Tyrian population distribution

[Fipmip.7219]

There's a bit of a misleading line in the human intro to GW2 when making a new character. It seems to imply Kryta is humanity's last holdout, and enemies press in from all sides. "We make our stand in Divinity's Reach." Yet it turns out humans rule both Elona and Cantha as well. In terms of the playable area, it is dominated by humans. This got me wondering about the actual population statistics for the playable races of Tyria. Who are the most numerous and who are the least? which control the most land?

The asura seem to have one city and some labs dotted around. there's more than one asuran complex with the name "Rata," but only one seems to have a high population density begetting a city. and if it isnt and is just some big lab, then it asurans are probably the least populous species. I'd also hazard a guess that they have a low birthrate too. Then we have norn and sylvari. I'd say that if we afford sylvari the premise of multiple trees, then those trees are probably arrayed around maguuma. given their few decades of existence, they may outstrip the asura, but the norn have existed for a long time and have had a lot of space. Recently their number would be reduced by Jormag and their push south. their culture is nomadic and has low density. Given their scattered nature, I'd say the norn come in behind the sylvari, which can multiply like weeds.

That leaves two species as the possible dominant race in Tyria, humans and charr. As we've established, despite what the opening says, humans still control a large amount resources and have a large population. However, all three nations have suffered monumental calamities, from the reign of Joko, the jade wind and the void, and the Krytans teetering on the edge of ruination (for a while presumably). For this reason, It seems the current evidence points towards the charr, with their vast lands to the northeast going untouched by the dragons, and their industrial might keeping pace with the other species reliance on magic. Problem is I'm not a lore expert so there's probably mentions I havent taken into account. I'd like to hear them if possible.

 

[squeegee.4320]

Humans naturally are the dominant species because the game is about humans. It was only for GW2 that they wanted more than one playable race and thus shoved a bunch of new races into the edges of places human already existed (except for the norn which took over the Shiverpeaks from the dwarves after Anet killed off the entire race).

Edited July 13 by squeegee.4320

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

There's a bit of a misleading line in the human intro to GW2 when making a new character. It seems to imply Kryta is humanity's last holdout, and enemies press in from all sides. "We make our stand in Divinity's Reach." Yet it turns out humans rule both Elona and Cantha as well. In terms of the playable area, it is dominated by humans. This got me wondering about the actual population statistics for the playable races of Tyria. Who are the most numerous and who are the least? which control the most land?

A big thing is, the intros are not really misleading, they are based around knowledge in universe... at the moment. In base game, there is no contact with Elona or Cantha, and the nation of Kryta is facing troubles with political backstabbing and resource hindering at the same time as a new centaur offensive. It's speaking from an in-universe perspective and is entirely accurate, for it's timeframe.

2 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

The asura seem to have one city and some labs dotted around. there's more than one asuran complex with the name "Rata," but only one seems to have a high population density begetting a city. and if it isnt and is just some big lab, then it asurans are probably the least populous species. I'd also hazard a guess that they have a low birthrate too.

From memory, I don't think they ever comment on birthrate, but Asura have plenty of children running around the schools. The other thing is we don't personally access much of Rata Sum's cube as players, or the side structures around it's base and in the Metrica Province heavily built up area just outside of Rata Sum. At the same time, "Lab" and "living space" are often the same thing for Asura.

2 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

Then we have norn and sylvari. I'd say that if we afford sylvari the premise of multiple trees, then those trees are probably arrayed around maguuma. given their few decades of existence, they may outstrip the asura, but the norn have existed for a long time and have had a lot of space. Recently their number would be reduced by Jormag and their push south. their culture is nomadic and has low density. Given their scattered nature, I'd say the norn come in behind the sylvari, which can multiply like weeds.

Sylvari we don't have full knowledge on population numbers, because there are no real records of how many wake up. Infact it's brought up how after the "Secondborn" period, they kinda gave up trying to define generations because the newly awakened Sylvari were just happening so often. Even with the Pale Tree knocked out for a while, it was never said that "No new awakenings are happening" IIRC.

Norn thing is also that while they had fled south, they rebuilt. Hoelbrek is a fairly high, year round population center that is large enough it's evolved government processes, even if the Norn don't want to call it "A city". They maintain permanant settlements in various spots of the Shiverpeaks, as well as smaller lodges. Hoelbrek is noted to have purposefully kept communication and supply/trade lines open to these settlements as well. 

2 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

That leaves two species as the possible dominant race in Tyria, humans and charr. As we've established, despite what the opening says, humans still control a large amount resources and have a large population. However, all three nations have suffered monumental calamities, from the reign of Joko, the jade wind and the void, and the Krytans teetering on the edge of ruination (for a while presumably). For this reason, It seems the current evidence points towards the charr, with their vast lands to the northeast going untouched by the dragons, and their industrial might keeping pace with the other species reliance on magic. Problem is I'm not a lore expert so there's probably mentions I havent taken into account. I'd like to hear them if possible.

Charr lands have had their share of troubles, though some of them have been lessened with time going forward. Same with humans, though they aren't at their former heights of glory. Kryta's pretty stabilized as of current time.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

5 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

There's a bit of a misleading line in the human intro to GW2 when making a new character. It seems to imply Kryta is humanity's last holdout, and enemies press in from all sides. "We make our stand in Divinity's Reach." Yet it turns out humans rule both Elona and Cantha as well. In terms of the playable area, it is dominated by humans.

This is because at the time that is said, Cantha and Elona are cut off and Krytans don't know their fate. The last they knew of Elona, it was being conquered by an undead lich lord turning people into undead slaves and starving the living until they followed him - that was 50 years ago, so for all they know by the start of GW2, it was turned into a land of only undead. Cantha was cut off with Zhaitan's rise, the last contact being tengu who explained the purge of non-humans, and the only evidence of Cantha maybe existing was sporadic Canthan shipwrecks - that being about 100 years ago, so for all Krytans knew at the start of GW2, Cantha was wiped out by the tsunami.

Even then, both Cantha and Elona had a lot less humans in it than GW1's time, and a lot less territory covered making up Cantha, having lost the entire northern half of its megatropolis city.

Technically it's less misleading and more unreliable narrator - arguably unreliable narrators are misleading, but the point is to show what the characters know or believe to be true. In that mindset, it isn't misleading, as that's how all Krytans (and the remnant Ascalonians) view the statue of humans in the world.

5 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

This got me wondering about the actual population statistics for the playable races of Tyria. Who are the most numerous and who are the least? which control the most land?

Depends on whether you mean Tyria the continent or Tyria the planet. In either case, I'd argue charr.

5 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

The asura seem to have one city and some labs dotted around. there's more than one asuran complex with the name "Rata," but only one seems to have a high population density begetting a city. and if it isnt and is just some big lab, then it asurans are probably the least populous species. I'd also hazard a guess that they have a low birthrate too.

No indication asura birthrate is low, and they have multiple cities. Though Rata Sum, their capital, is the largest - technically Mrot Beru, Thaumanova, and a few other places are called cities in the lore (though the game doesn't show this well because everything is shrunk down a bit). Of course, Thaumanova had its disaster, but it's been a decade so that could have been cleaned up - in the Season 1 finale we get a brief glimpse at it in art form with no visual indication of the chaotic mess that we see it in in-game, so there's a solid chance it was cleaned up (and maybe even livable again) by mid-1327 AE.

5 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

Then we have norn and sylvari. I'd say that if we afford sylvari the premise of multiple trees, then those trees are probably arrayed around maguuma. given their few decades of existence, they may outstrip the asura, but the norn have existed for a long time and have had a lot of space. Recently their number would be reduced by Jormag and their push south. their culture is nomadic and has low density. Given their scattered nature, I'd say the norn come in behind the sylvari, which can multiply like weeds.

Sylvari only have two confirmed trees, and we don't know the state, or age, of the second (Malyck's Tree). While the seeds that begame these two trees came from a cave with others, there's no indication that any of them had been planted. Well, there is one small indication that implies maybe the Tower of Nightmares was one such tree seed, planted by Scarlet and the Viathan Lake krait. But it only produced one sylvari-like being before its destruction. Any other seeds may have been corrupted by Mordremoth and planted throughout the Maguuma but that's speculative - we don't know if those blighting trees were from the seeds or just corrupted Maguuma wildlife (like The Great Tree in Tangled Depths which is being corrupted into a Blighting Tree in the meta).

As such, I wouldn't say the sylvari out-populate either the norn or the asura yet.

5 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

That leaves two species as the possible dominant race in Tyria, humans and charr. As we've established, despite what the opening says, humans still control a large amount resources and have a large population. However, all three nations have suffered monumental calamities, from the reign of Joko, the jade wind and the void, and the Krytans teetering on the edge of ruination (for a while presumably). For this reason, It seems the current evidence points towards the charr, with their vast lands to the northeast going untouched by the dragons, and their industrial might keeping pace with the other species reliance on magic. Problem is I'm not a lore expert so there's probably mentions I havent taken into account. I'd like to hear them if possible.

It should be noted that their industrial might comes from the Iron Legion that is situated in Ascalon. While they do trade and sell their machines and tanks to the other legions, just as they do with the Pact, the might all centralizes on the Iron Legion - and is only a ~100-150 year advancement (this industrial might didn't exist 200 years ago during Kalla's life by all indication, but it was being worked on 100 years ago during Zhaitan's rise per Sea of Sorrows, though not to the degree they're known for now). We also don't have any indication of just how far east their lands stretch, as their ancient conquest pushed them westward, and their rivalry with humans in Ascalon kept them from advancing at all by all current indication.

This said as Kavalier mentions, it is worth nothing that Ascalon - if not other charr lands - have had their share of troubles. This share of trouble is the very foundation of why they formalized the cease-fire with humans, due to having too many enemies to deal with (ogres, Foefire ghosts, branded, resurgent Flame Legion). This is a bit B Plot of Icebrood Saga and Bangar's motivations, because those enemies have dwindled (branded gone, Flame Legion dealt with, Foefire and ogres present but reduced) and the worries of either humans betraying the charr during a time of peace, or the warmongering desires of charr tearing them apart in chaos - better an organized civil war than a disorganized one, or so Jormag seeminglyconvinced Bangar.

Edited July 13 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Sylvari we don't have full knowledge on population numbers, because there are no real records of how many wake up. Infact it's brought up how after the "Secondborn" period, they kinda gave up trying to define generations because the newly awakened Sylvari were just happening so often. Even with the Pale Tree knocked out for a while, it was never said that "No new awakenings are happening" IIRC.

It is said no new sylvari were awakening after the Pale Tree was knocked out - but this moment of no new sylvari ended with Mordremoth's death according to Taimi's Notes from Rata Novus (who got this report from Caithe - so potential telephone game unreliability).

For what it's worth, Canach does mention Fifthborn - though it's unclear whether this would be the newest generation or an older one, like the sylvari Commander's generation (which I like to believe because Canach would totally do that level of snide remark right in front of a Fifthborn, especially given sylvari PCs go a bit fangirly on Canach during their first meeting in The Lost Shores about "hearing the stories of the Secondborn"). Technically also unclear if there even is a Third/Fourth/Fifthborn generation and Canach wasn't just being snide with a made up generation - though that feels odd and unrealistic.

[Kalavier.1097]

18 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It is said no new sylvari were awakening after the Pale Tree was knocked out - but this moment of no new sylvari ended with Mordremoth's death according to Taimi's Notes from Rata Novus (who got this report from Caithe - so potential telephone game unreliability).

For what it's worth, Canach does mention Fifthborn - though it's unclear whether this would be the newest generation or an older one, like the sylvari Commander's generation (which I like to believe because Canach would totally do that level of snide remark right in front of a Fifthborn, especially given sylvari PCs go a bit fangirly on Canach during their first meeting in The Lost Shores about "hearing the stories of the Secondborn"). Technically also unclear if there even is a Third/Fourth/Fifthborn generation and Canach wasn't just being snide with a made up generation - though that feels odd and unrealistic.

I don't remember a fifthborn comment (but that's probably just time from said content) but I do recall somewhere there is a "thirdborn" sylvari, but it's viewed as a weird/odd title since they don't really care.

It'd be interesting to find out how long each generation is though, since we know the secondborn cover Sylvari awakened over a course of several months at the least, maybe a year.  Or if after a certain period they simply gave up because it wasn't waves of new Sylvari but a constant flow.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I don't remember a fifthborn comment (but that's probably just time from said content) but I do recall somewhere there is a "thirdborn" sylvari, but it's viewed as a weird/odd title since they don't really care.

It'd be interesting to find out how long each generation is though, since we know the secondborn cover Sylvari awakened over a course of several months at the least, maybe a year.  Or if after a certain period they simply gave up because it wasn't waves of new Sylvari but a constant flow.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Fifthborn&go=Go&ns0=1

Canach: For the last time, I am not a grouchy cactus man. Nor am I a giant talking choya. You urchins have the manners of a fifthborn.

No mention of "Thirdborn" on the wiki though. The closest to such I can recall - as well as a timeframe for them being born - is the Dream and Nightmare blog post, and the story entry about krait babies.

Two others of an even younger generation than Cadeyrn stood with her; both, like them, members of the Cycle of Noon.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dream_and_Nightmare#The_Cycle_of_Night

This happening before Cadeyrn separated, but seemingly after the events of the LWS2 flashbacks since those were only Secondborn present. The timeline order of sylvari early years appears to be:

• Firstborn are born (1302)
• Caithe and Faolain traveled far away from the Grove; Trahearne visited Orr; Riannoc, Wynne, Dagonet, and the two unnamed Firstborn traveled but stayed close to the Grove
• Secondborn are born (1304 - a late LWS1 retcon from the original 1308 date) with all twelve Firstborn present
• Caithe, Faolain, Riannoc, and maybe other Firstborn leave the Grove again
• Riannoc dies, all living sylvari feel it
• Malomedies is captured by asura, experimented upon, and later returned
• Events of LWS2 flashback; Wynne dies ("a few months" after Cadeyrn woke up, so either late 1304 or early 1305)
• Thirdborn are born (no later than 1306)
• Cadeyrn and Niamh deal with krait young
• Cadeyrn confronts Pale Tree, is ignored
• Cadeyrn makes Nightmare Court

Other than that "a few months" for the LWS2 flashback, we don't have any dates for anything other than Firstborn and Secondborn years. Though given that we were also told the gap between generations were smaller each time, with the generations larger, the "Thirdborn" would have been born during or before 1306 AE (in the original setup before ANet accidentally retconned the Secondborn's birthdate, it would have been "no later than 1314" incidentally); 1305 is most likely, especially if we assume the gap between is halved and, given how many confirmed Secondborn are in the flashbacks, the generation sized is approximately 6-7 times larger from confirmed numbers. If we assume that, then it'd be a 1 year gap between 2nd and 3rd, 6 months between 3rd and 4th, and 3 months between 4th and 5th. At that point - 1.5 months - it'd be kind of silly to denote further generations when they get to be hundreds produced each generation from 3rd onward - possibly even thousands in the 5th generation that would still be beginning in 1307 AE at the latest.

[draxynnic.3719]

A few people have already discussed the attitude of the people of Kryta at the start of the game.

I think it is a tossup between humans and charr being dominant. Norn population covers a wide territory, but is fairly sparse due to their culture - conversely, asura and sylvari are concentrated in specific locations. Humans and charr both have multiple nations, and at least some of those nations have multiple reasonably large settlements.

Taken all combined, though, I think humans still win. Something to keep in mind that once the Searing and its immediate consequences had played out, the charr and humans fell right back into a stalemate. It was a stalemate that was arguably to the advantage of the charr, as opposed to the period after the Great Northern Wall where Ascalonians had been slowly pushing north, but the fact remains that Kryta and Ebonhawke alone basically stalemated the charr for two centuries. While the charr did have other problems to deal with, so did Kryta. Add Elona, Cantha, and possibly other nations that we don't know about (looking at you, Doern) and humans probably come out way ahead.

The Watsonian reason for this is probably diet. The charr might have more territory overall, but animal husbandry is less efficient per unit of land than crops. It's generally considered that it takes about ten times as much arable land to get a given amount of calories from animal husbandry than from crops, so even without considering that charr are bigger and therefore probably need more on an individual basis, any given area is likely to sustain a population of roughly ten times as many humans as charr. Elona being arid would lessen this advantage, but I have a sneaking suspicion the original charr homeland east of the Blazeridge might also be arid, with the nomadic Ash Legion being the closest of the primary legions to the original charr lifestyle.

[squeegee.4320]

13 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Kryta ... basically stalemated the charr for two centuries

The charr never went after Kryta again after they got wrecked by the Unseen Ones.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

5 hours ago, squeegee.4320 said:

The charr never went after Kryta again after they got wrecked by the Unseen Ones.

The combination of Kryta and Ebonhawke stalemated the charr for two centuries.

Kryta was supplying Ebonhawke during the time after the Foefire, allowing it to survive the near constant 200+ years of sieges.

[draxynnic.3719]

13 hours ago, squeegee.4320 said:

The charr never went after Kryta again after they got wrecked by the Unseen Ones.

Dude, you didn't just quote out of context, you edited the quote specifically to remove context.

Kryta wasn't on the front line - although IIRC Sea of Sorrows revealed that the charr were at times considering attacking Kryta before other events intervened, and it's possible that over two centuries there were raids we just didn't find out about. But it was providing the resources for Ebonhawke to hold out and even, in at least one occasion, counterattack... and there may be other occasions we haven't heard of because, again, we don't have a detailed history of the charr-human war between the Foefire and Ghosts of Ascalon apart from what appears in Sea of Sorrows.

[Kalavier.1097]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Dude, you didn't just quote out of context, you edited the quote specifically to remove context.

Kryta wasn't on the front line - although IIRC Sea of Sorrows revealed that the charr were at times considering attacking Kryta before other events intervened, and it's possible that over two centuries there were raids we just didn't find out about. But it was providing the resources for Ebonhawke to hold out and even, in at least one occasion, counterattack... and there may be other occasions we haven't heard of because, again, we don't have a detailed history of the charr-human war between the Foefire and Ghosts of Ascalon apart from what appears in Sea of Sorrows.

The most we know is the Charr had some minor naval presence, though their ships were actively attacking any humans right? "unpopular to dock at these Krytan ports but tolerated for short stays"

[draxynnic.3719]

5 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The most we know is the Charr had some minor naval presence, though their ships were actively attacking any humans right? "unpopular to dock at these Krytan ports but tolerated for short stays"

From what I recall, the charr ship that picked Marriner up was there in part because the charr were investigating the feasibility of raiding the Krytan coast by sea using new ship technology. Zhaitan's rise rendered it infeasible (both by increasing the risk and because most of the Krytan coastal settlements were destroyed either by the tsunami or by Risen), but there was at least one point where they were considering ways to bring the war to Kryta.

Also at least one occasion when a charr peace offering was ruined by Lion's Arch pirates.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 7/13/2024 at 8:23 AM, Fipmip.7219 said:

There's a bit of a misleading line in the human intro to GW2 when making a new character. It seems to imply Kryta is humanity's last holdout, and enemies press in from all sides. "We make our stand in Divinity's Reach." Yet it turns out humans rule both Elona and Cantha as well. In terms of the playable area, it is dominated by humans. This got me wondering about the actual population statistics for the playable races of Tyria. Who are the most numerous and who are the least? which control the most land?

The asura seem to have one city and some labs dotted around. there's more than one asuran complex with the name "Rata," but only one seems to have a high population density begetting a city. and if it isnt and is just some big lab, then it asurans are probably the least populous species. I'd also hazard a guess that they have a low birthrate too. Then we have norn and sylvari. I'd say that if we afford sylvari the premise of multiple trees, then those trees are probably arrayed around maguuma. given their few decades of existence, they may outstrip the asura, but the norn have existed for a long time and have had a lot of space. Recently their number would be reduced by Jormag and their push south. their culture is nomadic and has low density. Given their scattered nature, I'd say the norn come in behind the sylvari, which can multiply like weeds.

That leaves two species as the possible dominant race in Tyria, humans and charr. As we've established, despite what the opening says, humans still control a large amount resources and have a large population. However, all three nations have suffered monumental calamities, from the reign of Joko, the jade wind and the void, and the Krytans teetering on the edge of ruination (for a while presumably). For this reason, It seems the current evidence points towards the charr, with their vast lands to the northeast going untouched by the dragons, and their industrial might keeping pace with the other species reliance on magic. Problem is I'm not a lore expert so there's probably mentions I havent taken into account. I'd like to hear them if possible.

 

i won't say too much about it, but if you've played the original guild wars you'd understand that even with how much humans are portrayed on this game, it doesn't even hold a candle to the control over the world they had in the first game, let alone previous to that when they also held the continent of orr.

 

the campaign starts with an entire human kingdom getting destroyed with fantasy-style nuclear weapons because the charr couldn't hurt them any other way. there's no solid lore answer that i know of as to the current population, but i imagine it would be less than 20% now in comparison to the pre-guild wars era.

 

by the way, we also know another human kingdom, or at least settlement, likely exists to the west and is known as sunrise crest!

Edited July 16 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i won't say too much about it, but if you've played the original guild wars you'd understand that even with how much humans are portrayed on this game, it doesn't even hold a candle to the control over the world they had in the first game, let alone previous to that when they also held the continent of orr.

 

the campaign starts with an entire human kingdom getting destroyed with fantasy-style nuclear weapons because the charr couldn't hurt them any other way. there's no solid lore answer that i know of as to the current population, but i imagine it would be less than 20% now in comparison to the pre-guild wars era.

 

by the way, we also know another human kingdom, or at least settlement, likely exists to the west and is known as sunrise crest!

Even Kryta is probably about half the size it was in GW1, and what's left of Kryta is probably what was the more sparsely populated regions.

[Kalavier.1097]

14 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Even Kryta is probably about half the size it was in GW1, and what's left of Kryta is probably what was the more sparsely populated regions.

Though we could possibly argue the built up areas have greater population then before, the walled settlements and such. 

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Though we could possibly argue the built up areas have greater population then before, the walled settlements and such. 

Well, yeah. DR is a bigger city than anything in GW1 Kryta, especially since there's additional housing in unexplorable areas between the walls. But it's still evident that in GW1, the most valuable provinces were those on the southern coast, while the likes of Beetletun and Shaemoor were out in the proverbial sticks. What we see is a Kryta that's bounced back from losing at least its two biggest cities (LA and the city in Riverside Province).