Spin-off from HP Questions, as I didn't want to break the rules of the thread.

He didn't say impossible, he said implausible, which is a very different thing.

Luxembourg has a population of 524,000 people, the United Kingdom has a population of 64 million people. Looking at this thread that discusses the population of wizarding Britain gives us an estimate of 7,650 magical people - let's round that up for 10,000 given the various debate around this. (It should also be noted that Magical Britain's % of the wizarding world's is greater than it's % of the world population, so it is likely that this estimate will exaggerate the wizarding population of Luxembourg.)

10,000/64,000,000*524,000 gives us 63 magical people. (I'm glad I did the maths myself, as @Taure 's estimate actually chucks a % sign on the fraction, which led to me initially underestimating the population by several factors.)

From there, it's a value call. From my perspective, it seems unlikely that 1 in every 9 people in a country would be part of the National Quidditch Team, especially given subs, let alone that another country would agree to play with such a (presumably bad) team.

So, to answer your question, if we accept the source as canon (which, as a game version, is highly questionable), than it seems highly implausible that a wizarding Luxembourg with the same borders could field a Quidditch team, and thus that borders do not perfectly correlate.

(As an aside, the example of Yugoslavia mentioned earlier is something I find in support of this, as it seems improbable that the wizards would keep up with muggle events so religiously as to reconfigure their government around them.)

 

I agree on the rest, but Luxembourg's national team is mentioned in GOF, so it's canon. It's even good enough to crush Scotland IIRC.

Thus, it seems logical to think that they have different borders. Or that Quidditch players can play for any national team they want.

Or just that JKR is really bad with any type of numbers. I mean, Pottermore even mentioned Liechtenstein as being in 2014 World Cup.

 

The likelihood is that JKR was blitzing through the book and threw in a few quick fire details without thinking of the ramifications. As readers, its sort of up to us to justify these mentions.

I see magical Europe as being largely different to muggle Europe in terms of borders. For example, magical Luxemburg could have a an area two or three times, if not more, its size.

Magical Germany would be more like Germany before it was unified with little pockets of wizard states who all conform to a higher authority. Maybe this authority is a recent thing with the wizards coming around to the muggles way of thinking after over a century of half bloods and muggleborns influencing their society, all who believe in a German nation.

It makes sense why Durmstrang and Beauxbatons cover such a large area if the countries they represent aren't the nations we know but larger, old world empire nations.

 

Ah, thanks.

I'd never even heard of the PS2 game, so I was going entirely based on what was said in the thread.

Different borders seems likely then. (Why would you play for a different nationality? How much money/prestiege/whatever can there be in playing for a country the size of a neighborhood?) I mean, I think it's likely that it was caused by numbers problems/just throwing out names, but that doesn't mean there cannot be an underlying canon explanation, and that seems to be the best to suit.

 

Maybe Luxembourg has a Quidditch fanatic as a minister and offers really good deals to players, if they become citizens and play for the National Team.

Sort of like countries do with big companies now.

 

Luxembourg is the opposite of Britain.

In the UK, we have Diagon Alley (and whatever else sprouts off from there) in London. We also have Hosgmeade in Scotland. That makes up most of the wizard-only parts of the country.

In Luxembourg, Luxembourg city is for muggles, but the entire rest of the country is unplottable, and hidden beneath spells like those for the Quidditch world cup. It is, very nearly, actually the size of France.

 

As we've discussed, there are three possibilities here:

1. The country is a lot bigger than modern muggle borders suggest
2. It has a much denser magical population than probably even its muggle population
3. It has an incredibly large proportion of skilled quidditch players in its population

The first seems the most likely, but all three options are quite fun to think about from a worldbuilding perspective.

Quidditch Fanatics:

If there really are sixty magical people occupying the region, then for each of this Luxembourg clan, quidditch is their life. Not everyone is skilled enough to be part of the national team, but the small country hosts a sports academy that attracts quidditch enthusiasts worldwide, who come to train and participate in sporting events. Many players are drawn in hopes that one day they might be drafted into the amazing Luxembourg team themselves.



Dense population:

This is Luxembourg. Dab smack in the middle of France and Germany - in the middle of everything, really.

Muggle Luxembourg has a population of 524,000, as Qgqqqqq mentioned. I have no idea what population could typically give rise to an international team, but let's just assume that Magical Luxembourg has a population equivalent to another magical country with a good team.

For that to be the case, Luxembourg must be something of a melting pot for Wizarding Europe. Uh... a melting cauldron, if you will. It's definitely a good location for it - being sandwiched between France and Germany and wanting very little to do with either historically.

I could see Witches and Wizards taking this attitude towards the constantly bickering muggle borders - find a neutral spot somewhere convenient, and don't concern yourself with muggle politics unless you absolutely have to.

Source: wikipedia

Given that there's an incredibly sparsely populated region, it could be the case that this is where the magical population congregates - the muggles are kept out with charms.



Country borders:

I was trying to think up how Luxembourg could have come to be an important magical region that encompasses a much wider area than its muggle borders, but it needs a little bit of imagination to go just based on muggle history.

Luxembourg only became a country in 1815, being a duchy before that. The most notable events in its history prior to becoming a country was that a couple of Bohemian kings became the Holy Roman Emperor in the 14th-15th century - these kings were from the House of Luxembourg.

Perhaps in the magical communities, noble families really did mean as much as fanon likes to hype them up to be. In 1346 Charles IV became head of the HRE - it may be plausible that from there, the region of Luxembourg steadily grew in significance in the magical community. Perhaps the Emperor was a wizard or his family had a lot of ties with wizards, and this drew the community together to establish their own borders that contained Luxembourg as a central point.

-

Well, there's my ruminations on it. I'd really love to see some sort of map of the geographies of magical communities - which are the most significant countries, for instance? How would their importance affect their neighbours? Lots of possibilities here.

 

Woah! I just played it and for a game made in 2003 it's actually pretty enjoyable. Now, if only I knew how to swap players during matches...

But anyway, why are we assuming that the ratio of Wizards to Muggles is the same in all countries? I like to think that the reason the USA is so big compared to the UK is because there's a larger percentage of magicals there.

 

In Pottermore it says that large numbers of Luxembourgians attend Beauxbatons, so presumably it has a higher magical population that it's muggle population would suggest.

 

Because a) it's the only way to approach it mathematically - once you have that estimate, you can then consider if it would vary and b) because as I noted, the population of the UK is already disproportionately large.

How is the USA 'big' compared to the UK? If anything, there are indications that the UK's magical community is more powerful/important (the president incident).

 

If we take the 63 persons literally, it seems like a tight knit community. Maybe the reason the team was good enough to beat Scotland is because Luxemborg is religiously into Qudditch and the fields are akin to churches.

Perhaps being bad at the game is grounds for excommunication, so therefore Luxemborg wizards do nothing but play Quidditch.