I don't have Questlines. Or King of Sartar (nor do either of the people I regularly borrow books from). In the Glorantha boxed set and it lists the populatoin of Sartar as 180,000 people. Which means that each tribe is roughly 7500 people. So if each tribe has 5-6 clans, each clan is (on average) 1200-1500 in size. That seems a little large, but not unworkable. Of course, if those numbers include "those not fit to work", the actual population of workers is smaller. I'm assuming a ratio of 1:4 of "not fit" to "workers." So, if a clan has 1500 people, that means that really only 1200 are working. My numbers may be a bit generous. Maybe it should be more like 1:3. However, in most primitive societies, if you don't feed yourself, you go hungry. I doubt there are a lot of aged and weak in the clan, so the only people being feed are the very young. Once they reach about 10 years old (if not earlier), I'm sure the kids are expected to help feed the family.
>A hide (an old Anglo-Saxon term) is about 120 acres, enough land to support
>a family. Your definition of family may vary; I'm currently assuming it's
>about 8 (father, mother, 2 elders, 1 unmarried adult sibling, 3 kids).
Don't have Dragon Pass either, so that map isn't much help. The region of Sartar about 150 km by 100 km looking at the maps from the Glorantha boxed set (although, that includes some mountains, and presumable some other non-farmable land). Or, that's 90 miles by 60 miles. According to my surveying book, "640 acres = one normal section of 1 mile square". So, if Sartar is 5400 square miles, that's roughly 3.5 million acres. 120 acres to feed a family of 8 is 15 acres a person. Which means that Sartar could support something like 200,000 people (if every acre could be farmed). 15 acres may be a bit generous, since I'm sure that not every acre can be farmed.
These numbers may not be correct, but I'm happy with them (for the time being at least). If anyone sees a flaw in my math or reasoning, please point it out. Or if you've come up with a different set of numbers (I'm thinking Seattle Farmer's Collective), please pass them along.
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