Population of Medieval Baghdad

[Intrepid Adventurer]

Dear fellow history lovers!

For my MA thesis about the population of imperial Rome I'm looking to do a good comparative study. Abbasid Baghdad seems like a comparable city in terms of size and importance. I'm having some trouble finding good sources for this topic, however. Would any of you know of any good books or (preferably) articles that handle this topic?

Or perhaps you know of another city that would be worth comparing to Rome? I'm thinking about comparing the ways we arrive at population estimates, so the and availability and handling of sources must be present in the secondairy literature.

Thank you all a lot!

[TinCow]

I have never read anything about medieval Baghdad, but the population of Paris and London are both pretty well documented in the medieval period. I see those stats cited in numerous books as contemporary comparisons for other cities from 1000 AD onwards.

To be clear though, you're looking for medieval comparisons, not ancient (contemporary to Rome) comparisons?

[Louis VI the Fat]

One good choice for a comparative study would seem Alexandria to me. The second city of the Mediterranean during Rome's population peak.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/284172

[al Roumi]

I have never read anything about medieval Baghdad, but the population of Paris and London are both pretty well documented in the medieval period. I see those stats cited in numerous books as contemporary comparisons for other cities from 1000 AD onwards.

To be clear though, you're looking for medieval comparisons, not ancient (contemporary to Rome) comparisons?

I'm sure you're well aware of how badly they would compare with Rome or contemporary Baghdad... It would be embarrassing.

[Intrepid Adventurer]

Indeed, London or Paris would be far smaller in terms of population (and importance). Alexandria is a really good suggestion I hadn't thought of, thanks Lious. TinCow: my problem with most comparisons is that they're often 19th century. That's because only from about that time do we have any kind of decent statistical data to work with. So you get weird comparisons like imperial Rome and 1920 New York (I'm serious, check the article: Oates, The Population of Rome). So I want something a little closer. I thought Baghdad might be well attested in the sources (and so did my Professor, who actually suggested it).

Someone else has suggested Constantinople, but I'm not sure how well the two would compare. It would be worth a shot, though.

[Kralizec]

Maybe Seleucia (near old Babylon) is another good comparison. A quick search on google:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/533270/Seleucia-on-the-Tigris
Apparently it had a population of 600.000 at one point.
Carthage might also be worth looking into, though I'm less sure of that one.

If Asian cities count IIRC Bejing was the largest city in the world in the 16th and 17th century.

[Fragony]

I'd do Constantinoble but I like the easy way out. INFIGHTING INVASIONS DECLINE

worth asking, what is the study about, just any comparison?

[Kralizec]

Wikipedia has an article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes) about this, but some of the numbers seem odd. For one thing it lists Beijing as having 150,000 inhabitants in 1400, and fifty years later 600,000 :inquisitive:

[TinCow]

Indeed, London or Paris would be far smaller in terms of population (and importance). Alexandria is a really good suggestion I hadn't thought of, thanks Lious. TinCow: my problem with most comparisons is that they're often 19th century. That's because only from about that time do we have any kind of decent statistical data to work with. So you get weird comparisons like imperial Rome and 1920 New York (I'm serious, check the article: Oates, The Population of Rome). So I want something a little closer. I thought Baghdad might be well attested in the sources (and so did my Professor, who actually suggested it).

Someone else has suggested Constantinople, but I'm not sure how well the two would compare. It would be worth a shot, though.

Hmmm... I question the utility of trying to draw an analogy based on equivalent population. Rome at its height was pretty much unique for that time period. Most sources I have read agree that Rome topped 1 million inhabitants during the first half of the Empire. Even Chinese cities do not approach those numbers until many centuries later. European cities are totally dwarfed in population by Imperial Rome, with Paris being head and shoulders above all the others, and it didn't even hit 1 million until the 19th century. I admit that I do not know population figures for the ancient and early-medieval middle-eastern cities, but I very much doubt they will come close to Rome's 1 million.

A better comparion, IMHO, is to contrast Rome during the early Empire with the capitals of other major ancient and medieval 'superpowers.' For example, compare Rome during the early Empire with Samarkand in the early 15th century. Or perhaps Athens in the 4th/5th Century BC. Ancient Babylon might be a good comparison as well. Essentially... look for cities of similar 'prestige', not necessarily similar population. Population makes for a good discussion topic within the comparison, but I think you'll find better parallels if you go for equivalents in influence rather than in size.

[edit]Now that I've said that, I re-read your OP about "the ways we arrive at population estimates." That reminded me of a book I just finished on the meso-american cultures: 1491 (http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/140004006X). There are large sections of that book devoted to the pre-Columbian population of the Americas, and the author cites numerous academic sources that have pegged the mexica, mayan, and peruvian cultures with stupendously large populations... often rivaling or surpassing their European equivalents. The cities themselves might not be too useful to you because there are pretty much NO contemporary sources on pre-columbian population and all the modern estimates are based on archaeology and biology. That said, the discussion of the meso-american population estimate problem itself might be useful to you, so you might want to take a look at it. It's also an extremely interesting book in general.

[Fragony]

Why are you so interestested in population growth it's what just happens when city's grow, it isn't so hard to figure out why it grew somewhere and declined somewhere else. If you can narrow down your question a bit

[Ibrahim]

Wikipedia has an article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes) about this, but some of the numbers seem odd. For one thing it lists Beijing as having 150,000 inhabitants in 1400, and fifty years later 600,000 :inquisitive:

makes sense; the Ming established the city as the permanent capital of China starting with that yuing-le guy (if I even spelt his name right). he's the guy who built he forbidden palace. prior to then, the Ming capital was at nanking.

no, didn't need wikipedia.

[Intrepid Adventurer]

Why are you so interestested in population growth it's what just happens when city's grow, it isn't so hard to figure out why it grew somewhere and declined somewhere else. If you can narrow down your question a bit

As a matter of fact it's very hard to figure out why and how much a city grew, if you don't have any quantitative sources. That's exactly our problem: there is no ancient source that tells us how many people lived in the city. The reason for a comparative study is this: if you can find a city with a comparable (supposed) number of inhabitants, in a comparable position in the world (i.e. capital of an empire), you might be able to base some conclusions on those facts.

For example, most people believe Rome had about 1 million inhabitants. My study so far shows that this is by no means certain and that it could easily have been half that number. A comparison might support either a higher or a lower number. No, it's not solid science, but it's the best we've got in terms of ancient demography.

[VersusAllOdds]

I for one know that Baghdad was the centre of Islamic and Arab culture in the medieval times. It is impossible to determine how many people perished during the Fall of Baghdad in 1258, I personally believe that it is up to a million, meaning that the population before that was more than a million. Actually, I think that you can learn more of population of Baghdad researching it's fall than data on it's population before it. Entire Islamic and Arab world was were shaken for decades when it fell... It must have been really large, and very developed.

[Intrepid Adventurer]

That is exactly the reason my prof and I thought it would be a good comparative study. (:

[aimlesswanderer]

Hmm, how about Chang'an or Luoyang? They were the capitals of the Han Dynasty at the same time as Imperial Rome was going strong. There is a reasonable amount of info about them I think. There was even a book about the capital cities of China I read, which had lots of info about the cities and their populations.

[Fragony]

As a matter of fact it's very hard to figure out why and how much a city grew, if you don't have any quantitative sources. That's exactly our problem: there is no ancient source that tells us how many people lived in the city. The reason for a comparative study is this: if you can find a city with a comparable (supposed) number of inhabitants, in a comparable position in the world (i.e. capital of an empire), you might be able to base some conclusions on those facts.

For example, most people believe Rome had about 1 million inhabitants. My study so far shows that this is by no means certain and that it could easily have been half that number. A comparison might support either a higher or a lower number. No, it's not solid science, but it's the best we've got in terms of ancient demography.

Damascus might suit your needs then