Zompist Bboard Again

The Historical Atlas seems to suggest that Čeiy is a taiga. I've seen elsewhere references that it isn't that cold but most things seem to point to it being like that- a taiga, subarctic climate.

If it is a taiga, how does Čeiy support such a large population and productive agriculture? Comparable regions in our world like northern Scandinavia and Siberia seem to have only had few inhabitants until modernity and even nowadays have very small population sizes.

Got any comments on this, zompist?

Probably a combination of two things.

One, different crops. I've said that Almean millet is particularly adapted to cold climates— originally found in Arcél, it allowed classical Skouras to expand into its littoral, and that was about the same time Čeiy was settled. It's also likely that Čeiy developed some greenhouse-like ways to grow vegetables, something that happened in China.

Two, it's a different planet. The climate zones may not be entirely comparable to Earth's; e.g. I see from Wikipedia that taiga soil fertility was lessened by retreating ice sheets— but Almea is not in an interglacial and never had ice sheets. Also, the map doesn't show fine distinctions: Čeiy is probably subpolar oceanic (Cfc) rather than Dfc.

I'd also suggest that location has a big effect. Siberia is very far from the heartland of Russia, so it didn't get colonized till quite late. On the other hand, Norway and Sweden were expanding into the taiga by medieval times. If you had taiga right next to the Roman Empire it could have been much earlier. That doesn't happen in our world, but it does with Xurno.

Oh, and finally, places can have a complex history with low populations by modern standards.