Danzig had in 1550 about 21,000.

The largest city in central Germany, if not in the whole country--as a chronicler stated in 1572--was Erfurt, with a population of 32,000 in 1505.

It was the center of the rising Saxon industries, mining and dying, and of commerce.

Luebeck, Cologne, Nuremberg and Augsburg equalled or perhaps surpassed it in size, and certainly in wealth.

The total population of German Switzerland was over 200,000.
The whole German-speaking population of Central Europe amounted to perhaps twenty millions {455} in 1600, though it had been reckoned by the imperial government in 1500 as twelve millions.
[Sidenote: France] The number of Frenchmen did not greatly increase in France in the 16th century.