Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-76.118.67.131-20140922181150/@comment-17114085-20140924165729

Kadilkhajiit wrote: Another thing you forget is sheer numbers, there are more people in North America alone than there are people on Tamriel. There's probably more guns in North America than there are people on Tamriel. Gameplay =/= lore. The size of tamriel isn't accurately portrayed in the games.

Tamriel is larger than Europe, probably around the size of the mainland US and Canada combined (Though we can't be sure since the comparison map always puts Tamriel near Europe). And it is pretty populated, just look at the game Daggerfall. The Illiac Bay area alone had 10s of times more people than there were in a whole province in Skyrim and Oblivion.

Now you may be saying, well it is a medieval setting. In the Medieval Ages there was much less people around. That is true, in the Medieval ages the average lifespan was around 40 years. However, in tamriel there is magic. And magic lets the average lifespan of humans be around 70 years (those of the Elder Race in Skyrim are at least 60 years old), not to mention that Elves live for hundreds of years. So Tamriel is pretty populated.