How many people lived in Asia minor in the first century?

I had enough feedback about this document that I will continue to edit it, and possibly republish it when I feel like I have anything conclusive. Edits to the original post will appear in italics.

So Paul entered the synagogue and spoke out fearlessly for three months, addressing and convincing them about the kingdom of God. But when some were stubborn and refused to believe, reviling the Way before the congregation, he left them and took the disciples with him, addressing them every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all who lived in the province of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord. Acts 19:8-10 (NET)

I think it is extremely important to have an accurate understanding of how many people lived in the province of Asia when this amazing statement was recorded. I’m reposting the work of my friend Rodger below.

For anyone who has heard of the population of Asia Minor when discussing Acts 19:8-10 in a Four Fields Intensive or otherwise, we need to revise the numbers we are communicating/training. I have known for a while that 8-15 million people* is FAR too large of a population for the province of Asia Minor in the Roman Empire. I have been digging for some conclusive proof and I have found it.

TL;DR: The population of Asia Minor in the 1st century was about 2.5 million people, not 8-15 million people

Full Explanation:

Unfortunately, I can’t find any estimates for the population of Asia Minor in the 1st century. However, Asia Minor is one of 5 provinces in the area of Anatolia and there are plenty of estimates from historians on the population of Anatolia. It appears as though the population of Anatolia in 14AD is estimated to be 8.2 million people and in 164AD it is estimated to be 9.2 million people. Paul’s ministry in Ephesus falls between those two dates, so let’s estimate that the population was 8.5 million people for the whole region.

Again, Asia Minor was only one of 5 provinces in Anatolia. If Asia Minor’s population was 8 million people, that would be ~94% of the total population of Anatolia (extremely unrealistic) or if Asia Minor’s population was 15 million people, that would be 176% of the total population of Anatolia (completely absurd). Thus, it is clear that there is no way the population of Asia Minor could have been 8-15 million people.

So how do we calculate the actual population in Asia Minor? The best I can do is make an educated estimate based on what historians have already figured out. But from what I can find, the population density of Asia Minor was significantly higher than the rest of Anatolia (see the cartographic picture below of population densities). So let’s say that ~30% of the population of Anatolia lived in Asia Minor. That would mean that there were 2.55 million people in Asia Minor. This is not perfect, but I feel more comfortable saying that there were about 2.5 million (or even 2-3 million) people in Asia Minor than saying there were 8-15 million.

This is still an incredible amount of people that the Lord reached during Paul’s ministry time in Ephesus! Therefore, if we vision cast from Acts 19:8-10 using the number 2.5 million instead of 8-15 million, we can have confidence that we are communicating a more accurate number while still casting a high vision.

A Note on Sources:

I wanted to find a credible textbook source for this explanation and I found it in a demographic section of The Cambridge Ancient History Vol. XI on pages 811-812 which I photographed and posted below. It appears as though a 19th-century historian named Karl Beloch made the most widely accepted estimates for the Roman Empire population. His work got tweaked by a guy named Bruce Frier and Frier’s estimates are what I refer to and what I took a picture of.

I also posted a picture of the Roman Empire scaled to show the population densities of the respective provinces.

It also looks like the Wikipedia page “Demography of Rome” more or less copied and pasted tables from a textbook. This page is also helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire

Pheaney’s End Notes:

This No Place Left Training video has popularized the 8-15 million figure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw4tk6xBZE4

Here is an original Google Doc with Rodger’s work, including a helpful distinction between Asia, Asia Minor, and Anatolia: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s0ZUH0KHW0a0q4mg6qXSqkqLLxbyWy_MwtJpP9vwqFI/edit

A friend sent me this study with cities of Asia minor listed with populations: http://byustudies.byu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/6-2.pdf He totals up the cities listed, factors in that the population estimates were from before the first century, and comes up with anywhere between 1.2-2.0 million people.