Approximate BElf/HElf population numbers based on canon

[Aquamonkey]

So I was re-reading the Dalaran books for the lols and I came across: "We've been attacked... Kael'thas' army... thousands of them!!"

Blizzard has already established population percentages:
90% of the HElves were wiped out in the 3rd War. Of the 10% that survived:

• 90% became BElves
  
  • 85% of whom remained in Azeroth (7.65% of original population).
  • Kael took 1.35% of the original population to Outland.
• HElves (1% of original population) were outside Quel'thalas during the attack or were later exiled.

Using the "thousands" figure (>~2k) for Kael's group of Outland BElves:
Original HElf population, >~150k

• Survivor population, >~15k
  
  • BElves, >~13k
    
    • Outland BElves, >~2k
    • Azeroth BElves, >~11k (plus some returning Sunfury)
  • Helves, >~1.5k

EDIT: '>' means greater than. '~' means loose approximation. This is only a ballpark approximation for the lower bound.

[Solzan Nemesis]

Cool, thank you for the info.

[Traveler Voltin]

yet people will still demand high elves be playable.

anyway wish the do the populations of each race. lazy blizzard

[Combatbutler]

So I was re-reading the Dalaran books for the lols and I came across: "We've been attacked... Kael'thas' army... thousands of them!!"

Blizzard has already established population percentages:
90% of the HElves were wiped out in the 3rd War. Of the 10% that survived:

• 90% became BElves
  
  • 85% of whom remained in Azeroth (7.65% of original population).
  • Kael took 1.35% of the original population to Outland.
• HElves (1% of original population) were outside Quel'thalas during the attack or were later exiled.

Using the "thousands" figure (>~2k) for Kael's group of Outland BElves:
Original HElf population, >~150k

• Survivor population, >~15k
  
  • BElves, >~13k
    
    • Outland BElves, >~2k
    • Azeroth BElves, >~11k (plus some returning Sunfury)
  • Helves, >~1.5k

It gives us a rough estimation but it could be far more than 2k.

[The Madgod]

yet people will still demand high elves be playable.

anyway wish the do the populations of each race. lazy blizzard

Honestly population is always very tricky to do. You're extremely likely to contradict yourself when putting the numbers out there in some way (especially if you have a lot of source material or are planning on continuing the story a lot). We have a sort of general idea of what populations are like. I'd say that's all that's TRULY necessary.

[Lumineus]

And yet the Silver Covenant is able to oppose the entirety of Silvermoon. This is because the encyclopaedia only speaks to population numbers for the kingdom of Quel'thalas. For all the lore surrounding Dalaran there is next to zero solid information on its demographics, so they can basically do anything they want in game. Dal was as big as Silvermoon, 20% of the population were elves, and they all survived the summoning of Archimonde? ...sure, why not.

yet people will still demand high elves be playable.

Well at 1500... if 2000 Sunfuries is enough to populate several cities, an entire zone, multiple dungeons and a raid instance...

Really 2k is the bare minimum for a quote of "thousands" though, so if you assumed Kael took say five or six thousand instead then that really doesn't look too good for the Azeroth Blood Elves as the Sunfuries were all but wiped out by us pesky adventurers.

[Matt0193]

And 1.5k is still higher than the population of the Darkspear tribe, the Bloodhoof tribe (Not sure if it was specified that ALL Tauren were almost driven to extinction before the intervention of the Orcs and Trolls) and the Bilgewater Cartel. Would also venture to say that a population of 1500 is probably higher than the remaining Gnomeragan Gnomes, Bronzebeard Dwarves (Less so now the Dwarves encompass 3 sub-factions) and Gilneas Worgen (Accounting for those lost to the Curse before the Druidic intervention). Yet people still argue that numbers are a reason why High Elves couldn't exist as a separate race, dat logic.

[zephid]

Yeah those would be the minimum numbers. The problem is that you can never get a good estimate since all you have to go on is the word "thousands" and that just means between 1000 to 999999.

[Aquamonkey]

It gives us a rough estimation but it could be far more than 2k.

True.

It's pretty easy to do a lower bound for "thousands" as 2k since it has to be some multiple >1k. But what would be the upper bound of "thousands"? Intuitively, I thought 9k (based on order of magnitude). But could argue "thousands" goes up to 19k, switching at 20k to "tens of thousands." Wasn't sure about zeroth-order terminology. Rather than deal with it, I just stuck with lower bound.

[TheWindWalker]

Well at 1500... if 2000 Sunfuries is enough to populate several cities, an entire zone, multiple dungeons and a raid instance...

I'm just going to assume you forgot that people are made up of more than just warriors and the vast majority are, in fact, common folk who work the farm/mill/counter and that, I know this may sound odd but 2000 people is barely a single city's worth of population in any sense of the word, much less several or even "an entire zone."

[Traveler Voltin]

And 1.5k is still higher than the population of the Darkspear tribe, the Bloodhoof tribe (Not sure if it was specified that ALL Tauren were almost driven to extinction before the intervention of the Orcs and Trolls) and the Bilgewater Cartel. Would also venture to say that a population of 1500 is probably higher than the remaining Gnomeragan Gnomes, Bronzebeard Dwarves (Less so now the Dwarves encompass 3 sub-factions) and Gilneas Worgen (Accounting for those lost to the Curse before the Druidic intervention). Yet people still argue that numbers are a reason why High Elves couldn't exist as a separate race, dat logic.

the only race high elves out numbered at the time it was stated was the darkspear trolls.

[Combatbutler]

And yet the Silver Covenant is able to oppose the entirety of Silvermoon.

Not really, since the silver covenant never met the entire armies of silvermoon and would be hopelessly outnumbered, you should never forget most of Dalarans high elves became blood elves. Kael gathered all the elves he could find and where did he start out and where does he later return to ? Correct Dalaran.

Really 2k is the bare minimum for a quote of "thousands" though, so if you assumed Kael took say five or six thousand instead then that really doesn't look too good for the Azeroth Blood Elves as the Sunfuries were all but wiped out by us pesky adventurers.

Quite the opposite really their numbers would grow exponentially.

[Anyael]

I'm not sure what this is meant to prove. The Bilgewater Cartel joined the horde... and they all fit on a boat. The trolls are just one tribe. Low population doesn't preclude anything from occurring with their race.

[Lumineus]

Quite the opposite really their numbers would grow exponentially.

Well no, because there's an upper bound on the number of elven survivors. If Kael took more of them to Outland, then that's just more that are dead, it doesn't increase the number of living left behind.

[Combatbutler]

Well no, because there's an upper bound on the number of elven survivors. If Kael took more of them to Outland, then that's just more that are dead, it doesn't increase the number of living left behind.

Since Kael took 15% of the population with him ,yes it would grow exponentially, the more elves on Outland the more in Quel'thalas.

The % does not change

[Arrashi]

Since Kael took 15% of the population with him ,yes it would grow exponentially, the more elves on Outland the more in Quel'thalas.

The % does not change

One thing that makes me wonder is: How did kael menaged to supply milti thousand army in outland ? Especially after they severed they ties with azeroth. I mean, they didnt eat magical biscuits as major part of they diet, didnt they ?

[Aquamonkey]

One thing that makes me wonder is: How did kael menaged to supply milti thousand army in outland ? Especially after they severed they ties with azeroth. I mean, they didnt eat magical biscuits as major part of they diet, didnt they ?

What else are they gonna do with the meat after they suck the magic out of a demon?

[Arrashi]

What else are they gonna do with the meat after they suck the magic out of a demon?

Fel gravy ? Its perfect with any food from nether.

[Deleted]

yet people will still demand high elves be playable.

anyway wish the do the populations of each race. lazy blizzard

Yes, they do. You want to know why? Because some people like them and because they're heavily featured.

Now, as for your point, Darkspear trolls.
A hunter-fisher-gatherer society living on an island. They couldn't have been more then 10k of them originally, and I'm being super optimistic here.
They got attached by the naga witch and humans and their whole island sank. Assuming that the naga and the humans each took... 1000 troll lives, there's now 8k left. But not all fitted on ships, did they? Let's be super optimistic again and say 5k of them lived and left in time. And they got attacked by humans again, humans who bombed their "cities" from afar. Let's say that 2.5k escaped. And they all fitted on the Echo Islands, don't forget, so it kind of fits. And then Zalazane appeared and about 75% of their population got turned to zombies or joined him. So there's now about 625 trolls left. These are all the Horde alligned Darkspear trolls in Classic. Since then 9 years passed, so let's assume there's been another generation of trolls born and already close to adulthood (somewhat). But we didn't see many little trolls and the harsh environment of Durotar didn't really allow many of them to live.
So let's assume that of those 625 trolls left, half were male and half female and all made at least 1 child that lived. So Then there's 938 trolls!

And then Garrosh came. he shunned the trolls and killed those who opposed him. Let's assume he only killed a mere 10%, so there's 850 trolls left. And then trolls were the bulk of the force attacking Orgrimmar. There were still about 10% more trolls inside, that mostly got killed, so 760 trolls. And since they were on the frontline, we can easily assume at least 50% of the trolls died, in the end it's a really tiny force of trolls. So, at the present moment, we can assume that there are 380 Darkspear trolls left in WoW. And that's being positive. And about a third are children aged 9 or less. So there's 260 adult trolls left in WoW. And you play one.

However, if I'm being realistic, being a hunter-fisher-gatherer society, I doubt the original Darkspear troll population was bigger then 2500 since they didn't have things like modern medicine, agriculture, resources, and they lived on an island in the middle of nowhere that only existed because an underwater volcano had once created it.
So 1000 died fighting naga or humans. 1500 left. 500 more died in the Admiral Proudmoore attack, 1000 lived. 75% of them died or joined Zalazane. 250 remained. This is the Classical WoW entire Darkspear troll population. Some ventured away, and many lost their lives, let's say 50 of them.
Since not all made children and the environment was shit since they lived in a desert or in Orgrimmar amongst orcs, I'd say a growth of 10% is acceptable. so 225 back. And Garrosh killed 10%, he imprisoned another 10% which he later killed so 185. And another 50% died fighting in Orgrimmar. So there's 92 Darkspear trolls realistically remaining. of which 9 are children. And you play one of the 92 trolls left alive in the Horde.

[Matt0193]

Aside from all that theory, it was more that "At the brink of extinction, the chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof, desperate for help, turned to the strange green-skinned warriors from over the sea" implies that the Tauren were of limited number and in regards to the Bilgewater Cartel only a single ship comprises of the members of the Bilgewater Cartel who escape Kezan. The Gnomes have attempted to retake Gnomeregan and failed, irradiating even more Gnomes in a process and the Dwarves were separated as a race and only recently reunited.

I can't seem to find any numbers of faction populations for the mentioned factions, which are all playable factions, so I'll base my reasoning on logic. But I would consider it safe to say that any argument disputing High Elves as a playable faction in regards to "There not being enough to form a faction" can be safely disregarded as factions exist within the Horde and the Alliance which are already in a state that could be considered endangered species.

I just want to add that I'd still play Human over High Elf. I just find it annoying when people bring up the same argument when it has no water.