Today I was working on some logistics. I looked at census data for the US to help research a webcomic series I am in pre-production on called Darkwood, which is a fan comic in the Wizarding World. Later, I am going to design another school called Sacred Rock.

Before I go into this, I am not a math genius nor am I much a Ravenclaw when it comes to calculating anything.

If we attempt to stick with canon as much as possible, the amount of American schools could be guessed by using population of the UK and the number of students in Hogwarts (about 1000 according to JKR). Let’s guesstimate and add about 150 to account for w.a.d.a school in london (officially canon also according to JKR) and possibly 50 or so kids who just don’t go to school or get lost in the process somewhere.

So we can calculate what % of the UK population comprises magical school aged children between the ages of 11 and 17. I understand that wizards probably are not counted by the census in the UK or the US but they’re all we have to help us determine this.

Taking this estimated number along with the lifespan of wizards (150 years, from JKR) then we can estimate a number approaching 26,000 wizarding folk in the UK, but I digress. But this does help us in our estimate.

Anyway, I kept misplacing a decimal point, so I went on to a different method, which was to multiply the population of an area of the US by 1200 and divide that by the population of the UK. I cross checked it with the numbers I came up with using the method I did earlier and they matched. So I will go with it.

If we apply this entirely guessed system to the United States, accounting for not only population but also geographic location, you might have to divy up the areas with this map I made up. I understand that you can apparate and such in the Wizarding World, but considering the circumstances surrounding instant travel it’s no surprise they just stick all the kids on a train for Hogwarts. So geography is sort of important here.

The numbers approximate how many students would attend the school for that area.

I threw in Thornsaddle because, hey, Thornsaddle is awesome. Read the comic. In my model, Thornsaddle might have about 700 students for you fans out there who might want a number.

Notice the southern school probably would be either huge (bigger than Hogwarts) or possibly separated into 2.

As for Hawaii, I dunno, I have a bunch of ideas for this area, I can’t come to a final idea on it. Possibly having a bunch of boats go to some island and having all of Pacific Islands sending their kids there, or just having a tiny school in a Grimmauld Place-like building somewhere. As it stands there’d be less than 20 kids of school age in Hawaii.

Alaska I would assume would send their students into the Yukon or somewhere else in Canada.

People on the edges of these areas would probably just choose a school, or perhaps some states would be cut in sections between 2 or 3 different schools, for example, Kentucky would probably have an issue sending students into certain schools depending on location or other factors. Therefore these numbers can skew in either direction, give or take 50-100 students.

This is not to say also that an area might have a schoolhouse type deal that has only 50 students in it, but considering the numbers, this is what I came up with.

You might also make the conjecture that an area like Salem or another historic magic area might have an unusually high concentration of magical folk. Whatever, I can’t really go into that so we’ll just assume it’s consistent across the country. Besides, that doesn’t increase the number of magical folk in an area, it’s just a different dispersion across that area.

This other map below is probably a little more “accurate”. I think in terms of where you put your kid in school there are probably a number of factors including the curriculum, loyalties, ethnicity, geography, etc. plus a lot more. There might also be some kind of interest in keeping your child within a school that officially services a certain state, maybe for tuition purposes or something. Who knows. I’d keep the numbers, though, just to keep it simple.