So Sartar has a population density of about 10 people per square km, and Lunar Tarsh about 18 people per square km. Esrolia is WAY more densely settled. North Esrolia has only about 3000 km2 (or less than half the area of Sartar), but has 500,000 people. That’s 166 people per square km. If we remove Nochet from the mix, it is still about 130 people per square km.That’s Nile Valley density. That’s the Low Countries in the Renaissance.
So everywhere you go in North Esrolia, there will be settlement and intensive agriculture. There’s no “wild land”.
So if you travel in Esrolia, every 4 or 5 kilometres has another village, surrounded by farms. If we think of each village having about 16 km2 agricultural land, that means we have clusters of about 2000 people, with lots of little farmhouses, but most of the folk living in a large village, with its Ernalda major temple (with shrines to the other Earth goddesses) and minor temple to Barntar or Orlanth Thunderous and shrine to Argan Argar. And then 4 km away is another one. And another 4 km and another one.
Heortland, in contrast is about 38 people per km2, which gets us in the vicinity of Roman Italy. It is much more settled than Sartar, but far less than Esrolia.
So it means that Heortland under Belintar has become a settled land, with lots of village, but spaced a little further apart than Esrolia, and more on the population scale of the Sartarite clans (around 1300 on average). But most of the plateau is now agricultural land.
So in Heortland, there’s been quite a lot of deforestation on the Heortland Plateau. Since the Dragonkill War, the population of Heortland has probably more than doubled since its Second Age height.
