Regarding population distribution and rice/cotton
Estimating population in 1337 is an impossible task and you’ll never get the exact numbers right, but I think it’s a good idea to at least try and roughly set the distribution correctly.
Reid, in Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, lists the following figures:
View attachment 1216593
Reid’s total population for Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Bali, Lesser Sunda, Moluccas, Sulawesi, ⅔ of Borneo) in 1600 is
9.6 million. Maddison has Indonesia at
11.8 million in 1600 and
10.7 million in 1500. Wikipedia’s numbers are
7.75 million in 1500 and
9.5 million in 1700.
Reid’s population for the Philippines in 1600 is
950k, Maddison has them at
791k in 1600 and
500k in 1500.
Reid’s population for Malaysia in 1600 is
~723k, Maddison has it at
195k in 1600 and
168k in 1500.
Clearly the estimates here vary quite a bit.
Let’s summarize some statements that I believe aren’t really disputed:
- The highest population density by far can be found on Bali and Java. On the other hand, Borneo, Malaya, the Moluccas and the Philippines were sparsely populated.
- Climate matters: Regions with less favorable climate (Sumatran coast except for the north, Borneo, Sulawesi, Moluccas, Malaya, Philippines) struggled to support a high population. Cotton couldn’t be grown in these areas at all and rice production and consumption was low outside of Java and Bali (this explains the population density). So even though rare spices could be produced here, they necessarily had to be traded for goods like cloth or rice and the people weren't exactly rich.
- Population growth increased a lot towards the end of the game’s time period (and beyond), especially under Pax Nederlandica. Conversely, we can assume relatively low population numbers to start out in 1337.
I have extrapolated the estimates mentioned above and arrived at this table of estimated population distribution in 1337:
| Java | 2700k |
| Sumatra | 1600k |
| Sulawesi | 800k |
| Bali | 490k |
| Lesser Sunda | 400k |
| Moluccas | 190k |
| Malaya (+Pattani, Satun) | 167k |
| Borneo (East Malaysia) | 167k |
| Borneo (Rest) | 300k |
| Luzon and Visayas | 550k |
| Mindanao and Sulu | 100k |
Some quotes on different islands here from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333079464_Inside_Out_the_Colonial_Displacement_of_Sumatra's_Population
Borneo:
“Borneo as a whole has been exceptionally sparsely populated even by Southeast Asian standards throughout recorded history. Its vast coastal, swamp, and deltaic regions were largely uncultivated until about a century ago, and many of the people who now populate these lowlands have come from outside the island - notably from South Sulawesi, South China, the southern Philippines, and Java”
Conclusions: It’s all jungle, plenty of wetland, no rice, low population.
Java:
“Central and East Java is not the model for Indonesia so much as the exception, in that there, ‘unlike neighbouring areas of Southeast Asia, there was […] a remarkable degree of ethnic homogeneity from an early period’. Lowland and deltaic irrigated rice agriculture was practised since the fourteenth century and probably earlier, eventually driving out the malaria-carrying Anopheles sundaicus from the cultivated regions.”
Conclusion: Central and East Java especially should have farmland and lots of rice cultivation.
Sumatra:
“The coasts of Sumatra, on the other hand, were inhospitable to early agriculture, with the single exception of the narrow northern littoral of Aceh, where since about the sixteenth century permanent ricefields were built to feed an urban and coastal population grown large in the age of commerce. The east coast south of the Asahan River was ringed with tidal peat swamps, and even behind these the permanence of rainfall (with no significant dry season), made shifting agriculture very difficult to practice. Cities such as Palembang and Jambi were fed almost entirely with rice from the headwaters of the rivers of which they controlled the outlet. The west coast had relatively little flat land, much of it also abandoned to swamps in the delta areas.[...]
By contrast the upland valleys occupied by (south to north) the Ranau, Komering, Rawas, Besemah, Rejang, Kerinci, Minangkabau, Mandailing, Angkola, Toba Batak, and KaroBatak were all reportedly heavily populated at the point at which they were first seen by Europeans in the nineteenth century.”
In 1830, roughly 90% of the population of West Sumatra lived in the highlands.
In the mid-19th century, roughly 80% of the population of North Sumatra lived in the highlands.
Conclusions: The majority of the ~1.6 million population should be tribes in the interior. Farmland and rice cultivation only in Aceh and the interior. Plenty of wetland jungle on the eastern coast. Currently there is farmland on the south-eastern coast. This is criminal!
Cotton: Should be removed from all locations that aren’t in North Sumatra, Java or Bali (and some can be added there). There were other fibers that were used in places that couldn’t grow cotton, such as Abacá and bark. But there was definitely lively cotton importing here as well.
Rice: Should be present in North and Interior Sumatra, Java, Bali and possibly very sparsely in other places.
Comments on the existing population shown in the OP:
- Bali does not have enough population
- West Java has too much population, and Java as a whole maybe a bit too much but the estimates vary
- Sumatra's highland population seems underestimated
- Malaya can be halved, Borneo seems fine although I can't be bothered adding everything up right now so not sure
en.wikipedia.org