Editing Holy Roman Empire (section)

=== Population ===
Overall population figures for the Holy Roman Empire are extremely vague and vary widely. The empire of Charlemagne may have had as many as 20 million people.{{Sfn|Fried|2016|p=56}} Given the political fragmentation of the later Empire, there were no central agencies that could compile such figures. Nevertheless, it is believed the demographic disaster of the [[Thirty Years' War]] meant that the population of the Empire in the early 17th century was similar to what it was in the early 18th century; by one estimate, the Empire did not exceed 1618 levels of population until 1750.{{Sfn|Parker|2008|p=1058}}

In the early 17th century, the electors held under their rule the following number of Imperial subjects:{{Sfn|Wilson|2009|pp=18–23}}
* Habsburg Monarchy: 5,350,000 (including 3 million in the Bohemian crown lands)<ref name="Wilson, p. 788">Wilson, p. 788</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=September 2021}}
* Electorate of Saxony: 1,200,000
* Duchy of Bavaria (later Electorate of Bavaria): 800,000
* Electoral Palatinate: 600,000
* Electorate of Brandenburg: 350,000
* Electorates of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne: 300–400,000 altogether{{Sfn|Wilson|2009|p=[{{Google book|plainurl=yes|id=-YlL5mB-5e4C|keywords=The premier electorate was thus}} 17]}}

While not electors, the Spanish Habsburgs had the second highest number of subjects within the Empire after the Austrian Habsburgs, with over 3 million in the early 17th century in the [[Burgundian Circle]] and Duchy of Milan.{{Efn|name=Milan}}{{Efn|name=Avakov}}

Peter Wilson estimates the Empire's population at 20 million in 1700, plus 5 million in Imperial Italy, a total of around 25 million. By 1800 he estimates the Empire's population at 29 million (excluding Italy), with another 12.6 million held by under Austrian and Prussian dominion outside of the Empire.{{Sfn|Wilson|2016|p=496}}

According to a contemporary estimate of the Austrian War Archives for the first decade of the 18th century, the Empire{{snd}}including Bohemia and the Spanish Netherlands{{snd}}had a population of close to 28&nbsp;million with a breakdown as follows:{{Sfn|Benecke|1974|p=162}}
* 65 ecclesiastical states with 14 percent of the total land area and 12 percent of the population;
* 45 dynastic principalities with 80 percent of the land and 80 percent of the population;
* 60 dynastic counties and lordships with 3 percent of the land and 3.5 percent of the population;
* 60 imperial towns with 1 percent of the land and 3.5 percent of the population;
* Imperial knights' territories, numbering into the several hundreds, with 2 percent of the land and 1 percent of the population.

German demographic historians have traditionally worked on estimates of the population of the Holy Roman Empire based on assumed population within the frontiers of Germany in 1871 or 1914. More recent estimates use less outdated criteria, but they remain guesswork. One estimate based on the frontiers of Germany in 1870 gives a population of some 15–17&nbsp;million around 1600, declined to 10–13&nbsp;million around 1650 (following the Thirty Years' War). Other historians who work on estimates of the population of the early modern Empire suggest the population declined from 20&nbsp;million to some 16–17{{nbs}}million by 1650.{{Sfn|Whaley|2012a|p=633}}

A credible estimate for 1800 gives 27–28{{nbs}}million inhabitants for the Empire (which at this point had already lost the remaining Low Countries, Italy, and the [[Left Bank of the Rhine]] in the 1797 [[Treaty of Campo Fornio]]) with an overall breakdown as follows:{{Sfn|Whaley|2012b|p=351}}
* 9&nbsp;million Austrian subjects (including Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia);
* 4{{nbs}}million Prussian subjects;
* 14–15{{nbs}}million inhabitants for the rest of the Empire.

There are also numerous estimates for the Italian states that were formally part of the Empire:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ States of Imperial Italy by population, early 17th century{{Sfn|Smith|1920|p= 19}}
|-
! State
! Population
|-
| Duchy of Milan (Spanish)
| 1,350,000
|-
| Piedmont-Savoy
| 1,200,000{{Efn|A figure of 800,000 is given by Smith for "Savoy in Italy", with no clarification as to whether that refers to the whole [[Savoyard state]] or just its Italian territories of Piedmont and the Aosta Valley (thus excluding Savoy proper and the County of Nice). However {{Harvnb|Hanlon|2014|p=87}} gives early 17th century Piedmont's population as 700,000, and Savoy proper's as 400,000, with no numbers given for Aosta or Nice; indicating that Smith's use of "Savoy of Italy" does indeed only refer to Piedmont and Aosta.}}
|-
| Republic of Genoa
| 650,000
|-
| Grand Duchy of Tuscany
| 649,000
|-
| Duchy of Parma-Piacenza
| 250,000
|-
| Duchy of Modena-Reggio
| 250,000
|-
| County of Gorizia and Gradisca (Austrian)
| 130,000<ref name="Wilson, p. 788"/>{{Full citation needed|date=September 2021}}
|-
| Republic of Lucca
| 110,000
|-
| '''Total'''
| c. 4,600,000
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ States of Imperial Italy by population, late 18th century{{Sfn|de Las Cases|1824|p=197}}
|-
! State
! Population
|-
| Piedmont-Savoy
| 2,400,000{{Efn|Excluding the 500,000 inhabitants of the island of Sardinia, which was not part of the Empire.}}
|-
| Duchy of Milan (Austrian)
| 1,100,000{{Efn|Referred to in the source as "Austrian Lombardy." A large portion of the former duchy had been annexed by the Venetian Republic earlier in the 18th century.}}
|-
| Grand Duchy of Tuscany
| 1,000,000
|-
| Republic of Genoa
| 500,000
|-
| Duchy of Parma-Piacenza
| 500,000
|-
| Duchy of Modena-Reggio
| 350,000
|-
| Republic of Lucca
| 100,000
|-
| '''Total'''
| c. 6,000,000
|}