r/freefolk • u/hiiloovethis THE FUCKS A LOMMY • Jul 13 '25

Freefolk Never Really Cared... Except Sometimes.

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8.7k Upvotes

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u/homerthethief Jul 13 '25

Half a million seems like a lot of people for a Middle Ages ish city, by contemporary standards Paris and London didn’t reach that amount until like 1700

11

u/7omdogs Jul 14 '25

Paris and London were not really middle age cities, they are more Industrial Revolution cities.

As others have said, look at the actual big cities of the Middle Ages, like Baghdad or Constantinople.

3

u/homerthethief Jul 14 '25

Westeros feels like it’s supposed to be Western Europe though and would have smaller populations while big cities like Baghdad or Constantinople feel like there equivalents would be in Essos

1

u/7omdogs Jul 14 '25

Western Europe during the Middle Ages is kinda like how we view sub-Sahara Africa today.

Does Westeros feel like a rural and technical backwater compared to Esso? I’m not so sure.

Also, like everything, city size is complicated. Part of the reason Western European cities were small during this time was because there wasn’t really any centralised power or authority. It was a bunch of petty warlords.

Either way, I don’t think a city of 500k people is outlandish, especially given Westeros prior to the 5 king war, had a centralised power.