Edoras

The populace was so small that the entire city was evacuated to Helm’s Deep in the movies and only 300 people were available for combat even when taking those too young, old or sick to be mobilized in normal times. If we assume that all able bodied men between 10 and 70 were included in that number, that would mean an average of 5 people of each age represented in the 300, which then means that the male children younger than 10 would be about 50. In the UK, 16.79% of the population is considered disabled. I don’t have any way of establishing what percentage of those are of the sort that would keep a person from being drafted in the conditions like Helm’s Deep, so I will say all of them. This gives me 409 men. The sex ratio for the UK is 1.05 males for every female. That gives us a total population for Edoras of 838. Now the Atlas estimates that Edoras is a circle with a 3,000 foot diameter, meaning 7,068,583.47 sq. feet in area – A population density in the capital city of about 210 per square mile.   To get a maximum size, lets look at households. Apparently there were only 200 houses in the entire city. If we use the 7.5 per household figure that was the average for Medieval England used for the Gondor calculations, that gives us a maximum population of 1,500. I say maximum, as some of those houses are likely to be single occupation houses for soldiers or other members of the Royal Staff, living in the city without their families. Such a small city geared to servicing the royal family meant that the area was not food secure and imported most of what it ate.   Now, I estimate 120 Royal Guards out of at most 1,500 people living at Edoras. As royal servants, the craftsmen and farmers needed to supply Edoras and the Royal Family and so forth, the extra 1,000 or so people does not sound unreasonable so long as they are civilians instead of the Kings Guard. So the size of both the starting Kheshig and our estimates of the size of Edoras seem pretty solid here. Especially for a nomadic society where Edoras is more of a way to service the needs of the Royal Family and not much else.

The main residents of Edoras are the Royal Family, their body guards and their servants. So we can assume that essentially the entire city is based on the limited administration and government spending of Rohan's government. As the seat of government, the main stables were there as were the royal guard. Most of the people worked directly for the King or to provide for the Royal Family.

Militarily Edoras was not good but was as good as could be expected. Rohan was poor and not know for is infantry. So defending walls was not its strong point even if it had the resources to build strong stone concentric rings. The wood palisade was pretty good at keeping out raiders and light, surprise attacks while keeping watch – which is all that was needed. A dike outside these walls filled with water during the spring, forming a temporary water moat. Helm’s Deep and Dunharrow were much better defensive locations and better fortified – and Rohan’s forces tend to retreat to these places instead of making last stands at the capital.   So, when the Wild Men led their attacks from Isengard, they were able to take over Edoras. Rohan's Legitimate government took it back in a surprise attack. Neither appear to be good at sieges to say the least. This suggests that Edoras was not good at all defensively. But like I said - this was about what could be expected with Rohan's resources and culture.

So, the people of Rohan are ethnically northmen who migrated south. I suspect then that the northman village styles would be carried over. Which means the that Edoras would essentially be a larger Motte and Bailey style fortified town.   The top has the Great Hall. The Golden Hall was the main architectural feature of the city - essentially an old Norse meade hall. A wide staircase connected the lawn around it to the front porch. Inside was dominated by essentially a throne room and banquet hall. At the far end from the front door stood a dais on which the throne stood and where the high table was placed. The floor had a fire place in the center around which benches and tables were placed. On the corners were private rooms for members of the Royal Family. The walls were decorated with tapestries depicting Rohan's history. The roof was thatched, giving the building a golden appearance from afar.

It sits on a hill and is only 1,500 feet across – with a stream providing water. So it was located in a solid place that provided good defensive advantages.