The Scale of Things

[prefectmarcus]

No: HPFGUIDX 43299

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "bboy_mn" <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "prefectmarcus" <prefectmarcus at y...> 
wrote:
> > --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "CHRISTOPHER NUTTALL" 
> > christopher_g_nuttall wrote:
> > > But for the Wizarding world to be so large, the wizards must 
> > > be at least one percent of the population (roughly 0.2 million),
> > > and Hogwarts does not appear to be large enough to cater for
> > > all their children.
> > 
> > > Chris
> > 
> > I once did some quick number extrapulations.  Rowling said there 
> > are about one thousand students at Hogwarts.  (Yes, yes, the books
> > don't tally, but I'm not going there for now.)  There are seven 
> > grades so that means there about about 150 students per grade.  
> > In today's culture, there are about 200 people in the population 
> > for every 1 student in a given year.  Now assuming that wizards 
> > live twice as long as muggles, make that 400 to 1.  That leaves a 
> > grand total of 60,000 wizards in England.  That is only .3 of one 
> > percent or 3 in every thousand Britians are wizards.
> > 
> > However you cook the numbers, there aren't very many.  However 
there 
> > is enough to be orginized.
> > 
> > Mark
> 
> bboy_mn asks:
> 
> I'm curious where you (Mark) and Chris got their numbers. 
Especially,
> Mark's student to population ratios. 
> 
> I'm not challenging those ratio; I'm just curious how you arrived 
at them.
> 
> To add more perspective, UK has a population of 60,000,000 (as of
> 2001). Using 200/1 ratio yields a wizard population of 300,000. 
Using
> 400/1, obviously, 150,000.
> 
> Using Chris' estimate of 1%, that obviously yields 600,000.
> 
> so.... 150,000 to 600,000
> 
> For reference - Luxembourg is about 450,000 people.
> 
> bboy_mn

I got the ratios from my own experience with schools versus 
populations.  There were 350 in a grade in my HS from a population of 
7000.  In another town where I lived, there were 120 kids per grade 
in a population of 2400.  So the 20:1 ratio is pretty consistent.

The Population of England I got from Chris.  Now, working backwards 
from your figure of 60 Million and assuming a Wizard ratio of 1:100, 
that would be 600,000 total wizards per grade of 150 or 4000:1 
population to student ratio.  And if you accept the 40-students-per-
year Hogwarts theory, that is 15,000:1 population to student ratio.

No matter how you slice or dice it, the wizard population has to be 
considerably less than 1% of the overall population -- at least an 
order of magnitude less.  It has to be parts per thousand rather than 
parts per hundred.

Marcus