What is the human population of Adventure Timeâs world?
During the early part of the series, it was assumed that humans were completely extinct, the only exception being Finn. That all changed with the revelation that Susan was a human, as well as the introduction of further human or post-human characters such as Moe, Martin, and Betty. By season 8, the known human population was about 6, give or take a few depending on whether or not you count the showâs various human-affiliated cyborgs, hybrids, and wizards.
Then came the Islands miniseries, where we are introduced to the survivors of the Great Mushroom War; a thriving community of humans living on Foundersâ Island. But exactly how many humans are there on Foundersâ Island? What is the total human population of Adventure Timeâs world?
For all the following calculations, the final number we arrive at will need to be reduced by 62%, as this was the proportion of humans killed by Doctor Grossâ virus following Finn and Martinâs departure. This is assuming that not many humans have been born since then.
There are a couple of different ways we could approach this question. First of all, we can consider the ID numbers assigned to all humans born on the Islands. For example, Finnâs ID is PG87, and Susanâs is XJ77. These four digit codes seem to always consist of two letters followed by two numbers, meaning the maximum number of IDs is 26 x 26 x 10 x 10, coming to a total of 67,600. Accounting for Doctor Grossâ virus, this gives a final count of 25,688. So is this the maximum number of humans on the Islands? Possibly, but the ID numbers might be less restrictive than we have been led to believe, and itâs also possible that duplicate IDs can exist. Additionally, this number intuitively feels a bit too small for a dense city-state. So letâs try something else.
Referring to my calculation of the size of the Land of Ooo, Foundersâ Island can be roughly approximated to a circle of radius 16 kilometres, giving an area of around 800 square kilometres. Aerial shots from the show make the island look a lot smaller, but Iâll write that off as artistic license. A size like this is also consistent with the canon Islands graphic novel, in which Jo takes many days to hike through the unexplored forests of Foundersâ Island.
Now that we have an area, we can estimate a population density. The parts of Foundersâ Island we see are a bustling metropolis, but presumably the whole island doesnât look like that. So letâs find a real-life island with one large city: how about Barbados? Barbados has an average population density of 660 people per square kilometre, with around half its population living in the capital city of Bridgetown. Multiplying that by the area of Foundersâ Island we get a population of 480,000, and reducing that by 62% due to Doctor Grossâ virus gives a final figure of 182,400. Quite a lot more than our first estimate, and a more comfortable figure for maintaining a sustainable population.
So in conclusion, the total number of humans who made it to Adventure Timeâs present day is in the ballpark of 20,000 to 200,000. We can compare this figure to the Toba Catastrophe, an event which theoretically caused a huge reduction in humanityâs population around 70,000 years ago and is estimated to have left fewer than 20,000 surviving humans, from whom we are all descended. If we were able to recover from that, it seems totally reasonable that the number of humans on Foundersâ Island is enough to sustain humanity in Adventure Timeâs future.
Alternatively, we can get a little crazy. If we assume that Foundersâ Island has the population density of Manhattan, 27,000 people per square kilometre, that gives a total population of 21.6 million, which becomes 8.2 million accounting for the virus; about the population of Switzerland, or London. But that feels like far too much.
As always, there is no true concrete answer. This is just a fun thought experiment and shouldnât be taken seriously. I might do this for the Candy Kingdom at some point.
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