Urbanization Tables.

For a while I've been tabulating how "urbanized" each region of the country was. These are some of the figure I've come up with. It should be said I'm using the "old states" that is, those that exist in the contemporary industrial societies. New borders would of course likely have a profound effect on what cities get the most traffic. I divided them into four sections: The North, the South, the "Near West" and the "Transalp" region. Notably, I put Midwest states in Italics--I could very well have put Wisconsin and Illinois in the "Near West" section, but I ultimately I decided if it had a capital to serve as a Non-Denom HQ I would include it. Now I could be off, overall, by a million or so people, but it generally figures. I definitely feel comfortable with the following rank: Ohio at the top at around four million. California, New York, and Georgia at or slightly in excess of 3 million. Texas somewhere in the 3 million range, then Michigan between 2 and a half and 3 million. Alabama a little after that, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Indiana, 

I've also added up the urban population of each state--this has been a little easier to measure, at least in terms of counting all the cities in excess of 25,000. The top ten would be California at 283 thousand, New York 242, Louisiana at 229, Ohio 191, Oregon 166, Kentucky 128, Pennsylvania 115 (Note, this map also has an unnamed city, possibly Wilmington, which may put the it at 140 thousand), Tennessee 114, Alabama 112, and Utah/New Mexico rounding out at 102 thousand.

Then in terms of which states have the highest urbanization, that is, the percentage of their population that lives in the biggest cities, it follows; Rhode Island at 31%, Utah 25%, Oregon  and New Mexico at 20%,  Louisiana at 16%, Idaho 12%, California  and Washington 9%, Massachusetts at 8%, at New York somewhere close to that. Notice that Western America, with a lot of deserts states really fills out the list, and New England makes a strong presence here. In fact, I'm kind of doing a guess for Rhode Island, since it's actually very small even by the standards of medieval polities, and simply calculated 60 people per square mile. The twenty five thousand that live in Providence may count towards the population, or may be a distinct figure that isn't taken into account when tallying other state populations because it usually wouldn't move the needle too much. Either way, it would still probably the be the most urbanized. If one wants to rank the most urbanized states with a population over 750,000, it would be Louisiana, California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. 

Some interesting takeaways is that it's sort of surprising that Ohio and New Jersey, both at 4% are not particularly urbanized, even though the former has one of the largest cities in America (It should be said, that that graphics for the biggest three cities are "maxed out". Cincinnati's population could well be in the hundreds of thousands.) and New Jersey is still pretty densely populated (But then, it also remains a feudal state a sea of republics, so perhaps it ultimately makes sense.) In general, it's possible if not for the Cowboy hordes the region would have much bigger cities, especially as we go further down south they really begin to pop on Mississippi River tributaries. Louisiana is very noticeable, both for the entire eastern half of continent, and especially for the south. Besides Kentucky, which is something of a "border area" that is joined with Ohio into a single kingdom, the South, particularly the Old South, is fairly unurban even for the standards of the time. One might suppose the area is a widening of a larger New Orleans-inspired cities, and perhaps even something of a distinct civilization in and of itself.

Rhode Island: The American Transylvania?

 The fun, and one might say "accurate" part of Medieval America is that it's not about transplanting one on one situations--Ohio being France, 

New England is one of the regions of the continent most long settled by Europeans and waves of immigrants over time; The Puritans, the Irish and Italians, even the recent migration of people from Brazil and Asia have seen it heavily reinvented, making it a region with one foot in the past and one in the future. With the exception New Orleans, it's also the region that has the most "haunted" reputation. The Salem Witch trials, Fall River and Lizzie Borden, Maine being the setting of many Stephen King novels, the and while Sleepy Hollow is in New York, there is the sense of being a no man's land wandering just a little too far from the Eastern Seaboard. Rhode Island (my home state)  for being so small, also has image of spookiness, being the birthplace of H.P. Lovecraft, the home of the Annabelle Doll, and what many might forget, was the site of the first vampire panic on these shores.

An outbreak of Tuberculosis ran throughout New England at the beginning of the 19th century, and this was attributed to vampire attacks, which led to the exhumation, and ritual exorcism, of Mercy Brown's corpse. This was before many vampire novels were even published, and our idea of them being associated with Transylvania in particular To a lesser extent England, and in the U.S., a lot of vampire fiction is set in New York City (partly because it's narratively a great place to hide in plain sight, and party because of the trend of making vampires scenesters), and New Orleans, but in New England was perhaps the first existential fear of the undead.

In some ways, New Englanders being especially afraid of vampires would seem odd in Medieval America. This is, after all, the heartland of the American Non-Denominational Church, and probably has a higher than average clergy per capita. And it its reasonably close the sea, not quite the backwoods per se. But in the original novel Dracula, the count did set his resting place in Carfax Abbey, a former monastery. After a near millennia, already in the oldest settled region, there's probably quite a few ruins, many of them well being former religious sites, making them almost glorified cemeteries. And perhaps something of a circular logic pops up, even propagated by the Church itself--there are so many churches in New England, because England needs so many churches.

In some ways, New England resembles places like Medieval Romania or Buglaria, where it is near the nucleus of a once great empire, but after Boston, what we understand as Western Civilization takes a steep drop. There are no major cities north of Boston, and a hundred miles north we start getting into the mountains, the and the colds of Canada. Perhaps medieval New England is unsettle knowing they are so close to precipe unsettles and worries them. Perhaps they feel every day they're looking directly at the shadow, and the shadow looks back at them.

The three prongs

 When trying to visualize what the civilizations of medieval America looks like, it can be extremely helpful to combine three factor.

The first is the populations and culture that are contemporary

The second is the lifestyles of Indigenous people who adapted

The

ID4 Syncretism

 The Fourth of July, or Independence Day is America's Big Day, and though historically a National Holiday, in the non-Denominational Church, it is a religious holiday, and as such is celebrated by the majority of Medieval Americans. However, with the breakdown of America where would people's outlet for patriotism go?

As I've mentioned before, Scientologists/Californians may base their doctrines around movies and who business, and as such the biggest movies for box office were often on the Holiday weekends, thus creating a sort of syncretism/continuity around federal holidays anyways, with Independence Day weekend being one of the biggest. (And, as the Western faiths may have a bit of Ufology going on, July 4 being tied to a movie about Alien Invasions might have some effect as well. Might be a better Biblical tale than Battlefield Earth, anyways). Definitely the most likely to also celebrate Independence Day, which interestingly, might make it a very non-heartland phenomenon.

That said, the New Israelites may possibly adopt something for their Lunar Calendar. The Herdsmen are probably descended from the Americans with the strongest sense of Patriotism on an aesthetic level, and the strongest sense of American individualism on a fundamentalist base. And two of the Founding Fathers are on their most sacred site. So it's hard not to imagine them having some kind of affection for the Fourth of July, even if they consider the concept of "federal mandates" unimportant. That said, the relative proximity of the Summer Solstice to July 4th, a mere 14th days (not as close as Winter Solstice to Christmas, but much more quantifiable), might signify some kind of festivities.

The Buddhists of the Northwest may have largely cut themselves off the norms of the Western World, but it should be said that they do have a particular holiday, Dharma Day, which falls on the eight lunar month--this year it would be July 3, in fact. In some respects a floating holiday would not be that out of place with how we've come to celebrate July 4th, with all the big cookouts and Fireworks on the weekend.

Interestingly, the Church of Latter Day Saints has its founding of Salt Lake City at the end of July, with Pioneer Day--the biggest day after Christmas and Easter. It's quite possible that, after fall of Salt Lake City to the Yeagers and a century of pastoralism may have also turned Pioneer Day into a floating celebration marked by the Lunar calendar.

As for Voodoo, there doesn't seem to be any contradiction or complement either way. This Voodoo site recognizes it as something practitioners might celebrate incidental to their agan lifestyles, and how the values in the Declaration of Independence are simpatico to paganism, but not something they would particularly sanctify or conflate with another religious celebration. That said, there a lot of celebrations on the Voodoo calendar, and Voodoo is usually not adverse to absorbing elements from elsewhere.

The "Best" Lands?

 Here's a map that talks about the overall soil performance in the world. The arability of land is by far the most important in growing and maintaining a pre-Industrial population. You need to feed people, and without transport and refrigeration, most of that foodstuff is going to be local.

What's very interesting is the gradient that follows the Middle Ages, and America in the new Middle Ages, is that it's not the best soils to grow crops aren't necessarily the best to grow people. As White has mentioned, Ukraine, the Great Plains, Argentina are breadbaskets in the modern world. It's the areas that have slightly less inky, one might say (fittingly enough) an "army green" that have the densest populations, even those soils tend to be a little fractured. China, India, France, the Mediterranean, and in America, the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley region. (Also, Ethiopia, which was considered the place in Africa to have a social structure similar to Eurasia)

So the best places to look for places in the Post-Colonial (mainly Southern Hemisphere) with the the largest populations most organized, recognizably medieval societies would be in Venezuela (seeping into Colombia), South Africa, Southwestern Australia, Northeast Brazil as well as the Parana River area. Mexico would be particularly interesting as a study as it most ideal soils are actually around the coasts, whereas Mexico is somewhat notorious for having the majority of its population (and the center of the Aztec Empire) in the more inland highlands.

Biggest Countries

 A question one might be inclined to ask is, what are the largest countries in Matthew White's world of 2900, the New Middle Ages, and are any American states up there?

First, let's largely make the assumption the outside of America, and above the 10th parallel, are pretty close to the population of the Old Middle Ages. We can see the biggest nation states at the the beginning of the second millennium, as well as those as the Middle Ages came to a close, and there does appear to be a recurring consistency; We can largely bank on the ruling Chinese dynasty, a Muslim empire or two, a sizeable chunk of India, Japan and France. The Byzantines, Holy Roman Empire, Inca or Ottomans would require some contrivance to bring back, but it's reasonable that we could see some successor states in the mix. The only region of North America that would stand a chance would be Ohio, which at between 8 and 9 million. It's definitely reasonable to suspect it could place in the top ten, but it's no guarantee. 

For the most part, the major population anchors have been consistent throughout history, and it was the Age of Exploration, and then the Industrial Revolution, .created new major masses of society in America, Brazil, and Sub-Saharan Africa (and actually a major extension in Russia). It's probable that the extreme climates and lack of navigable waters could see the populations crunch more than they would in America, though all three have at one point seen sizeable empires pre-Industrialization. (For it's part, Russia would be the only "old world" polity where its population could be twice the size of what it was in the Old Middle Ages)

Actually, another thought experiment might be "2900 population with contemporary borders". Interestingly, the top three would very likely be the top three we have right now. (A "right now" that has been the case for a couple of decades, but is rather temporary) The lowest estimates for China is something like 60 million, and it is believed that it could have been as high as 100 million--and that's covering less territory than it does today. The Indian subcontinent is also believed to have contained roughly 100 million people--current national lines would cut out countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, but that would still put it up there. And the U.S. of course canonically has 57-58 million people. One might reasonably switch these three around, but logically these would be the firm top three.

There would probably be a major gap between these three and the next major borders--Indonesia is the fourth largest in contemporary times, but the island of Java (where more than half its people live) in pre-industrial society would normally top out at 4 million. I've seen figures that range from six to ten million, so it wouldn't be unfair to go with the high end. Nigeria, Japan, France, and Germany are all estimated to have a low eight figures. Slicing off the part of the Indian subcontinent that makes up Pakistan would probably make it sizeable in its own right (Giving it France's population density would handily make it the fourth most populous at 22 million, That being said, in proportion to the collective population of the Indian Subcontinent, it would probably be much less, probably 12 million), but I don't have exact estimates. Rounding out the "original" would be Mexico, which is was estimated to have something like 15-20 million, and unlike the Andean states, wasn't carved up. 

As for Colonial/Settlement nations? Well, White doesn't give us any information except for the U.S. and Canada. I've mentioned this before, but using a tactic of reducing a country by is urban proportion, adding its 1900 population, than dividing by two gives us White's figures for the Eastern U.S., Canada, and correlates with the estimates  of Pre-Columbian civilization. I've therefore applied to the rest of the New World, and this would give Brazil 20 million people--leading contender for the fourth most populous. Also, another country I'm treating like a "settle nation" is South Africa. It has a lot of the qualities of places like Canada, Australia, and the Southern Cone; Geographically large, fertile and relatively temperate lands which were under a million before the Industrial Revolution, and settled largely by White Europeans. However, its Afrikaner past might not be reflected in the New Middle Ages. Unlike those other places, Whites never mad a majority, and don't even particularly have a large congruous landmass. The probably ten million of South Africa would largely resemble an extension of the African civilizations of the north. And speaking of such strange Old World hybrids, there's Russia. Russia very much orchestrated a settlement into Siberia, and some 38 million live there now. Applying the same crunch as Canada would still give it something like four or five million. This table of historical populations consider trans/intercontinental countries known as the Commonwealth of Independent States distinct from both Europe and Asia, and for the purposes of the New Middle Ages, we probably should too. I generally want to minimize the difference between the Old Middle Ages and the New Middle Ages outside of America itself, but I think a Muscovite Russia extending into Siberia (and the occasional migration of Central and East Asian peoples) could still be something in excess of ten million. (Of course, there's always a possibility of steppe tribes just wreaking havoc and bringing everything back to factory settings.

But one could ultimately make the order 1) China, 2) India, 3) USA, 4) Brazil, 5) Mexico, 6) France, 7) Russia, 8) Japan, 9) Indonesia and 10) Either Nigeria or South Africa (and have one of those plus Pakistan to round out the top 12) for a somewhat balanced, historically accurate and consistent world-building. Of course, actually, the top five is very "Americas" heavy, (This is largely due to New World nations generally being geographically bigger), but this is definitely what I think the top twelve most populated areas on the Globe, in the White's 2900 would be. 

Getting into South America

As I've stated many times, it's sort of become important to me to maintain the idea that U.S. is as uniquely distinct from its pre-1500 state as possible. Partly to adhere to White's "canon", partly to keep the scenario from getting out of hand (things like Medieval Communists or the like), and partly as a sort of attraction to decolonization. For the most part this very doable with my aforementioned "100 year grace period" rule. For a good deal of places along the 40-30th parallels in the Southern Hemisphere, these places are probably irrevocably "westernized", and will have considerably more people than they did in the modern period, but overall, there would less people in the than modern city of New York, or possibly even the medieval kingdoms of Ohio of Poland. 

But South America certainly raises some questions. For the Andes, much like Mexico, I've found that that dividing the countries by their urbanization almost patly matches the estimated population of the Inca Empire. This largely means having 15 to 20 million so in the western part of the continent, where much of them have maintained the Quechua language, and even their way of life. But what of the continent outside the Realm of Four Parts?

These two maps theorize five cultural divisions of South America. Well, the first has five distinct cultural divisions, the second shares "Indigenous", "European", "Mestizo" and "Plantation" but something of a "non-category" category for areas that are extremely unpopulated. It's also less concerned with keeping things contiguous. 

Comparing this to respective maps of recent population densities, and biomes, calculating de-urbanized effects, and with maybe a little bit of wank, we might have an idea of Medieval South America that's turned back in time as much as possible while still recognizing the mark many people have made on it today.

For the first map, one can likely expand the "read area a little to the east, and quite possibly all the way to the coasts.As mentioned the Indigenous, sustenance-based way of life could potentially absorb the communities that might struggle with the sudden loss of industrialization. (And in places like Bolivia, was making a concentrated effort to reestablish its Pre-Columbian past). The dark green area, which the map calls the "Amazonian Basin", could also expand, mixing with the "unaffiliated" zone of the second map. This would generally be the "wilderness area", and perhaps once again be a haven for the for native people, many living like the uncontacted tribes for today.The tropical plantations would probably remain more or less as they are--slivers across the coast, distinct but so concentrated on growing and selling cash crops they would not expand, and for the most part resembling the Brazil of the middle 16th century.

This cleaves the Mestizo zone in two. We would probably have a Columbia and Venezuela that might resemble their earlier colonial counterparts or may, being at crossroads, be something of mix or extension of the Central American and Andean (and perhaps even Caribbean) societies. Then we have Brazil. A considerably large country, already divided into four zones as big as four countries in and of themselves. Outside of North America, and maybe to some extent moreso, this might  have the biggest population boom of the new Middle Ages. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 3 and 11 million lived there in Pre-Columbian times. I've estimated something like 20 million people live there in the year 2900. A couple million live throughout the rainforests in grasslands in villages and communities much like they did before the first Portuguese ships. Something like a half dozen million souls probably live in the fazendas and their ports. And then there are those in the Southern Cone, in part of the same cultural sphere as Uruguay and Argentina. But then there are ten million or so people, particularly around places like Rio and Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, where we could something truly unique, and hard to imagine, even more hard to imagine than a Medieval United States. So recent in its infrastructure, so various in its ancestry, the core of Brazil would practically be a civilization built from square one.

Then of course, there's the Southern Cone. Its temperate climate, European ancestry, and incredible soil could theoretically create a society that, perhaps out of collective homesickness, goes out of its way to recreate the middle ages in the "cosplay" manner I otherwise try to avoid. Or perhaps its "Gaucho" tradition would assert itself. Or maybe being on the other side of the world would similarly build something new and alien. I'm somewhat impartial to a world that somewhat resembles the late Roman Empire myself.

State Comparisons

Sort of continuing from the last entry, this is a master, master compendium of the population of Medieval America, but divided by contemporary state borders. Of course, I'm only going to count the continental U.S., and I would also italicize any states with a significant nomadic population. I'll also list where it ranks today, and maybe a little about where it stood in the middle of the 19th century.

1) Ohio 4 million  (7)
2 California 3.2 million (1)
3) New York 3.1 million (3)
4) Georgia 3 million  (9)
5) Michigan 2.9 million (8)
6) Alabama 2.7 million (23)
7) Pennsylvania 2.6 million (6)
8) Texas 2.6 million (2)
9) Kentucky 2.5 million (26)
9) Indiana 2.5 million (15)
10) Mississippi 2.4 million (31)
11) North Carolina 2.3 million (11)
12) Virginia 2 million (12)
13) Missouri 2 million (18)
14) Tennessee 1.9 million (16)

15) Illinois 1.9 million (5)
16) Arkansas 1.6 million (32)
17) Wisconsin 1.5 million (20)
18) Louisiana 1.4 million (24)
19) South Carolina 1.3 million (25)
20) Maryland 1 million (19)
21) Washington 1 million (14)
22) Florida .9 million (4)
23) New Jersey .8 million (10)
24) Oregon .8 million (27)
25) Maine .7 million (40)
26) Massachusetts .6 million (13)
27) Idaho .6 million (39)
28) Iowa .6 million  (30)
29) New Mexico .5 million (36)
30) Oklahoma .5 million (28)
30) Montana .5 million (44)
31) Utah .4 million (34)
32) Arizona .4 million (17)
33) Nebraska  .4 million (38)
34) West Virginia 350,000 (37)
35) Connecticut 330,000 (29)
36) New Hampshire 320,000 (41)
37) Minnesota 300,000 (21)
38) Wyoming 300,000 (50)
39) Kansas 300,000 (33)

40) South Dakota 300,000 (46)
40) Nevada 300,000 (35)
41) Colorado 200,000 (22)
41) North Dakota (47)
42) Vermont 150,000 (49)
43) Delaware 120,000 (45)
44) Rhode Island 80,000 (43)



The areas to make out the best would be the area between the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, with four of those states making up the top ten (and three of them making up the super-kingdom of Ohio in White's world), and the Deep South, with Georgia and Alabama comfortably in the top ten, and Mississippi shooting up the ranks to hover just outside it. However, the deep, deep south doesn't fare as well. Florida has one of the biggest declines. New York and Pennsylvania, as quasi-great lakes states stay pretty much where they are. Even though California has one of the biggest drops in population overall, its sheer size and the fertility of its river valley means the area that fits into the Industrial era borders is still one of the biggest in the country. Interestingly, the core of Mormon Corridor remains more or less where it is, proportion-wise. 

While the region between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians probably fare the best, there's no real monopoly in terms of which region get hit the hardest. The Southwest, the Great Plains, New England, all have states with the steepest declines, all for reasons of their own. Even Great Lakes states like Minnesota and Illinois tumble quite a bit. Texas, like California is simply so big that it still remains in the top ten, but as a combination of desert, grassland, and Gulf, it's also subject to the vulnerabilities that have seen places like Florida and Colorado see heavy declines. 

Another interesting thing to look at is the 1850 census. This was a little bit before the Civil War before the Industrial Revolution, and where a sense of American culture was truly coalescing. New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Virginia (this was before West Virginia was split off) are pretty close to their Medieval American populations. The only states to be significantly more populated in size are Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. This is definitely understandable in the case of the first two--the two states are among the geographically smallest and were the first places in the entire country to industrialize--Medieval Providence would effectively have to be a Venice-sized City State to match it, but it's interesting that Vermont circa 1850 is twice my estimated medieval population (Which I may have lowballed, but according to White's population map, it would max out at 20 people per square mile). 

North and South

 

I stumbled upon these videos, that take the census of the country in the years 1790 and 1860. Something he talks about is the how much more urban the North is, and that despite Virginia being the most populated state at the end of the Colonial Era, had very little in the way of a large metropolitan area, or even what we would consider a small town today, and at the dawn of the Industrial Era, right before the Civil War, only two sizeable urban areas existed in the entire south. Much of their populations existed in plantations, which in many ways, resemble the feudal structure that make up most of the denizens of Medieval America. I decided to look into what the stats looked like in White's World. 

What should count for Northern or Southern, or be included at all, involved a couple of executive calls on my part. Firstly, I did not include Canada in the stats (Or at least Eastern Canada--the cities of Western Canada being too integrated with the entire west coast, and it probably wouldn't move the needle much anyways). I did include Maine and northern New England as part of the North's population, even though there are no major cities beyond Boston. I did not include any populations west of the Mississippi and north of Little Rock. Besides Missouri being a historically tough to categorize as North or South, in White's world the timeline has the area periodically razed by Barbarian hordes and resettled anyways. The inclusion of Louisiana is very significant, however, as we'll see later. Then we get to the border states--Slave States that did not secede during the Civil War; Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. The latter two I included as Northern--the Maritime Unite States Empire seems to operate much more culturally and economically both today and in White's world, and the video seems to count them as such. (And of course, by "them" I mean mostly mean Maryland). It is still widely considered Southern, some may Kentucky is by far the trickiest to make a call on. Climate-wise, it's Southern--a tobacco growing region. However, like Maryland, it did not secede from the Union. And in White's maps, he includes it as part of the Midwest. However, I will consider it Southern for the purposes of this piece, but with a caveat that will also be significant later.

Ultimately, the North (the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes States) in area of 500,000 square miles, and a population of 21 million, has an urban population of roughly 1 million (at least from the data I've mined). The urban population is something like 4%, upwards of 5%. The South, as I've reckoned with, with an area of 652,000 square miles, and a population of 23 million has an urban population of 915,000. Its population is something like 3.9%, and I think I will round it up to 4%. So roughly a 1% difference between the two. The North still remains more urban than the South, even with the diminishing of industry, and especially trans-continental trade, but it seems Jeffersonian distinction between the two has certainly waned. But some interesting things to consider. In the site of the old colonies, the urban population is something like 600,000 (Two thirds of the North's urban population, really), versus the South's 250,000. It's really once we get into the post-Revolutionary War territories that the South really starts to play catch-up. Also of note is there are three main "chains" of urban areas: The Eastern Seaboard, the Ohio River Valley, and the area where the Red River and Mississippi sort of meet, and all of them have urban populations of around 300,000. It is interesting that taking the entire state of Louisiana, which is relatively small and most of lying west of the Mississippi, would take a huge chunk of the South's urban population. Meanwhile, a few of the South's other bigger cities are located on the Ohio River, which directly border historically Northern states. So overall, much of the South's biggest urban aggregate lie in regions that are sort of sketchy on categorization. The combined states of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as the Piedmont, probably best mbody of the dream of a robustly populated, but not particularly urban society, in addition to, interestingly enough, the area between the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes.Unlike the Old South, these areas probably don't grow cash crops, but hearty, wholesome grain. A grain based plantation would probably be the sight to see.

For those interested, Western America has something like a 13% urbanization population, comparable to contemporary Papa, New Guinea, and only less than 5% less than Sri Lanka, a nation with an influential hip hop culture. Of course, Western America covers an incredibly wide, almost empty swath of land, but most of its people do live in cities.