Questions tagged [population]
For questions on population sizes, maximums and minimums, how they are affected by different events, etc.
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If everyone in the world disappeared except 35 random people, how long would it take for one of them to realize they're not alone?
Everyone suddenly disappears from earth except 35 people randomly scattered wherever they were before everyone disappeared. How long would it take on average for 2 or more people to meet? What other ...
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Russian Dolls - How do they reproduce?
Warning picture showing dissected Russian Doll
My theory
I believe that Russian Dolls reproduce asexually. They are born pregnant. At the time of birth, the outer doll dies. What is now the outer ...
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How big can a town get before everyone stops knowing everyone else?
In small towns, people often say that everyone knows everyone. While probably not literally true (for all but the smallest towns), the rate of interaction between members of the town is still high ...
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How poor does Elven fertility need to be in order to keep the ratio of humans to elves constant?
I world-build for tabletop RPGs so I have Tolkien/DnD/Forgotten Realms like elves in mind. The assumptions are:
The ratio of humans to elves in the world has been more or less constant.
Humans live ~...
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How many people are necessary to maintain modern civilisation?
Modern Earth; a series of connected events (natural disasters, mass migration, drug-resistant pandemic, collapse in biodiversity, armed conflict) have led to a significant reduction in human ...
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Lego world. How do they reproduce?
It is difficult to find statistics for the ratio of Lego men and women in the general population but from a non-scientific survey, I get the impression that Lego men vastly outnumber Lego women. Yet ...
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What would be a logical reason to explain space based families having more children than an earth based one
In my yet to be named sci-fi universe humanity has begun to expand into space and has established large scale space stations near Earth and on places like Eros and Luna. I wanted the stereotypical "...
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What computational resources would work for a 550-year climate forecast of our earth?
Folks, I'm in a bit of a jam.
I am writing a fictional future history to support a series of post-collapse science fiction stories set ca. 2560 Gregorian. The first story, The Borax Road Affair, has ...
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In theory, could all mammals be wiped out by a single pathogen?
Pathogen
Note: For the purpose of this question I define a pathogen to include viruses and/or bacteria. Edit: I don't exclude other biological agents such as fungi that might have the same effect.
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How could names plausibly change over several generations of humans living in a space station on another planet?
I'm worldbuilding for a story in which a certain portion of the population relocates to a slightly habitable planet due to the complete inhabitability of Earth. It takes place several generations ...
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Elf-like race: What could prevent overpopulation?
For an elf-like race whose people do not age beyond physical maturity (the accumulated DNA damage associated with aging does not occur), what would prevent overpopulation?
This elf-like race is ...
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Is it plausible that humanity goes extinct due to not making enough children? If not, what would make it more plausible?
With the increase in living standards, the number of children by women is decreasing in highly developed countries.
Question: Is it conceivable (with the aggravating factors proposed below) to see ...
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What is the longest time Humanity could be sterilized for without causing extinction?
In the world, there are 4 billion happy, healthy Humans. In this case, thanks to the power of magic, it's safe to assume that they also live long, happy lives. Just like we do today! An Evil Villain ...
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Keeping a world with necromancy from overpopulation
This takes place in a magical world with a medieval setting. They've undergone an apocalypse (not defined yet, but it has no relation with necromancy) that wiped all but few thousand survivors, all ...
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What's the biggest medieval city I can make?
What's the biggest medieval city, in terms of population, that we can feasibly make? That is, take all factors that affect population, and tilt them all in favour of a large population, without ...
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Demographic consequences of closed loop reincarnation
My question is inspired by the Tolkienesque elven cycle of rebirth, but with a twist.
Suppose "elves":
Do not experience aging after reaching maturity and do not die of old age or diseases
Mature ...
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What's the highest population the Earth could possibly sustain?
Suppose that we pare down human consumption to a minimum survivable level across the Earth, and devote the entire surface of the planet (as well as the planet's interior, if needed) to support as many ...
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How many human beings are/were there?
How many human beings are/were there?
I'm spinning a story where a guy is chosen to represent the whole of humanity. In this story the minds of people who die are preserved in a cool sword that ...
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Ethical solution to generation ship where new generation want to go home
I can easily set a story in a dystopian environment not subject to ethics, but I would rather try to create a backdrop that is as ethical as possible given the requirements. I feel that writing about ...
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How many people need to be born every 8 years to sustain population?
So I'm doing some worldbuilding for a small, isolated village on the coast. The winters are harsh, but making sure everybody has enough food generally isn't an issue because they have good trade with ...
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Would "lab meat" be able to feed a much larger global population
I read a prediction that if the global fertility rate stayed at the same rate as it was in 1995 by 2150 the population would be 256 billion people. That sounds crazy, but for my sci-fi I'm rolling ...
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How large would a mega structure have to be to host 1 billion people indefinitely?
Ruins of buildings, abandoned cities and suburbs dot the coasts of Earth's landmasses, inhabited by wild animals and the pieces of a once vibrant civilization. The oceans are relatively empty, the ...
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Population Range for a Booming/Dying Frontier Town
I'm designing a town in the Ozark mountain range circa 1871, and am unsure what population size to give it.
River Bend is an isolated town in the Ozark highlands of Arkansas founded in 1845 on the ...
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How to calculate your kingdom’s population size?
How do I figure out the population numbers in my various kingdoms?
I've seen the population growth tables for the entire world showing how the population grew and died off over time (yes Genghis, I'm ...
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Why would a country with high population suffer from low manpower?
This country has very low mortality rates and basic medicine, it is also very well-connected with a strong government and homogeneous culture and people. The country is self-providing of all resources....
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Which is initially more favorable; large or small settlements in a new planetary colony?
I have a question that concerns a story I am writing and I hope it is a valid one to ask. But in my story, several groups of colonists, each arriving on different ships at relatively the same time, ...
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How long will it take for the amount of living to exceed the dead population?
The current world population is around 7 billion living people and 107 billion dead people. Since the population is increasing steadily and faster than ever, I was wondering if we could ever reach the ...
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How long will it take human population to exceed one trillion?
Assuming that human civilization in the future will spread from earth into the galaxy, how long would it take for the human population to exceed one trillion (10¹²)? I doubt this is possible if humans ...
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How can I estimate how many people are living in a specific territory?
In my own medieval fantasy setting, I have different countries that all have different populations. I admit that I have no idea of how many people should live in X or Y. Just using the numbers for the ...
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Why would people not settle an open plain?
My world consists of a relatively narrow strip of land with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other. However, to the north and south are simply grasslands, and maybe the occasionally forest....
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The nation without villages
Straight to the matter: is it possible that a faction in a science fiction world rises up while completely ignoring the concept of villages as a whole?
Let me explain.
While it's specific for my ...
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Is a population of people with eternal youth sustainable?
Alright so in my sci-fi setting, my space faring human civilisation has a widespread procedure that allows humans a very extended time period without any sort aging or its assorted issues (weakening ...
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Repopulating humans AND zombies
So most zombie apocalypse stories involve wiping out 99.9% of the human race and having a small minority survive to try and keep living.
But, let's say I want society as we know it to collapse, but I ...
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What could cause a baby boom across the western world?
Right now the trend in the western world is declining or stagnant birthrates, but in my sci-fi universe I wanted to have a period of rapid population growth (around the 2050s).
What factors could ...
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What problems would a truly gigantic fantasy city encounter?
Supposing a world that falls somewhere between low and high magic, what would stop a city of truly epic size from existing?
The city is a city-state that has existed for millennia.
It is pretty much ...
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Max tech level for society of 200,000
Given a remote island colonised by modern day (2023) explorers, with a total population of about 200,000 but cut off from the outside world for political reasons, what level of technology could they ...
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How to cause an exodus from the west coast of the United States inland?
What I Need
I need to bring about a scenario where most, if not all, of the west coast has been abandoned before the alien-robot-zombie apocalypse wreaks havoc on the world. Sweet, sweet havoc! ...
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Can a lack of diseases in the medieval period lead to overpopulation?
In the Middle Ages, it was necessary for a couple to have as many children as possible because many children died before reaching adult age. Much of this was due to rampant disease and lack of medical ...
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How to build a self-sufficient town
Other questions have tried to address how big/small towns have to be in order to function, but I'm more interested in approaching it from a different angle: How big would a town have to be to support ...
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How to make people spread over the earth?
I created human beings and placed them on a planet full of landmasses, oceans, rivers, forests, desserts, swaps, snow, mountains, hills, animals, insects, plants, fish you name it. But I have a ...
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Population Size of a Colony With a Large Gender Disparity
This is my first post on this site, so please bear with me.
I am working on a series of stories about an interstellar colony with a large gender disparity. Namely the initial population was made up of ...
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What is a good reference size for a settlement?
I have been sporadically building a particular world, mainly by developing its cultures with events (often paralleling Earth history) and individuals, rather than shaping the cultures beforehand. One ...
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Solutions for overpopulation for an immortal race
Imagine a city full of people that are immortal; they can't die by aging and normal weapons can't hurt or kill them. So the government needs to find ways to overcome its overpopulation issues.
After a ...
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What is the Fighting Population of a Goblin Community?
How would the fighting population of a race of goblins be different from that of normal humans?
Let's name some parameters for these goblins, first:
Small tunnel dwellers: Probably not important to ...
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A subtle war between the sexes
In this question, I detail a world with a third human sex, lilim, who have bat-like wings and taloned feet like a bird's. The TL;DR is that lilim give birth to equal numbers of men, women and lilim (...
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Calculating City Size based on Population
Question: I'm trying to determine how large (geographically) my city will have to be to accommodate for 1 million people.
I have a city that was basically formed by the gods to be fertile land with a ...
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How do I calculate the number of people who have ever lived in a place over a given span of time assuming a fixed population?
500 years ago, the mountain dwelling Carac clan was cursed with undeath: whenever they or any of their descendants die, their corpses rise as undead creatures, or if burned, as shadowy specters. The ...
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How to ensure stagnation of population figures without slaying inhabitants?
In my world, there rules a wise government that maintains an Utopia that was created centuries ago. This Utopia was founded by elders that left earth because they felt Earth decayed through wars, ...
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How can a massive walled city be viable?
I'm working on a small story, and in it I'm wanting to include a city surrounded by multiple layers of walls. The walls themselves are colossal, but were created/held up by sorcery. I would go into ...
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How many people within a given population could reasonably be "noble" without inbreeding becoming an issue?
I have searched around the site and seen several population-related questions, but not one that is getting at what I'm specifically wondering (or that is at least explaining it in a way that my ...
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