Territorial Extent And Population Of The Roman Empire

[Marc Antony]

Hello,

 

I made a lenghty online inquiry about the maximal territorial extension of the Roman Empire and all I ended up with were some strange and contradictory figures, largley left unexplained ("1.7 million square miles", "2.2 million square miles", "2.3 million square miles at its height", "3,34 Mio km

Edited May 24, 2006 by Marc Antony

[Primus Pilus]

I think the method of calculating the land mass is the question here. How does one truly select the appropriate percentages of modern borders to include? From a quick glance I can see a couple of countries missing from your list (though admittedly they are small ones): Lebanon, Luxembourg, Cyprus. In addition, Wouldn't the borders of modern Romania (Dacia) and Egypt conform quite closely to the provinces controlled by Rome rather than the 50% you suggest?

 

You might need to make an equally proportional overview of ancient and modern sample areas to make it a bit more scientific. Could be quite interesting really.

 

As for population figures... here's my own article though it is only intended as an overview and I make several openly debatable assumptions.

Roman Population

 

And here's a provincial chart by Dr. Ken Harl Tulane Handout

[Marc Antony]

I think the method of calculating the land mass is the question here. How does one truly select the appropriate percentages of modern borders to include?

 

Yes, that is the problem. I did it by eye-measuring from the map I deemed being the most accurate. Not exactly hard science, but I would still argue that the extent must be somewhere between 4 and 5 million square kilometers, which would eliminate some of the other claims I quoted above.

 

PS: I added some new states without calculating the overall figure new. I hope the list is now comlete.

[Andrew Dalby]

I have a reference which might (or might not) help:

 

Keith Hopkins, 'Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 BC-AD 400)' in \Journal of Roman studies\ vol. 70 (1980) pp. 101-125.

 

I mention it because (a) Hopkins tried to do large scale calculations, similar to those in this thread, and ( because I think he also wrote at least one full-length book on this kind of topic. Population, if not land area, certainly interest him. So try searching for Keith Hopkins.

 

I guess the land area calculations in this thread must now be pretty close to the truth. There is just one problem as I see it: some frontier areas were very 'grey' indeed. I think that's the case with Dacia (you can see very different borders on different maps). The same with North Africa: in places there was a fairly well-defined border, in places not. You might also put Cornwall, and maybe some other northern and western parts of Britain, in the same category: in such places, what did Roman rule consist of, exactly?

[P.Clodius]

It'd probably be helpful to break it down into periods. Sq/m at the end of 3rd Macedonian, sq/m in 44BC, sq/mile Julio-Claudian, Flavian, etc

[Marc Antony]

Keith Hopkins, 'Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 BC-AD 400)' in \Journal of Roman studies\ vol. 70 (1980) pp. 101-125.

 

Thanks a lot. I am really looking for sources on the subject of population densities.

 

Just noticed I have to add the whole Bosporian realm!

 

+ Gibraltar

[Kosmo]

You should not put the kingdom of Bosporus as was not a roman province.

This is a hard task. There are debates about the borders of Dacia, but if you have to consider desert areas like North Africa and the Middle East it's even more difficult.

It's a big difference between the borders of province and the outside areas were roman authority was accepted. In Dacia many areas were sometimes under roman influence. Maybe the provinces proper are just a half from what it's showed on this site map.