Poland population and farming model

[atiff]

Hi all,

As mentioned elsewhere, I have been working for a while on a Poland population model. I was also doing this to get a handle on farming needs (specifically land), to use this to help me create a credible view of the world the PCs would be venturing within. So this is what I came up with.

I started with the 2006 populations by voivoideship, powiat, and gmina.
Wikipedia: "The territory of Poland is divided into voivodeships (provinces); these are further divided into powiats (counties), and these in turn are divided into gminas (communes or municipalities)."
Although the current division of Poland in this way was done in 1999 and would probably not have been done in the T2K timeline, for the sake of finding current information this seemed to be the easiest way to go about it.

After getting the 2006 pop data, I had to pick some baselines for the T2K world. As some canon sources disagree on how many people are where, I used my main source to be the East Europe Sourcebook (#2017). This listed (on page 18):
"Before the war, Poland's population was 38,300,000."
"... the country barely boasts 9 million people now."
The first figure was close enough to the number I got for Poland's population in 2006 to ignore the difference there, and so I then used 9/38.3 = 23% as my baseline for population effects.
Page 18 also listed the populations of several cities: from Warsaw with 152,000 to Czestochowa with 18,000. I used these as some starting points, and also assumed that no other city not on this list was over 18,000 population (on the basis that it would have otherwise been included in this list).

From there, I started generating post-war populations down to the gmina (commune) level. I used pre/post-war ratios and population densities per square km as a guide, and randomly generated the last three digits of each population (so I didn't have to decide the minute stuff). Then I matched up all the figures to make sure the totals came out right. That finished the population run.


For farming, I made some assumptions, based on previous ideas I had seen (Grae's & Antenna's). The basic assumptions and model were:
(1) It takes 1 square km to feed 100 people. I got this rough figure from a UN report (I think it was) that said about 1.2 acres = 0.5 ha is needed to sustain 1 person - and then I doubled it as a margin of safety factor.
(2) 1 person producing food can support 2 people. Note that not all these people are farmers, but also bakers, grocers, butchers, ploughing teams, fertilizer merchants, etc.... I figured 50% of the food production people are actual farmers.
(3) Out of every 8 people, 6 are work-capable, 1 is partially capable (young teens, elderly, etc.) and 1 is incapable (very young or old, invalids, etc.). This produced "surplus population" and "partial worker" figures that could be used for other work.

Points (1) and (2) above I made alterable in the file, so that an area (e.g., the Margravate of Silesia) could have greater or lesser efficiency in these two areas. But for the base file, I made everything the same.

A secondary assumption here is that not all of the assigned farmland is actually in crops, etc. Some could be forage land, some fallow, some only for grazing, etc. However, it just gave an idea of what sort of area was being utilized. In terms of cropland, I figure about 1/3 of the assigned land would be in crops at any one time.

Finally, from all this, I generated the surplus population and partial worker figures. This I intend to use as a starting point for generating communities. Of course there is now way I intend to detail all of Poland, or even all of a single voivodeship, but even just the numbers as presented are giving me ideas. More on that below, with an example.

(The file below I made using OpenOffice Calc, converted to XLS. It should be readable in Excel.... if not, let me know.)

Oh, PS: the yellow cells in the file are the ones that are editable to affect the final calculations. Everything not a yellow cell on the right side (last 3 columns) is a calculation based on the yellow cells.

*** updated file posted below in post #10

*** updated file again, posted below in post #12

[atiff]

Example 1:

Sieradz City (Sieradz County, Lodz Voivodeship)
2006 pop: 44,045
T2K pop: 7,166
Pop ratio: 0.16 = 16% of "pre-war" population
Area in square km: 51
Pop density (people / sq km): 140
Farming factor: 0.500 = 0.5 food producers to make 1 person's food
Farmland factor: 100 = 100 people fed per sq km of farmed land
Area farmed (sq km): 15
Food production surplus: -5,666 (i.e., a shortfall)
Surplus population: 4,625 (these are the people potentially employed outside of food production)
Partial workers: 896 (could be used to partially offset people in other areas, etc.)

Based on this, Sieradz has a huge food shortage, and so will be needing to import food from other places (likely the gminas nearby). They have a relatively large "surplus population" that can be used to produce goods or light industry, or as a militia, etc. (assuming they can be fed). Alternatively, this city could be seen as unsustainable, and population could be redistributed to another area by the GM.


Example 2:

Gmina Sieradz (Sieradz County, Lodz Voivodeship)
2006 pop: 9,788
T2K pop: 2,573
Pop ratio: 0.26
Area in square km: 182
Pop density (people / sq km): 14
Farming factor: 0.500
Farmland factor: 100
Area farmed (sq km): 33
Food production surplus: 727
Surplus population: 280
Partial workers: 322

Gmina Sieradz has a food surplus and it is likely that this is being traded with Sieradz city for goods. The "surplus population" is quite low, and from this pool would need to come the dedicated militia to protect the area. As only around 1/4 of the pre-war population is present in the gmina, it is possible that some villages are abandoned, and the populace concentrated at the best farming land in the area. Only 33 of 182 sq km of land is being farmed, so as GM, a choice could be made to move some people from Sieradz City to the gmina to produce more food. Alternatively, some of the "partial workers" could be employed in the farms (at perhaps 50% effectiveness) to produce more food, etc. However, this could perhaps have other consequences (lack of schooling of young teens leads to lack of other skills down the track?).

Potential storyline options here include PCs being hired as food caravan guards between these locations, getting involved in a food riot, the local council trying to find ways to help improve the area's farming efficiency (machinery, stealing experts from elsewhere, etc.), or the arrival of a military unit tipping the already-bad situation even worse (with attendant violent consequences).

[Dog 6]

Very good work !

[Targan]

Wow Atiff. Impressive. Nice job.

[Adm.Lee]

What Targan said. Wow.

[kota1342000]

Something tells me that when Atiff posts from now on, people listen