Nomad tribe population

There lives in a desert a large nomad culture, composed of many tribes who wander about herding camels, goats and sheep, trading and offering services to cities and towns, and occasionally raiding these, caravans and smaller tribes.

Their domain is an expanse of a desert of 5 million square kilometres, where 10 million sedentary people live in fortified towns across rivers and oases, along with a northern fertile coast of around half a million square kilometres where 7 million other people dwell, though they are not welcome in this land, and are quick to be repelled should they enter it. They number a million and to the south and east lie arid steppes in which more warlike tribes inhabit, and they rarely visit it.

With this in mind, how populous would be the:

1. Average nomad tribe? Would it number something of a few dozen to a hundred, or would they be more family-sized?

2. Large tribe? Would it be able to number a couple thousand, almost like a moving city, or would it be more like a wandering hamlet?

3. Populational limit of a tribe? Could we think of something in the thousands, under exceptional circumstances?

Edit - I forgot to mention this earlier, but these nomads have only renaissance or medieval technology

posted about 5 years ago

Jedboo‭

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