So we know that these open world games have to scaled down to fit in the game, as well as the populations of these worlds. So how many people do you think really inhabit the various wastelands? For example based on art and concept art Vegas was intended to be a much larger city. How many people could really be occupying the regions various urban areas like west side, freeside, etc? Or in places like boston how large would the population of the commonwealth be?

Probably not that much. I estimate around a 2million~ish people in the USA alone at the span of 200 years. The numbers could have been higher but there is rampant murder for the population to actually flourish.

NCR lands is the only region that can produce a ton of people with minimal murder going around.

ahyuser001 wrote:

I often wonder how rampant the murder is across the U.S. at this point. I mean we know Arizona was pretty bad. Could it have been that terrible everywhere. I wonder how many other places have coalitions though that could be ensuring life is progressing normally-ish. Because even without the minutemen in a place like the common wealth the BOS eventually intervene, which they might not be there to save the people but they would certainly kill a lot of Raiders and mutants along the way.

Also, though most raiders are shown as blood thirsty in the game. I suspect many of them would be little more than bandits/thiefs in most places. Except for groups like the fiends, Disciples, & Fallout 3 raiders, as well as other groups we haven't met. We are given a little more lore on raiders in the commonwealth though and most of them just seem to demand money or food then move on unless other wise challenged.

@sgtrock31
Actually let me correct myself. It should be 3.5 million~ish. I forgot to take into account legion territory. They are brutal to their citizens(serfs?) but it is pretty safe there as long as you obey their rules.

Aside from Legion and NCR lands there is also the DC BOS lands but we really do not know if they were able to pacify the region to allow population growth to flourish.

Murder would be pretty rampant in the US not just because of Raiders, but also the Deathclaws, Robots, Geckos, Ants, Cazadores, Mutated Plants, etc etc. It is almost impossible for a settlement to survive without a regional power because they would just be raided or eaten by either raiders or the wild life.

There are also accidental deaths caused either by the terrain or by human stupidity. There is also the average life span of an individual which would vary depending on if they are receiving proper health care.

The Midwestern BOS probably contributes a significant amount to the current wasteland population, as almost all of the endings in tactics show them completely wiping out hostilities in their territories, which, IIRC, spanned much farther than any nation shown previously, aside from maybe the Enclave. No figure is given, but I think it'd be safe to estimate in universe that, by the time of New Vegas/4, they number in the tens of thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands.

The Legion is probably pretty small, as they only ever conquered 86 tribes (or 87 by the end of the game, as Lonesome Road shows.) However, the Legion's territory probably has a significantly larger population than the army itself, as it is stated several times that the Legion was able to eradicate all signs of hostility in Arizona, which would allow their citizens to flourish. With this information, it would probably be safe to assume that the Legion, including their citizens, number in the upper tens of thousands, or possibly lower six digit numbers.

Finally, the NCR itself is pretty much directly stated to have a population that goes into the millions. By the time of Fallout 4, their population has probably grown exponentially. Data logs in Fallout 2 state that their population was only in the tens of thousands, meaning that their population grew at least tenfold over the 40 years between 2 and NV, with the actual percentage probably being much, much higher. Evidence for an extreme territorial and population growth within the NCR is present in Fallout 4, as citizens of the NCR are shown to have the ability to travel across continent with relative ease; something that only an extremely large, and immensely powerful nation could accomplish.

As for the East Coast, I don't think there's much of a population, as both Boston and the Capital Wasteland are pretty much overrun by every form of hostility imaginable. The West Coast, as well as arguably the Midwest, were only able to grow so large because they had a centralized government that eliminated all hostilities within a region. The East Coast lacks any such government, and as such is probably unable to grow due to death, disease, and an overall lack of security.

I'd probably place the estimation for the population at higher than 3.5 million, as that would probably barely even cover the NCR alone. If I had to guess, I'd probably say it's closer to 15 million, or possibly even higher.

Also, it's probably non-canon, but Fallout Extreme would have shown, in a plot twist, that China survived the Great War. As long as the population hadn't dropped, the entire worldwide population would probably be a couple billion because of this, if not more.

The NCR has over 700,000 now in California. Shady Sands has tens of thousands, and even in the old games, it was said that you could drop a vault into hub and no one would notice, because it was so big.
All the more reason we needed to see Shady Sands to really be able to judge the viability of the NCR. I think we would have been impressed, even with political corruption overlaying the scene. It would have lacked the glitz of Vegas, but likely would have been shady and comfortable and pleasing to the eye for those with money.