Population density of the Beornings/woodsmen

[Eofor]

Sorry all, so many worthy topics due a reply but I'm only here with a question.

We know that the woodmen and Beornings effectively colonise the area between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood after the battle of five armies, we know too that they guard and keep the passes and charge a toll for passage.

Any insights on population centres? I'm guessing Beorns hall would be one but are the settlements likely to be closer to the forest or the mountains?

[Udwin]

<Took too long writing a reply and got logged out, message lost, argghhhhh

If only JRRT had finished the 1960 Hobbit, we probably would have learned a bit more about the area!
We know the locals (of whom the Narrator says "There were many of them") have "[built] themselves places to live in among the more pleasant woods in the valleys and along the river-shores", and that the goblin/warg plan was to attack "some of the villages nearest the mountains".
Considering the geography of the area, there are five bands where Men can (and apparently do) live:
Mountains/foothills - western vales - west shores - east shores - western vales - west-eaves of Mirkwood (see Woodmen homes on Hobbit map)

I haven't been able to play the area yet, but LOTRO squishes the mountains right up against the Anduin which limits the space for settlements by about half. I believe there are 3-5 villages or population centers in the region (including Beorn's house), most of them on the east...but the scale of the game is completely wonky anyway. I seem to remember seeing some extrapolated maps in one of the current-gen RPG books (The One Ring? Adventures in M-e?) that might be worth looking up to see how they depict the area.

Considering the passage above is pre-Bo5A, I'm inclined to think they've been able to expand in the interim and their population density during the War is actually pretty good. Not what we would call 'dense' by today's standards, but definitely not the blank space we see on the map.

[ForgeCorvus]

I will admit that I've always seen Beorn's folk living as more bears do then other Men.
Solitary adults, single families or rarely very small clans (groups of related families, such as siblings with their spouses and children) on small low impact homesteads with a defined territory...... Close enough to offer aid but far enough apart that they don't have to interact unless they choose to.

[Rurik of Esgaroth]

In the middle of re-reading The Hobbit - "...bold men had of late been making their way back into [this far land] from the South...There were many of them, and they were brave and well-armed..." Gandalf later says, "Very few people live in these parts, unless they have come here since I was last down this way, which is some years ago".