Tinto Maps #24 Korea and Japan Feedback

[ArVass]

Perhaps I'm opening up another can of worms here (especially considering the massive populations of India and China), but people in this thread seem to be disregarding population when it comes to province density. Joseon and Goryeo had a population several times the size of England and Hungary.

The population of late Goryeo and early Joseon is estimated to be around 9-10 million. For reference, the combined population of Hungary and Croatia in 1500 was 3 million, and the population of Great Britain around this time was 2.5-3 million.

I've seen population estimates for early Goryeo range from 3 million to nearly 7.8 million. For comparison, England and Hungary each had ~1.25 million people around the year 1000.

By 1800, near the end of the game, Joseon had a population somewhere between 13-18 million, while Great Britain had 10.4 million and the Kingdom of Hungary 6.3 million.

So, to iterate on my previous comment again: this argument would make complete sense, if the numbers were accurate; but the easily available numbers seem to imply a much less drastic population difference, which actually surprised me, but makes perfect sense.

 

[Arumdaum]

This is simply shocking—a tiny corner on the edge of the world has a location density even higher than the supposedly densely location core regions of Europe as emphasized in the game's depiction.

To be clear from the start, Japan has historically been an isolationist backwater in world history. If anyone respectfully disagrees, please provide examples of Japan colonizing the New World, waging great wars with European powers, and becoming a global superpower—within the context of this world.

Your post represents an unfortunate prejudice against the role non-Europeans played in history and an overall ignorance with this time period.

There's no need to disparage another country because you're upset about China not having enough provinces. Japan wasn't isolationist until the Edo period, and even then, it had controlled interaction with other countries, from allowing the Dutch and Chinese to trade at Nagasaki, trade with Korea through Tsushima, semi-regular Korean embassies making their way to Edo, interactions with China through the semi-independent Ryukyu Kingdom, trade with the Ainu, etc.

Japan isn't tiny either, having a similar size to Germany but stretching from Portugal to Finland if overlaid on Europe. Population-wise, Japan also has historically dwarfed European empires and kingdoms apart from France. Also, not sure why you are disparaging East Asia as "the edge of the world". It's about as on the edge of Eurasia as Europe is.

Japan initiated the largest war of the 16th century, the Imjin War, which saw action by some 500,000-650,000 troops equipped with guns and cannon. East Asia remained relatively free of inter-state wars after this war until the Opium Wars, but prolonged peace that brought a period of unpredecented prosperity (for all of East Asia) doesn't make a place an "isolationist backwater". In the 18th century, Edo was one of the largest cities in the world, if not the largest, with a population of around a million people, outclassing every contemporary European city, in a way that was only possible because of Edo Japan's prosperous (for a pre-industrial society) economy. In the late Edo period, around 40% of men were literate.

Does an "isolationist backwater" invade other countries fielding 200,000 troops? Do backwaters have cities of a million people and high literacy?

 

[ArVass]

Thats because Japan already has a shitton of locations, It literally has some of the highest location density on the map you can see it in the location density thread, Koreas is a bit smaller compared to Europe but not terrible, China's at its current state is somewhat unsatisfactory and could be improved but Inner Manchurias is really bad

Exactly (sorry I first misclicked on "respectfully disagree"); China is in a sorry state when it comes to density, but these two are not.

 

[sterile2]

This would be a valid point, but your numbers are wildly different than what I could find by lightly skimming through Wikipedia, and it looks a bit like cherry picking the lower estimates for Europe and the highest ones for Korea. From a light scanning through Wikipedia:

Early Joseon:
View attachment 1316416

Late Goryeo:
View attachment 1316417

14th to 16th century Hungary:
View attachment 1316418

Moreover, Hungary in 1800 had a population of 8-9 million, not 6.3; the two regions actually had comparable populations for most of the period, with Korea being slightly more populous (makes sense, given that first the Black Death swept through Hungary, and later it faced significant population decline during its tripartition and the Turkish wars).

If you look at the median population estimates, they are actually very similar (but Korea is smaller, and therefore has a higher density).

Korea's population estimates are more accurate in the A Temporary Theory on Population Estimates of the Joseon Dynasty (D 1977) paper of the corresponding Kwon Tae-hwan and Shin Yong-ha.

 

[Sizvahstar]

not sure why you are disparaging East Asia as "the edge of the world". It's about as on the edge of Eurasia as Europe is.

Sick burn.

I wonder if you could say these disparaging things about England, which didn't even conquer all the Isles until some 200 years after the game's start.

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

China I agree but Japan is incredibly dense in locations as is, comparable to much of Europe. Now I haven't counted the exact number of locations, maybe it's a lot less dense then it looks to me, but people crying about Japan and Korea, two of the densest non-europan regions, not receiving more locations come off as incredibly spoiled. Eyeballing it the density looks comparable to France, which is pretty freaking good when India and China have been so neglected.

BTW is there a running count of the number of locations in each region? I'd like a count for western europe to compare and I don't want to have to count things out by hand if someone has done that already.

There is a location density thread i can link here i just counted Irelands revised location count and it went form 86-97 which is quite the jump for what was an already very dense location (not complaining) location density is extremely high comparable to Japan

Japans is around 950+km per location and Ireland's is 870

 

[ArVass]

Korea's population estimates are more accurate in the A Temporary Theory on Population Estimates of the Joseon Dynasty (D 1977) paper of the corresponding Kwon Tae-hwan and Shin Yong-ha.View attachment 1316424View attachment 1316423

View attachment 1316425View attachment 1316426View attachment 1316427

How do you know they are more accurate, and if they are, why do other sites not use them?

 

[ArVass]

There is a location density thread i can link here i just counted Irelands revised location count and it went form 86-97 which is quite the jump for what was an already very dense location (not complaining) location density is extremely high comparable to Japan

Hmm yes, 97 locs for 84000 km² is quite comparable to Japan's 397 in 377000 km². Although to be fair, people indeed are very biased towards both, so the high density isn't a surprise.

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

So, to iterate on my previous comment again: this argument would make complete sense, if the numbers were accurate; but the easily available numbers seem to imply a much less drastic population difference, which actually surprised me, but makes perfect sense.

Regarding the whole debate ive just glossed over regarding location densities, Japans is fine as in personally i'd like 3-5 more just to represent some outlying islands due to how geographically distinct islands are but the devs seem to think its not possible due to techical issues so i wont push anymore (Roger please add Iki and Hirado island).

However Korea's is imo not as good of a state, yes its definitely better than almost the entirety of Asia but they could probably do with a bit of improvement, especially in the north and particularly in the northeast where u can tell the location density sharply drops, although tbf unlike my specific southern archipelago recommendations i dont have expertise in Korean history to propose more locations besides linking this great post from @Fialove_koralky from the last thread https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...october-japan-and-korea.1710914/post-29965356

Hokkaido having a location density higher then Korea is very very jarring

 

[sterile2]

How do you know they are more accurate, and if they are, why do other sites not use them?

I'm not sure why it's not on Wikipedia. I merely brought the most reliable paper in Korea for estimating the population of Goryeo and Joseon. Just because something isn't on Wikipedia doesn't mean everything else about it is false

 

[ArVass]

I'm not sure why it's not on Wikipedia. I merely brought the most reliable paper in Korea for estimating the population of Goryeo and Joseon. Just because something isn't on Wikipedia doesn't mean everything else about it is false

I don't doubt it, I am just surprised that modern estimates ard not even close to these. I suspect modern authors don't really accept it, given that it's a 50 years old paper.

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

Regarding the whole debate ive just glossed over regarding location densities, Japans is fine as in personally i'd like 3-5 more just to represent some outlying islands due to how geographically distinct islands are but the devs seem to think its not possible due to techical issues so i wont push anymore (Roger please add Iki and Hirado island).

However Korea's is imo not as good of a state, yes its definitely better than almost the entirety of Asia but they could probably do with a bit of improvement, especially in the north and particularly in the northeast where u can tell the location density sharply drops, although tbf unlike my specific southern archipelago recommendations i dont have expertise in Korean history to propose more locations besides linking this great post from @Fialove_koralky from the last thread https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...october-japan-and-korea.1710914/post-29965356

Hokkaido having a location density higher then Korea is very very jarring

Also even though @tinto² arguments haven't come across as well (Japans location density is fine) i do feel for him as him and @Fialove_koralky have put insane amounts of effort into attempting to give feedback in a language that isnt their first language which is already highly difficult but not only giving feedback but compiling it into an easily observable visual medium for devs to read into and seeing very little of it materialize is very disheartening

 

[sterile2]

I don't doubt it, I am just surprised that modern estimates ard not even close to these. I suspect modern authors don't really accept it, given that it's a 50 years old paper.

Is it simply because the paper is 50 years old?

This paper is considered the most reliable and frequently cited in much of Korean academia. I don't believe the reliability of a paper should be doubted simply because it's old. Furthermore, papers dealing with medieval Korean population estimates were extensively researched long ago, and they haven't been revised simply because no new historical materials have been discovered since then.

Even the most recent papers are from the 2000s, and they also estimate the population at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty to be 6 to 7 million and the later period population to be 15 to 18 million.

 

[Arumdaum]

So, to iterate on my previous comment again: this argument would make complete sense, if the numbers were accurate; but the easily available numbers seem to imply a much less drastic population difference, which actually surprised me, but makes perfect sense.

Korea:

Early Goryeo 7.8 million

Encyclopedia of Korean culture

Goryeo c. 1000 CE 3-5 million

Lee, Injae; Miller, Owen; Park, Jinhoon; Yi, Hyun-Hae (2014), Shin, Michael D. (ed.), Korean History in Maps, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-107-09846-6

mid-Goryeo 12th century 2.5-3 million

The Korea Economic Daily

Early Joseon 9.91 million

Encyclopedia of Korean culture

Early Joseon (late 14th to early 15th century) 5.5 - 6 million

Encyclopedia of Population, National Statistical Office (published by Korean govt)

Late 18th early 19th century century Joseon ~18 million

Encyclopedia of Population, National Statistical Office (published by Korean govt)

Joseon 1800 ~13.8 million

Statista

England/UK:

England 1000 CE 1.25 million

Wikipedia, unfortunately cannot access the actual source

England 1520 2.5 million

Grigg, D. B. (1980). Population Growth and Agrarian Change: An Historical Perspective

Great Britain 1800 10.5 million

Wikipedia, two sources provided but I can't access them easily unfortunately

Hungary:

Principality of Hungary 1000 ~1.25 million

Péter Rabb, Natural conditions in the Carpathian Basin of the middle ages, 2007, p. 58

Hungary ~1500 3.5 million

p. 114, put the last section through ChatGPT

Kingdom of Hungary 1800 (pre-Trianon borders) ~8 million

Population statistics

 

[dhfusd]

How do you know they are more accurate, and if they are, why do other sites not use them?

In the 2016 Population Dictionary published by the National Statistical Office of Korea, this paper was used as the population estimation data of the Joseon Dynasty

 

[Arumdaum]

This would be a valid point, but your numbers are wildly different than what I could find by lightly skimming through Wikipedia, and it looks a bit like cherry picking the lower estimates for Europe and the highest ones for Korea. From a light scanning through Wikipedia:

-snip-

14th to 16th century HungaryMoreover, Hungary in 1800 had a population of 8-9 million, not 6.3; the two regions actually had comparable populations for most of the period, with Korea being slightly more populous (makes sense, given that first the Black Death swept through Hungary, and later it faced significant population decline during its tripartition and the Turkish wars).

If you look at the median population estimates, they are actually very similar (but Korea is smaller, and therefore has a higher density).

I see that you've edited your post to include sources and be more respectful in your tone.

When I made that post, for the UK and Hungary I simply used these lists and didn't look any further:

List of countries by population in 1000 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of countries by population in 1500 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1800

For Korea I used whatever sources came up first in both English and Korean and provided the entire range that I had at the time. I didn't consult the Wikipedia page for Joseon, which provides much lower estimates. However, I would have provided those estimates as well if I did

 

[ArVass]

I see that you've edited your post to include sources and be more respectful in your tone.

I didn't, I think you confuse this with my other reply to this message (which, looking back now, indeed looks disrespectful, which was not intended and I apologize for it; I realise "easily avaliable numbers" can be understood differently than how I meant it (I meant "surface information" in contrast with hard to find sources).

When I made that post, for the UK and Hungary I simply used these lists and didn't look any further:

List of countries by population in 1000 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of countries by population in 1500 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1800

For Korea I used whatever sources came up first in both English and Korean and provided the entire range that I had at the time. I didn't consult the Wikipedia page for Joseon, which provides much lower estimates. However, I would have provided those estimates as well if I did

That makes sense; it seems the estimates range quite wildly, especially for Korea.

 

[Arumdaum]

Regarding the whole debate ive just glossed over regarding location densities, Japans is fine as in personally i'd like 3-5 more just to represent some outlying islands due to how geographically distinct islands are but the devs seem to think its not possible due to techical issues so i wont push anymore (Roger please add Iki and Hirado island).

However Korea's is imo not as good of a state, yes its definitely better than almost the entirety of Asia but they could probably do with a bit of improvement, especially in the north and particularly in the northeast where u can tell the location density sharply drops, although tbf unlike my specific southern archipelago recommendations i dont have expertise in Korean history to propose more locations besides linking this great post from @Fialove_koralky from the last thread https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...october-japan-and-korea.1710914/post-29965356

Hokkaido having a location density higher then Korea is very very jarring

The devs seem to already have said no, but personally I'd love to see a separate province for Ulleung island because of Usan, an independent kingdom that existed on the island before being fully incorporated into Goryeo in 1022. By the start of the game it'll have been a good three centuries since its demise but would be fun to revive it in a mod at least.

 

[zeruosi]

Your post represents an unfortunate prejudice against the role non-Europeans played in history and an overall ignorance with this time period.

My interest in non-European regions far exceeds that in Europe.

There's no need to disparage another country because you're upset about China not having enough provinces.

Are you serious? In a game that blatantly favors Europe, Japan somehow ends up with higher province density than most of Europe—despite being a historically isolated backwater. Meanwhile, China and India, two civilizations that shaped the world, get only a fifth or even less of Japan’s density. Korea, with a similar population, gets a third of Japan’s provinces.

And let’s talk about Hokkaido—a frozen wasteland with just 30,000 people—getting as many provinces as Manchuria (2 million people) or Shandong (nearly 10 million)?

Even after all these absurdly generous handouts, Japan still complains? What about Africa and South America? They’re practically erased from the map—getting only a tenth of Japan’s provinces. Look at Madagascar, a massive 600,000 km² island, reduced to a measly 81 provinces. Meanwhile, Japan, with just 370,000 km², gets 400 provinces.

Japan isn't tiny either, having a similar size to Germany but stretching from Portugal to Finland if overlaid on Europe. Population-wise, Japan also has historically dwarfed European empires and kingdoms apart from France. Also, not sure why you are disparaging East Asia as "the edge of the world". It's about as on the edge of Eurasia as Europe is.

So what? Compared to China? Compared to India? Can Japan even rival those two population behemoths in sheer numbers or economic power?

Let’s be clear—Europe is unquestionably the star of this era, so of course it gets preferential treatment. But Japan? It’s getting far more advantages than any other Asian region, without justification.

As for global influence—forget comparing it to China or India, two colossal civilizations. Even compared to Southeast Asia, where trade networks deeply integrated with the world, Japan remains an isolated island nation. Many African states, like the Kilwa Sultanate, had far greater impact on global commerce than Japan ever did.

So calling Japan a marginal backwater is not just fair—it’s historically accurate.

Japan initiated the largest war of the 16th century, the Imjin War, which saw action by some 500,000-650,000 troops equipped with guns and cannon. East Asia remained relatively free of inter-state wars after this war until the Opium Wars

You clearly know nothing about the Qing conquests.

When the Qing rose to power, every single major war they fought—whether against the Ming, the Shun dynasty, or Zhang Xianzhong—matched or surpassed the scale of the Imjin War. Every. Single. One. And that’s not even counting their later, brutal wars of attrition against the Dzungar Khanate—the last and most powerful nomadic empire in the world. The Qing alone mobilized over 300,000 troops in each campaign, with countless cannons and firearms. Their military doctrine and capabilities were on par with, if not superior to, any other power at the time. Their use of gunpowder weapons was among the highest in the world.

And after crushing the Dzungars, the Qing then waged war against Burma. In terms of frontline length, scale of operations, and logistical challenges, the Qing’s conquests in their first century far exceeded the Imjin War in intensity. And Japan—just one invasion—is supposed to be considered more significant than China’s?

And that’s not even touching on India’s conquests.

Does an "isolationist backwater" invade other countries fielding 200,000 troops? Do backwaters have cities of a million people and high literacy?

Then explain this to me:
Why does mobilizing a single 200,000-man invasion prove you deserve more provinces than China?

Japan had one metropolis of 1 million people? Please. China had dozens of cities with 500,000+ inhabitants, over a dozen with 1 million, and five cities with 2 million+—and that’s just the Ming dynasty. The Qing era? Double that.

So how does your one mega-city compare to China’s urban network spanning the entire continent?

 

[zeruosi]

Cool! Is it because of a fertile ground or something?

Here it is

Well, as a matter of fact, I do know.

Raising horses requires a favorable climate, moderately open terrain, relatively abundant rainfall, and extensive pastureland. Most mainland regions can meet these conditions. However, islands offer one unique advantage—their small size.


Horses obviously cannot swim across oceans, eliminating concerns about feral herds escaping capture. Predators also pose no threat, as they cannot decimate horse populations. Additionally, islands enjoy stable climates, enabling precise calculation of annual population growth. This stability facilitates both local management and data tracking, making islands prime locations for horse breeding.


An intriguing historical footnote: Ryukyu had submitted 30,000 warhorses as tribute to the Ming Dynasty just one month before the Satsuma invasion. Had Satsuma attacked a month earlier, they might have faced one of history's most formidable cavalry forces—lamo.