How Many Wizards and Witches are There?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

I've been playing around some more with numbers to try to estimate the percentage of muggle-borns in the wizarding world, and one of the problems I've run into is that I can't decide how many wizards and witches there are overall. I've read two excellent essays on the matter by Jodel and Whitehound. Jodel estimates that there are between 3600 and 4800 wizards and witches, depending on the average lifespan, which she guesses is between 90 and 120. Whitehound argues that there are closer 10,000 wizards and witches altogether in the British Isles.

The problem is that Rowling gives us totally arbitrary and inconsistent numbers, even within canon. In an early interview, she said that there were 1000 students at Hogwarts, which would be about 143 students in each class. In a later interview, she reduced that number to 600 students, or about 86 in each year.

In the early books, there is evidence that there are about 40 students in Harry's year. There are 20 broomsticks for the combined Gryffindor/Slytherin fyling lessons and 20 pairs of earmuffs for the combined Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Herbology lessons on mandrakes. And, indeed, Rowling has said that she created 40 characters to be in Harry's class. 40 students per year would add up to 280 students altogether at Hogwarts. If the average wizarding lifespan of is about 100 years, then this would mean the total wizarding population is about 4000.

In yet another interview, Rowling said that the total wizarding population is about 3000. If the average lifespan is about 100 years, then this would mean there are 30 students per year at Hogwarts, adding up to a total student body of 210. This doesn't line up with the evidence in the earlier books of 40 students in Harry's class. However, by OOTP, 9 or 10 students seem to have "disappeared" from canon, suggesting that she maybe changed her mind and that the numbers of 20 broomsticks and 20 earmuffs are "inaccurate". As I said in my previous post, only 30 students from Rowling's class list are ever mentioned in the books. Moreover, in chapter 12 of OOTP, we read:

'It was murder,' said Harry. He could feel himself shaking. He had hardly spoken to anyone about this, least of all thirty eagerly listening classmates.

30 students plus Harry is too many for a combined Gryffindor/Hufflepuff or Gryffindor/Slytherin class, and it would be strange for a class to have three of the houses, but not four. So, either it's a combined Gryffindor/Ravenclaw class, and Ravenclaw has at least 21 students (16 of whom are never named in the books), or it's a class with all four houses, and 9 students are "missing" from the class.

Based on how Hogwarts operates, a total student body of 210 or 280 students makes much more sense than the 600 or 1000 figures that Rowling has suggested in interviews. There's only one professor in each subject to teach all of those students. When I was in high school, my teachers taught 120-150 students each, so even the lowest figure of 210 is rather unrealistic.

However, Whitehound argues that a total wizarding population of 3000 (or even 4000) does not make much sense when we look at overall wizarding society. It seems far too low. There are too many employees at the Ministry of Magic, too many shops in Diagon Alley, too many wards in St. Mungo's Hospital, etc. for there to only be 3000 wizards and witches in Britain. There were also far too many attendees at the World Cup for a wizarding population that small. In the real world, in 1994, there were a total of 61.5 million people in the British Isles, about 1.1% of the 5.6 billion in the whole world (Whitehound uses slightly different numbers). This means there would only be 272,727 wizards and witches in the world if there were 3000 in the British Isles. It seems unrealistic that 36% of the wizards and witches in the entire world would be at the World Cup. This is why Whitehound suggests that the population of Wizarding Britain is at least 10,000. (Read the second half of her essay for more a more detailed discussion). However, if this were the case, there would be about 100 students in each year of Hogwarts, if the average lifespan is 100 years.

So, how do we reconcile these various numbers? Which numbers do we use to determine the size of the population, and which numbers do we ignore? How many wizards and witches are there?

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

And the "hundreds" of people in the Slytherin section of the stands in that Quidditch game in... PS/SS, was it?

I also wonder whether wizards actually did have fewer children during the war followed by a baby boom, on second thought. Wizards who fought didn't have to go away to the front, because there was no front; they could stay home and bungle their contraceptive potions. The Weasleys had most of their children during the war years. Molly said a lot of people got married suddenly during the first war - which is not evidence that they reproduced at that time, but it does open the possibility. In the second war, we have Tonks and Lupin and Baby Teddy, so the Weasleys aren't totally unique in this. Do wizards just go on having kids as usual during wars? Although if enough adult wizards who otherwise would have had more children died, that could still lead to a lower number of children in that cohort. Gah, I have no idea how this fits together.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

This is a very good point. But the "war years" do provide a convenient explanation for why Harry's class might be so much smaller than normal.

While the "war years" lasted more than a decade, most of the war actually only happened in the last two years or so, during which Harry was born.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes sense at first glance. But I think we are getting distracted by the word 'war' here. What took place from all the clues we get was not a war in the sense that we know it, even one on home turf, where a significant fraction of the population (mostly from the same one or two overlapping generations) was engaged day in day out in fighting instead of family making. What we have is two independent militant groups of a few dozen people each - drawn mainly from a handful of related families - fighting each other and occasionally causing the death or disappearance of a few public figures, while carrying on their domestic lives relatively as normal. A gang war crossed with political terrorism, very different scale and circumstances from the sort of war that has a significant impact upon birth rates for the entire population. (Plus, many of the families involved are precisely those whose children attend school with Harry, so the drop wasn't caused simply by lack of births among fighting families.)

Nor would theorized effects of the war upon the Muggleborn population account for the impact you postulate. For one, we see no sign at all that Voldemort in VoldWar I ever succeeded in concretely disenfranchising or killing a significant number of Muggleborns - there are no wandless and homeless mentioned, no impact registered upon the society of such a thing. Secondly, the *highest* percentage of the population possible according to JKR's worldbuilding being Muggleborn is %25, and it seems rather too high still to me. So even if he had succeeded to some degree before Halloween, in order to impact the birth rate enough to create that sort of drop, he would have had to it seems to me effectively wipe out, or otherwise prevent from reproducing, most of the Muggleborn population. No sign of that, nor evidence he was ever in a position of power long enough to have managed it.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're quite correct, but that leaves us with the problem that, if 40 students per year is normal, then there aren't enough people to account for the wizarding society we see outside of Hogwarts.

There would be a fair amount of fluctuation in class sizes from year to year that just naturally occurs in a population this small, but I'm not sure how large a fluctuation is reasonable.

There would very likely be a smaller percentage of muggle-borns in Harry's year than in the 1970's due to the fact that there was a baby boom in the UK in the 1960's. If there were four muggle-born in Harry's year, there would have been 5 or 6 muggle-born first years in 1975. But that's not enough of a difference to affect the overall class size all that much

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe there's some other factor - a magical STI that can cause sterility or something. And there was an outbreak which conveniently hit the would-be parents of Harry's classmates at a crucial time. Yeah. At least they wouldn't be likely to talk about it, so it wouldn't be odd for Harry not to know.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

oooh, maybe the sharp drop in births due to a magical STI started in, say, 1970, right around the time that Voldemort started becoming more popular. Young adults were restless and joined "causes" instead of being able to pour their energy into starting their families, which most witches and wizards did in their early 20's.

Since most wizards don't understand biology well, it was easy to blame the drop in births on muggle-borns. The muggle-borns were "stealing magic" from the "missing" children in the wizarding world.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Yeah.... in any case, a magical STI like that would probably impact a whole generation, not just one or two years.

[sunnyskywalker]

If there are only 280-ish students at Hogwarts right now instead of the usual 600 or 1000 or whatever it's supposed to be, maybe it did? That would be something noticeable enough that Umbridge could use it to back up her "stealing magic" story (not logically, but they're wizards...), but Harry probably wouldn't notice unless it hit him over the head. Or I suppose the St. Mungo's healers could have figured out a cure that worked while the disease was the early stages after a couple of years - too late to reverse the damage for the ones who'd had it for a while, but at least they could stop it from spreading any more.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

We don't know, though, that there are only 280 students at Hogwarts right now. All we know is that there are, at most, 40 students in Harry's class. There could very well be 60 or 70 students in the class above him.

[sunnyskywalker]

The eternal Hogwarts problem... I just have trouble seeing how one teacher per subject could handle that many students, unless they all have time-turners (and use them to get some extra sleep as well as getting extra time to work). But as far as we know that's all they've ever had. You would think a former teacher would know better!

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly! I just keep going around in circles with this one.

[sunnyskywalker]

Also, if it's magic syphilis, that would explain why so many wizards act like their brains have been swizzled...