What are Alliance and Horde populations like (Lore-wise)

[Talen]

I'm curious because if you take into account the number of Horde and Alliance members that have died during the time span from the first war to present (Think of the Third war). If you really think about it the birth rate would have to be insane to sustain the losses that the scourge and any other conflict has dealt to the Alliance and the Horde.

Only if you see the population as needing to be stable NOW.

As it is, we have few hard numbers. The Alliance lost 50,000 dead in the war against the Lich King. But, IIRC, the Horde numbered only about a thousand warriors at Shattrath. A city like Stormwind in real life would probably be home to several hundred thousand people.

We've got a VERY rough feel for relative sizes.

Humans and Dwarves are populous, but humanity is still much reduced from its height.
There are likely lots of NElfs as they've managed to avoid the truly destructive wars.
The Orcs are split amongst planets and different Hordes.
The Tauren were described as being on the verge of extinction, thanks to the Centaur.
Same with the Draenei and BElfs and Gnomes
Worgen? I'd say they are quite numerous; but I'd also say many of them are feral.
Pandaren and Goblins - numerous overall, with tiny player populations.
Forsaken? Small but recently starting to grow.

Largest populations? Leaving aside player and NPC factions - Humans, Dwarves, NElfs, Orcs, Goblins, BElfs.
But those are guesses. In reality, the population sizes can be described as the size of plot.

EJL

[inboundpaper]

What does that say i wonder hmmm

Metzen likes large green men.

But population numbers are pretty vague, probably because there is a huge disconnect between the size of the in game world and how large things should be.

[Tyrannica]

just in wc3 an orc grunt has more hp and does more dmg but eats more too than a normal alliance footman.

This means, at least the orc population might be a bit lower in numbers than humans.

Can't say anything about the rest except that dwarves and elves don't breed that fast as humans or orcs and should not have high pop, but a longer lifespan instead. And if there is a big war with the forsaken the valk'yr reanimations will suddenly make the forsaken a very big faction, too. Cause thast the way how necromancy works. Maybe someone had ever played a heroes of might & magic game, preferbly heroes 3.

[logintime]

As a general rule, I ignore the lore population numbers. They are inconsistent for one, and unrealistic as well (really, 1/4th of the total Alliance population lives in Stormwind while less than 13,000 live in neighboring Elwynn Forest? How on earth are they producing enough food then?). Warcraft has some strengths to its lore, but an understanding of medieval demography is not one of them

We can probably assume though that the Horde is slightly less numerous but growing in number, whereas the Alliance has been in a slow decline since the third war. Not counting the big number jumps each time a new race is added, of course.

[Talen]

We can probably assume though that the Horde is slightly less numerous but growing in number, whereas the Alliance has been in a slow decline since the third war. Not counting the big number jumps each time a new race is added, of course.

Humanity, Dwarves and Night Elfs **should*** have fairly hefty populations all by themselves. Amongst the Horde, there probably isn't any one single race that can match any of their numbers, with the Orcs being the largest single bloc.

EJL

[Verdugo]

Humanity, Dwarves and Night Elfs **should*** have fairly hefty populations all by themselves. Amongst the Horde, there probably isn't any one single race that can match any of their numbers, with the Orcs being the largest single bloc.

EJL

What makes you think that Night Elves and Humans have huge population.

[Deleted]

This is one of my issues with the current rebellion. Considering the entire Orc population now comes from a few small groups of orcs that came through the dark portal, their numbers already should be ridiculously low, even without a good portion of them being killed in SoO. There really can't be that many left now.

that said, a handful or Goblins survived on that boat crash and now they're bloody everywhere with towns and everything. Talk about breeding like rabbits.

Well the Goblin one can be explained via the fact that a lot of Goblins that weren't on the island were apart of the cartel.

I agree with the orc part. To me it seems like both factions are just bleeding members.

---------- Post added 2013-06-23 at 08:23 PM ----------

As a general rule, I ignore the lore population numbers. They are inconsistent for one, and unrealistic as well (really, 1/4th of the total Alliance population lives in Stormwind while less than 13,000 live in neighboring Elwynn Forest? How on earth are they producing enough food then?). Warcraft has some strengths to its lore, but an understanding of medieval demography is not one of them

We can probably assume though that the Horde is slightly less numerous but growing in number, whereas the Alliance has been in a slow decline since the third war. Not counting the big number jumps each time a new race is added, of course.

How would the horde be growing?

I mean Orcs are the most numerous race, right and something tells me that their birth rate is similar if not lower than Humans.

---------- Post added 2013-06-23 at 08:24 PM ----------

Is everybody in agreement that 800,000 is way to low for the Alliance.

And that the Human part of the Alliance should be anywhere from 1 to 2 million?

And 300.000 is as silly as 800.000 for the Alliance.

[Aquamonkey]

The Tauren were described as being on the verge of extinction, thanks to the Centaur.

That was just the Bloodhoof tribe. Since then, nearly all the Tauren tribes joined the Horde under High Chieftain Cairne.