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Vampiric Population Density

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There are about 6 billion living people on Earth. There are 57 million square miles of land on Earth. Therefore humans are all neatly spread out, each to their own 267,000 square feet, right? Of course not. And neither are vampires in the fictional World of Darkness spread evenly among mortals. This article briefly discusses vampiric population density and why a city can logically support more Kindred than the suggested number.

Kindred can exist anywhere. But they can't do it for long if their prey learns about them. They must maintain the Masquerade or be revealed. So how many Kindred can remain safely hidden in a city?

As a rule-of-thumb in the World of Darkness, the worldwide ratio of Kindred to kine is 1:100k. Using the rule-of-thumb though, it wouldn't be very interesting to play a chronicle in a city with fewer than 1.5 million inhabitants. How much intrigue can there be among 15 Kindred when 4 are already in a coterie?

Small cities don't have Kindred just because they have a population over 100k. Some areas have humans but no Kindred, like the Eskimos in the freezing Alaskan wilderness. Areas with many small towns can amount to a million people with no Kindred. The Midwest has millions of people in areas where there are no cities over 50k. There's no way a vampire could exist in such an area; rural people know their neighbors like family.

When applied to larger cities, it doesn't fit either. Chicago By Night, for example, has over 140 Kindred for about 7 million people in the Chicago metropolitan area. But almost 80% of the Chicago population lives in the suburbs, where Kindred rarely or never visit -- that's why they're called the Outlands.

So in truth, a smaller population of 1.5 million supports a Kindred population of 140, nowhere near 1:100k (closer to 1:10k actually). Why? Because vampires hide in areas of high population density, which are normally supported by large surrounding areas of suburbs.

Now, New Orleans and Charlotte have very similar populations, but New Orleans' population density is more than double Charlotte's. It would seem logical that New Orleans could sustain a much higher Kindred population. Based on the population densities of cities, here are some guidelines:

The practical maximum ratio for Kindred-to-kine is about 1:30k for a metropolitan area, including suburbs. A practical minimum is 1:250k, if we assume any city with a quarter of a million inhabitants could hide at least one Kindred.

Human Population: 5 million+

Kindred-kine ratios: 1:30k to 1:50k

Human Population: 3-5 million

Kindred-kine ratios: 1:30k to 1:60k

Human Population: 2-3 million

Kindred-kine ratios: 1:40k to 1:70k

Human Population: 1-2 million

Kindred-kine ratios: 1:40k to 1:80k

So for example, my fictional city of Gottwick has 1.8 million people and could support 25 to 45 Kindred. New York city, by comparison, with 18 million inhabitants could support 360 to 600 Kindred. Spread among the five boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island), that's not that many Kindred among so many mortals.

You can get population densities from demographics websites like www.demographia.com, but here are some top metropolitan areas.

Urbanized Population Density
Urbanized Area Square Miles
Share of Metropolitan Population in Urbanized Core
Urbanized Area Population (Core Area)
Metropolitan Population
Rank	Metropolitan Area
1	Norfolk-Hampton	1,396	1,323	94.8%	664	1,992
2	Phoenix	2,122	2,006	94.5%	741	2,707
3	San Diego	2,498	2,348	94.0%	690	3,403
4	New York	18,087	16,044	88.7%	2,967	5,407
5	San Antonio	1,302	1,129	86.7%	438	2,578
6	Washington	3,923	3,363	85.7%	945	3,559
7	Minneapolis-St. Paul	2,464	2,080	84.4%	1,063	1,957
8	Chicago	8,066	6,792	84.2%	1,585	4,285
9	New Orleans	1,239	1,040	83.9%	270	3,852
10	Orlando	1,073	887	82.7%	395	2,246
11	Tampa	2,068	1,709	82.6%	650	2,629
12	Dallas-Ft. Worth	3,885	3,198	82.3%	1,443	2,216
13	Denver	1,848	1,518	82.1%	459	3,307
14	Memphis	1,007	825	81.9%	341	2,419
15	Kansas City	1,566	1,275	81.4%	762	1,673
16	Buffalo	1,189	954	80.2%	286	3,336
17	St. Louis	2,444	1,947	79.7%	728	2,674
18	Baltimore	2,382	1,890	79.3%	593	3,187
19	Portland	1,478	1,172	79.3%	388	3,021
20	Detroit	4,665	3,697	79.2%	1,119	3,304
21	Los Angeles	14,532	11,402	78.5%	1,966	5,800
22	Houston	3,711	2,902	78.2%	1,177	2,466
23	Milwaukee	1,607	1,226	76.3%	512	2,395
24	Atlanta	2,834	2,157	76.1%	1,137	1,897
25	Pittsburgh	2,243	1,678	74.8%	778	2,157
26	Providence	1,142	846	74.1%	299	2,829
27	Sacramento	1,481	1,097	74.1%	334	3,284
28	Indianapolis	1,250	915	73.2%	469	1,951
29	Salt Lake City	1,072	769	71.7%	254	3,028
30	Philadelphia	5,899	4,222	71.6%	1,164	3,627
31	Cincinnati	1,744	1,212	69.5%	512	2,367
32	Columbus	1,377	945	68.6%	345	2,739
33	Seattle	2,559	1,744	68.2%	588	2,966
34	Boston	4,172	2,775	66.5%	891	3,114
35	Rochester	1,002	620	61.9%	220	2,818
36	Cleveland	2,760	1,677	60.8%	636	2,637
37	Miami-Ft. Lauderdale	3,193	1,915	60.0%	353	2,592
38	San Francisco	6,253	3,630	58.1%	874	4,153
39	Hartford	1,086	546	50.3%	247	2,211
40	Charlotte	1,162	455	39.2%	242	1,880
41	Greensboro	1,050	195	18.6%	93	2,097
Average				74.6%		2,897

Population in thousands

Calculated from 1990 US Census Bureau data.

Core urbanized area is the urbanized area of the metropolitan area's principal city.

Permission granted to use with attribution.

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