understand that population does not correlate with wealth/technological advancement?
The vast majority of the world's population lives in 3rd world conditions, signs of a well-off nation are exactly a decrease in birth rates.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by zompist »

Emperor Charles V wrote:Thanks for the list! :) I'm surprised that Kebropol is not on the list if it happens to be in the "most advanced nation of Almea with a relative prosperity of 102. And what about Syxeteer? I figured that since the flaids only live on a tiny island, their main city would have to be densely packed. Also, why doesn't Avela have enough people to be on the list if it's a bustling seaport and the center of Eled'e culture. I thought the list was going to be something like Verduria City, Inex, Kebropol, Avela and Syxeteer in that order.
You're thinking mostly about Eretald. See this map; the cities in green are all large cities by Almean standards, so these plus a few Arcélian cities are the Almean Top 20.
What in the world is Janse doing on the list!??! How did a city in a third world country on "the other continent" with less advanced technology beat all the others I mentioned. And not to be sexist or anything but really, a city built and run by women got on the list. This needs explaining. Are the cities I mentioned on the top 10 or even top 20. Also, what about Ztesifo!
That is rather sexist; why would you expect female-run cities to be smaller? (A lot of the heavy lifting was done by men anyway.)

Belesao is tropical and supports a higher population density, and Janse is located in its most fertile river delta. Beic cities also tend to sprawl quite a bit.

Plus, by our standards all of Almea is Third World. On our own planet, living standards didn't start rising for the population as a whole till after 1800. And as I noted, the biggest cities in the world at that time were London and Beijing.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

Lyra wrote:
Do you fail to understand that population does not correlate with wealth/technological advancement?
The vast majority of the world's population lives in 3rd world conditions, signs of a well-off nation are exactly a decrease in birth rates.

~Lyra
It is true that a vast majority of
the world's population lives in third world conditions. However, cities are another thing. Building cities like anything costs money and more well off nations have more of this money to throw around. I am surprised that Janse got on the list because from what I read in The Rouges and from the Biography of a Beic peasant (in the PCK), I can see that Belesao is a very poor and backward country. This is also illustated by the fact that most Beic people don't even wear clothes and go naked. They also practice garden agriculture which is about as primitive as a "civilization" can get. I am shocked that three hundred thousand of these primitive savages can actually get together and form a city let alone small town of only ten thousand. I think the Zompist needs to give me an explanation on this.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Click »

That story about a Be peasant is set in ancient Belesao.
BTW,Almea is as advanced as the Earth was in 1750s,so the population growth has just began in most prosperous and advanced countries while the less advanced and prosperous countries have both birth and death rates high.Belesao has the most advanced weaponry of Almea.The Be are probably naked because of the hot and muggy rainforest climate.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by dhok »

This is the first time I've seen real-world racism against fictional ethnicities...

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

If the people of Belesao are so advanced what is their relative prosperity? The Almeopedia page for Belesao doesn't say.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by dhok »

If the Australian Aborigines are so smart why didn't they invent agriculture?

I highly suggest you read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel; it will go far in explaining your objections. Then come back and we'll be happy to talk. His basic thesis is that the ability of some societies to become technologically and culturally more advanced than others lies, not in the people that make up that society, but their environment, specifically the wild plants and animals around them that they can domesticate (Eurasia has almost all the world's domesticated animals, while North America had no domesticatable livestock and only the turkey for poultry, and South America only one non-rideable draft animal, and Eurasia also houses most of the world's important grain crops, with the notable exceptions of maize and potatos) and how much east-west landmass they have (since crops spread fast across an east-west expanse, like Eurasia, but slowly across a north-south one, like the Americas.)

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Salmoneus »

zompist wrote:The biggest city on Almea is Inex, with just over 600,000 residents.

Verduria city is close behind.

After that come Curau and Ṭetäs with over half a million each.

There's quite a few populous Xurnese cities, but the next city with a firm figure is Jansɛ, capital of Belsao, with over 300,000.

These numbers may seem a bit disappointing, but that's because we're used to living in a much denser world. Ancient Rome had only about 250,000 people, and the first European city to reach a million was London, around 1800. Beijing reached a million at about the same time.
I know you have sources for this. However, just to be clear, it should be said that these estimates are far lower than mainstream ones. As a basic cite, wikipedia cites "Daily Life in the Roman City" (published 2004) as summing up the estimates: absolute minimum of 200,000, maximum of about 3.5m, most historians go for a bit over 1m.
We know that there were 320,000 inhabitants of Rome on the dole. These were all adult male free citizens. Including women and children, this easily gives a population of over a million, and that's assuming that everybody who could be on the dole was. On the other hand, it's possible to posit massive fraud in order to get a very low figure, or more reasonably to suggest that there was a large male migrant worker population, and/or a veteran population, that skewed the gender/age/freedom balance, in order to give only a moderately low estimate.
We also know that Rome in the 4th century at one point had 1,782 private homes, and 43,580 apartment buildings. Your estimate thus requires no more than 5 people per apartment block, and small families in the private homes - which seems unlikely. Or massive purposeless fraud - you'd expect the government to undercount the houses if anything, not overcount them.
Finally, we also know that the inhabited area of Rome proper was 1370 hectares. Your figure would seem to assume an awful lot of parkland and low-density housing, in contrast to the reports of ten-story apartment blocks densely packed together.

Alexandria, Changan, Baghdad and Beijing are all widely thought to have passed 1m too - and maybe Kaifeng, Hangzhou and Jinling as well, though they seems more questionable.

Anyway, you may not find this convincing - I know you've explained your theory in the past. But just to add some context to what you're saying, I thought I should add in the more common view.
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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

Oh yes, I actually watched all three parts of the documentary about a year ago. My favorite was the second part because it was about the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire and I have sort of an obsession with Renaissance Spain. This is due to the fact that Charles V a key ruler of Renaissance Spain is my 13-great grandfather (an also my username). I understand how because of geography people living in the Middle East, Europe and Asia really lucked out while people in Oceania, the Pacific and the Americas weren't so lucky. The same can be said with Almea. Erelae and Arcel, the two civilized continents in Almea are arranged horizontally allowing agriculture and methods of ideas to be spread from east to west (just like in Ancient Eurasia). The primitive continents of Lebiscuri and Curym however are seperated from Eralae and Arcel by the zone of fire and thus can't get access to these ideas. It doesn't mean that these people are dumber than the people of Erelae and Arcel. They like the Native Americans were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by zompist »

Salmoneus wrote:
zompist wrote:These numbers may seem a bit disappointing, but that's because we're used to living in a much denser world. Ancient Rome had only about 250,000 people, and the first European city to reach a million was London, around 1800. Beijing reached a million at about the same time.
I know you have sources for this. However, just to be clear, it should be said that these estimates are far lower than mainstream ones. As a basic cite, wikipedia cites "Daily Life in the Roman City" (published 2004) as summing up the estimates: absolute minimum of 200,000, maximum of about 3.5m, most historians go for a bit over 1m.
My main source is McEvedy, and he's packed in a box right now. However, my understanding is that most of these "mainstream" sources are all people repeating each other's claims with no comparison to other cities. (McEvedy did an investigation of population worldwide.) People got very invested in the figure of one million.

One of his main points is to compare the size of the ancient city with the much larger footprint of Rome when it reached a million in modern times.

A similar estimate is provided in this book: 450,000 as of AD 100. This is also a worldwide survey.
We know that there were 320,000 inhabitants of Rome on the dole. These were all adult male free citizens.
McEvedy refers to this too, but the number he gives is 200,000, and he says there is no evidence that the number was restricted to adult males.
We also know that Rome in the 4th century at one point had 1,782 private homes, and 43,580 apartment buildings.
No, we know that it had a large number of insulae, which may be blocks rather than apartment buildings.

Rome was undeniably one of the world's wonders, and ancient descriptions are likely to be a little overawed. Think about descriptions of New York, by residents or visitors-- which are very often descriptions of the southern half of Manhattan. I don't know what precise description you're referring to, but I'd be surprised if the ancient city was actually packed to the walls with 10-story buildings.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by zompist »

Emperor Charles V wrote:I am surprised that Janse got on the list because from what I read in The Rouges and from the Biography of a Beic peasant (in the PCK), I can see that Belesao is a very poor and backward country. This is also illustated by the fact that most Beic people don't even wear clothes and go naked. They also practice garden agriculture which is about as primitive as a "civilization" can get. I am shocked that three hundred thousand of these primitive savages can actually get together and form a city let alone small town of only ten thousand. I think the Zompist needs to give me an explanation on this.
You seem quite prejudiced about tropical areas. These can easily be quite civilized and support a very dense population; terrestrial examples include southeast Asia, India, and Indonesia. Garden agriculture is a highly sustainable way of using the tropical forest.

As for clothes, you don't need to overdress in the tropics!

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

zompist wrote:
Emperor Charles V wrote:I am surprised that Janse got on the list because from what I read in The Rouges and from the Biography of a Beic peasant (in the PCK), I can see that Belesao is a very poor and backward country. This is also illustated by the fact that most Beic people don't even wear clothes and go naked. They also practice garden agriculture which is about as primitive as a "civilization" can get. I am shocked that three hundred thousand of these primitive savages can actually get together and form a city let alone small town of only ten thousand. I think the Zompist needs to give me an explanation on this.
You seem quite prejudiced about tropical areas. These can easily be quite civilized and support a very dense population; terrestrial examples include southeast Asia, India, and Indonesia. Garden agriculture is a highly sustainable way of using the tropical forest.

As for clothes, you don't need to overdress in the tropics!
I'm sorry for being "prejudiced." Against tropical areas. I didn't mean to insult anyone who lives in a tropical area or Belesao one of your chief civilizations which you worked very hard on. I was just simply pointing out the fact that all the great civilizations on earth (Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, China) all developed in temperate or sub-tropical areas. The tropics of earth have always been backward until recent times. Maybe things are just different on Almea.


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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by So Haleza Grise »

. . . and the Maya.
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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Emperor Charles V »

Oh, I know what you did. You posted the links to wikipedia pages about tropical civilizations because I said that no great civilizations on earth were in tropical areas. I am sorry to say that none of these civilizations were great at all. Alright the Incas built Macchu Pichu and the Khmers built Angkor Wat but this is NOTHING compared to the achievements of the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians and the Chinese. All for of these civilizatons you mentioned flourished for a hundred years and dissappeared from the face of the earth leaving little influence on future generations. The civilizations I mentioned however flourished for thousands of years and left lasting influence that is still present today. All these tropical civilizations you mentioned were eventually conquered by temperate and subtropical civilizations. The Incas were defeated by my ancestors, the Spanish during the reign of my 13 great grandfather Charles V and the Khmers nag Angkor eventually fell to the French. Just watch part 2 of Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel to see why this was the case. If Rome went to war with the Incas, they would easily destroy them because they have superior technology even though they lasted a millennium and a half before the Incas. The Incas didn't even have writing for goodness sake!

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

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Emperor Charles V wrote:
Oh, I know what you did. You posted the links to wikipedia pages about tropical civilizations because I said that no great civilizations on earth were in tropical areas. I am sorry to say that none of these civilizations were great at all. Alright the Incas built Macchu Pichu and the Khmers built Angkor Wat but this is NOTHING compared to the achievements of the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians and the Chinese. All for of these civilizatons you mentioned flourished for a hundred years and dissappeared from the face of the earth leaving little influence on future generations. The civilizations I mentioned however flourished for thousands of years and left lasting influence that is still present today. All these tropical civilizations you mentioned were eventually conquered by temperate and subtropical civilizations. The Incas were defeated by my ancestors, the Spanish during the reign of my 13 great grandfather Charles V and the Khmers nag Angkor eventually fell to the French. Just watch part 2 of Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel to see why this was the case. If Rome went to war with the Incas, they would easily destroy them because they have superior technology even though they lasted a millennium and a half before the Incas. The Incas didn't even have writing for goodness sake!
If what you take from Diamond is that the Romans or the Spanish were "greater" than the Mesoamericans then you missed his point rather spectacularly.
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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Ars Lande »

zompist wrote:
My main source is McEvedy, and he's packed in a box right now. However, my understanding is that most of these "mainstream" sources are all people repeating each other's claims with no comparison to other cities. (McEvedy did an investigation of population worldwide.) People got very invested in the figure of one million.


One of his main points is to compare the size of the ancient city with the much larger footprint of Rome when it reached a million in modern times.
I'd have to check Carcopino's Daily life, but I believe he actually did the math.
http://books.google.fr/books?id=4lUVAAA ... no&f=false

His main points, as I recall was that according to the records, the area of Rome might have been greater than usually reckoned, and the population density was enormous. I believe he reaches the traditional figure of one million (I'm quoting this on memory).
It applies only, I believe, to the height of the empire (so a century, maybe two). For most of its history, the population was indeed much lower.

Re: ten story buildings, population densities in pre-modern cities did reach extreme levels - without modern transportation, populations tend to concentrate in a restricted area.
For instance, the population of Paris in the 1700s was around 600,000 for a total area of 17 to 34 sq. kilometers - the inner city might have reached a density in excess of 50,000 inhab. / sq.km.

That being said, the figures given for Almea are just about right :) and comparable to population figures for Earth at a similar stage of development.

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Re: Biggest City of Almea

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Emperor Charles V wrote:
I am sorry to say that none of these civilizations were great at all. Alright the Incas built Macchu Pichu and the Khmers built Angkor Wat but this is NOTHING compared to the achievements of the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians and the Chinese. All for of these civilizatons you mentioned flourished for a hundred years and dissappeared from the face of the earth leaving little influence on future generations. The civilizations I mentioned however flourished for thousands of years and left lasting influence that is still present today. All these tropical civilizations you mentioned were eventually conquered by temperate and subtropical civilizations.
Khmer Empire-Converted Cambodia to Buddhism, Built the huge city of Angkor,
Incas-Created a lasting road system, terracing techniques, used quipu, which may or may not be writing,
Polonnaruwa- Built enormous irrigation systems used today,
Teotihuacan-May have used writing, Dominated Mesoamerica.

A few other things for you to look up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayutthaya_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagwe_Dynasty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga

Also, look up this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Italo-Ethiopian_War
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Re: Biggest City of Almea

Post by Shihali »

I'm not sure Ethiopia, Teotihuacán, and Tawantinsuyu are great examples, since they're (mostly) based in tropical highlands and their near-temperate climates. What about Java and the classic Maya?

There is a bias in the historical record; in tropical climates, anything but metal and stone rots away in a few centuries, whereas in arid climates writings thousands of years old are discovered intact with some regularity. For an equal volume of records produced 1000 years ago, a lot more history will be recoverable from the arid country.
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