Does it makes real sense that some of the great lords dont control cities directly? The Gardeners/Tyrells have the most populous region but even that they command loyalty of other lords, the Hightowers alone are far more powerful because of Oldtown, so i think its a world building mistake to not exist a city in the mander together with Highgarden. For the Arryns shouldnt be a city inside the vale close to the Eyrie? Greyjoys shouldnt be at Lordsport? Lannisport and sunspear makes sense to me.

I mean, yes, there should be a city on the Mander, or at least two, which is why my econ dev plan had that happen.

However, I would caution against cities being seen as costless. A city is a large population that does not produce its own food in a world in which 90-95% of the population are needed to do agricultural labor, which requires a lot of food to be imported to it and riots if it that doesn’t happen, and which does not have a positive population growth rate, historically speaking, which means you need to continually import people as well.

So while cities are certainly highly valuable, they are also something of a luxury commodity. (Which, fyi, is part of where GRRM’s math fails him again: cities of 500,000 are orders of magnitude bigger than almost all medieval cities.)

Hello! You’ve mentioned in a few places that Essos is more advanced and more urbanized than Westeros. But – though I understand it’s about relevance – 1) there are only so many cities mentioned, practically all of them save Norvos, Qohor & Vaes Dothrak are coastal. Doesn’t that leave most of the HUGE territory of Essos as just rural hinterland or waste (or ruin)? Do we know anything of it other than the disputed lands ? 2) What do we know of its scientific advancement compared w/the Citadel?

Hello!

There’s also the unmentioned cities: “We speak of Nine Free Cities, though across the width of Essos one may find many other Valyrian
towns, settlements, and outposts, some larger and more populous than Gulltown, White Harbor, or even Lannisport. The distinction that sets the Nine apart is not their size but their origins.” Essos is so urbanized that cities the size of Lannisport go unnmentioned as unimportant. (Must remember to double-check my Essos population estimates against this.)
Well, Tyrion’s journey down the Rhoyne gave us a sense of the Volantene hinterland, and I’d imagine you’d see similar wrt to the other city-states where room applies.
Here’s what we know: Myr has advanced optics, advanced crossbows (which means a good handle on levers, gears, pullys), “fine woolens, lace, glassworks and tapestries….But Qohor has metalworking on lockdown, Tyrosh has dyemaking and distillation (which suggests chemistry) and competes with Myr on armaments, Lys is a competitor in the tapestries business and has a better chemicals industry than Tyrosh, Norvos is a competitor in the tapestries business, Braavos dominates in finance and is the only place that’s figured out the assembly line and interchangeable parts.” Pretty much all high-valued added manufacturing happens in Essos, as well as a huge amount of commerce in luxury goods (spices, silks, gemstones, exotic animals/skins). Whereas Westeros exports mostly natural resources (food, timber, wool, wine, furs, stone and metal), with a smattering of finished goods (Dornish silks and satins, linen from the Reach, gold and silverware from the Westerlands). So while we don’t know about Essosi higher education (and there’s signs that it must exist), their economies and level of technology are more advanced. So maybe the Essosi go in for applied vs. academic sciences?

Anon Asks:

gazyrlezon:

racefortheironthrone:

How much land would huge cities like Rome or Constantinople or Athens or the free cities in ASOIAF need to feed the population of just that urban city?

Great question! The answer is: large cities in any period of history, be it during classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, well into the Industrial Revolution, require a very large hinterland to provide the necessary food to feed their populations.

On a general rule of thumb, you’d generally expect cities of those size to command the resources of the countryside around them for at least several day’s travel distance from the city (basically, as far back as you can reasonably get goods to market before they go bad).

However, all of the cities you mention are port cities, which changes the story somewhat: Rome drew its food supply not just from Italy but also from western North Africa etc., Constantinople drew its food supply both from nearby Anatolia and Thrace but also from Egypt, and the Free Cities can draw their food both from their hinterlands but also from Westeros or other parts of Essos.

Actually, this got me thinking: Were there ever any cities of comparable size that were entirely landlocked and supported purely by their surroundings (before, say, the Renaissance, or even the industrialization)?

@racefortheironthrone: Your answer seems to imply there were some, but I can’t think of any. What have I missed?

Well, there is a middle ground between a port city and being landlocked – being on a river (think the city of York, on the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss) or on a major overland trade route (Florence).

But yes, there were landlocked cities although they tended to skew somewhat smaller than port or riverrine cities: for example, landlocked Madrid was 30,000 strong in 1561, whereas Paris was more than 150,000 strong by that time. Similarly, Vienna in 1500 had 45,000 residents, while London had about 100,000 at that time.

Anon Asks:

How much land would huge cities like Rome or Constantinople or Athens or the free cities in ASOIAF need to feed the population of just that urban city?

Great question! The answer is: large cities in any period of history, be it during classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, well into the Industrial Revolution, require a very large hinterland to provide the necessary food to feed their populations.

On a general rule of thumb, you’d generally expect cities of those size to command the resources of the countryside around them for at least several day’s travel distance from the city (basically, as far back as you can reasonably get goods to market before they go bad).

However, all of the cities you mention are port cities, which changes the story somewhat: Rome drew its food supply not just from Italy but also from western North Africa etc., Constantinople drew its food supply both from nearby Anatolia and Thrace but also from Egypt, and the Free Cities can draw their food both from their hinterlands but also from Westeros or other parts of Essos.

I have a few questions regarding chartered cities, if that’s alright. First, how did the populations of the cities break down in terms of class? You’ve said that the people living in one are legally considered burghers, but surely not everyone would be of the middle class. Would many people be working higher income jobs than serfs, and be wealthier on average due to the lack of feudal taxes? Would there be taxes, if slightly lower, for the upkeep of the city? (1/2)

(2/2) As well, would cities have militia or a police force, similar in size, equipment and role to the goldcloaks in King’s Landing? Finally, would burghers be expected to join in military campaigns? If so, would they commonly have better equipment than the average serf due to their greater wealth? Thanks, and sorry about all of the questions.

So, as a legal term (as opposed to a class distinction), burgher originally meant that you are a citizen of the town (burgh means a town, and going further back means a fortified settlement), with the right to reside in the town and enjoy its rights and privileges. The social class of burghers that emerged in the 11th century were the elite of the towns and cities who were leaders of the guilds and who had the status necessary for being a city official.

In terms of Medieval urban class structures, we don’t have anything like good enough evidence to give detailed population breakdowns – and there’s a lot of social categories that don’t fit well into modern conceptions of class. For example, by the Early Modern period (when we have better statistics), about 20% of the population were servants – do we see these people as part of the poor or working classes, when being a servant was almost always a time-limited occupation where people in their teens from a range of backgrounds would work as servants until they had enough money set aside to set up their own household?

Likewise, I’ve seen some Early Modern figures that say that around 27% of the population of London were apprentices – again, our perspective of these people’s class position depends on how likely they were to make the climb up to journeyman and then master, which would radically alter their class position. Certainly, apprentices would have been seen as better off than unskilled laborers.

In terms of income, yes, city-dwellers tended to have higher wages (and living standards) than rural peasants, but you have to balance that against their significantly worse mortality statistics – living in a medieval or early modern town or city was a recipe for epidemic disease, so lots of people died in the cities. So city living was something of a gamble of higher wages in the short-term vs. increased likelihood of death in the long run?

There were taxes – burgage taxes for leasing property (and later on, being a voter), murage taxes for building and maintaining walls, pavage taxes for streets, pontage taxes for bridges, and so on. But most of these taxes were property taxes, so if you didn’t own property (or if you were a sub-tenant), you didn’t pay. There were fairly hefty import, export, and other customs duties, which your average laborer would pay indirectly.

Yes, there were militias, and they did tend to be better trained and equipped, because the towns and cities could support them from public revenue. And if they had enough money, they could even hire a mercenary company.