Now that you’ve formed a world out of blank piece of paper or a couple of pixels on a computer screen, it’s time to populate it.  Today I’ll be looking at countries, their borders, and the people who call them home.

Borders, And The Oodles of Dramatic Possibilities They Provide

Yes, oodles is a technical measurement.

Hopefully in your map-making stage, you’ve now got some natural features to play around with.  Unless created by military incursion or magical malady, your countries are most likely to form their borders around natural landmarks such as rivers, mountain ranges, or even swamps.  Look for some point that differentiates this piece of land from that.

Although if this is what differentiates your countries, build a gigantic wall of fire, sharks, and lasers, and pray.
Borders are great because they provide instant drama:

What is the relationship between bordering countries?  Even with the most friendly of neighbours, you’ll still get some tension occasionally, whether it’s from inexperienced (or bored) border guards flexing their muscles or bickering over which point in the lake Country A’s ships are invading Country B’s territory.


How stringently is the border defended?  If you’re dealing with a dictatorship or a xenophobic society, for example, then your protagonists could face numerous guard houses, dogs, magical deterrents, walls, flaming pits of lava with crocodiles swimming in them.  There’s nothing more fun as a reader than to follow your hero outwit and overcome obstacles.  And a difficult border crossing can be one of the best.  Look at how much trouble Frodo and Sam had getting into Mordor.


The physical challenge of crossing the border.  If one of your countries is bordered by a mountain range that’s snowed in from October to March, then the tension is ramped up as we as readers eagerly devour the chapters to see whether our protagonist manages to clear the pass before winter.  Physical limitations can provide some of the best moments of heart-stopping drama, so by all means bring on those ship-breaking storms, sinking quagmires, and impenetrable mountain passes.

For more on why borderlands are so much fun to play with, check out Limyaael’s amazing rant on borderlands.

So I’ve Got A Border and A Country… Now What?

A country generally has to have at least a capitol (generally the largest city, but sometimes designated by cultural significance, trade, or even created specifically for the job like Canberra), one or two other large cities, and a smattering of smaller towns, hamlets, and villages.  But depending on your society, it could have none of these things, as I’ll unpack later.

S. John Ross’s Medieval Demographics Made Easy unpacks just how many people can be supported in each centre of population:

Villages range from 20 to 1,000 people, with typical villages ranging from 50-300. Most kingdoms will have thousands of them. Villages are agrarian communities within the safe folds of civilization. They provide the basic source of food and land-stability in a feudal system. Usually, a village that supports orchards (instead of grainfields) is called a “hamlet.” Occasionally, game writers use the term to apply to a very small village, regardless of what food it produces.
Towns range in population from 1,000-8,000 people, with typical values somewhere around 2,500. Culturally, these are the equivalent to the smaller American cities that line the interstates. Cities and towns tend to have walls only if they are frequently threatened.
Cities tend to be from 8,000-12,000 people, with an average in the middle of that range. A typical large kingdom will have only a few cities in this population range. Centers of scholarly pursuits (the Universities) tend to be in cities of this size, with only the rare exception thriving in a Big City.
Big Cities range from 12,000-100,000 people, with some exceptional cities exceeding this scale. Some historical examples include London (25,000-40,000), Paris (50,000-80,000), Genoa (75,000-100,000), and Venice (100,000+). Moscow in the 15th century had a population in excess of 200,000!

Generally, cities tend to pop up where there’s either lots of travel or lots of natural resources to support a large population – trade routes, coastlines, rivers, lakes (just follow the water).  They’ll need plenty of trees for building materials and fires, and arable land to sew crops on – barley, vetches, oats, peas, and beans in the spring, and wheat and rye in the fall (though this will vary based on your country’s climate).

Belle obviously would have appreciated some larger cities in Ye Olde Generic French Country That Weirdly Enough Manages to Lose Its Prince

But sometimes, depending on your society, you won’t even have any cities at all.  One of my countries in The Book of Days isn’t even technically a country, just a series of territories owned by a people called the De Kena.  Due to the fact that their lands are bordered by some highly unsavoury characters, they’re nomadic and their settlements are only as large as they can pack up and carry on the back of their horses.  They’re separated into clans of 50-200 family groups, which shifts every couple of years as clans either win or lose territory from their neighbours.  So a series of settled cities and villages wouldn’t make sense for this culture.

Some questions to consider as you create your countries:

How large do you want your population to be?  Will it be like France, whose large fertile lands supported one of the highest populations in the medieval world?  If so, you’ll need to consider food sources, water placement, possible trade routes.  You’ll also have to decide how many cities/villages/towns your country will need and where to place them (think sources of water)

Or maybe you want a small population.  What outside influences would create this?  Is your country mostly mountainous?  Is there population control in place?  Is your country cursed?  Or maybe, if your country is more technologically advanced, is the hard life of living in smog-choked cities and working in mines or factories killing both sexes young?




How is your society organised?  This will greatly affect the cities or lack thereof.  Is it a monarchy?  A socialist society?  A collection of friendly anarchists?  I’ll touch more on politics in a later post, but the way that people group themselves is a large determining factor of both the population and the basic structure of your country.


What is their relationship with their neighbours?  Inter-country politics can be some of the most fascinating aspects of a well-built fantasy society and, if you play your cards right, a source of both tension and intrigue in your novels.  Heck, some court-based fantasy seem to be composed of little else.


Is there a native population?  If so, how are they treated?  Are they viewed as vermin to be exterminated?  Feared?  Revered?  What about the products of a union between the native population and the invaders/colonists?  How a country treats its mixed race citizens (both officially and unofficially) can tell a lot about its society.

What’s your favourite part of creating countries?  Are your borderlands scheming cesspools of assassination and depravity or cultured learning centres with the best of both worlds? Let me know in the comments, or send me an email at k.a.barkerwrites [at] gmail [dot] com.