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> Great Zimbabwe was home to about 10,000 people. The state covered 1,779 acres That seems... absolutely tiny? 7km^2, so a reasonably fit person could run arou
by rory 5y ago
> Great Zimbabwe was home to about 10,000 people. The state covered 1,779 acres
That seems... absolutely tiny? 7km^2, so a reasonably fit person could run around the entire country in an hour. Population of 10k at a time when the total population of Africa was in the tens of millions. Not a value judgement, but I'm honestly shocked how small those numbers are.
- woodruffw 5y agoIs it tiny! But not relative to other pre-modern cities: Ancient Rome was only about 15km^2, counting the area within the Aurelian Walls[1] (which includes the massive Campus Martius in addition to the famous hills). Rome was significantly more densely populated, but that can also be explained by geographic and economic factors (seafaring economies, &c.). Edit: the area within the inner Servian Walls was ~1/3rd that of Great Zimbabwe (~2.5km^2). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian_Walls#/media/File:Map_of_ancient_Rome.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian_Walls#/media/File:Map...
- rory 5y agoAh it appears I was confused by the word "state"-- according to Wikipedia, the thinking is it was more of a capital and/or the seat of a ruler and territory controlled could have been a lot bigger, although we don't know for sure.
- ciphol 5y agoAncient Rome had a population of 800k though, compared to 10k in Great Zimbabwe.