The shadow elf population is overcounted

The Shadow Elf population is touted 550,000. Let's do a census.

250,000 dwell in the City of the Stars including the 40,000 in Wendolen "village" - assuredly a city in its own right. Roughly another 7000 inhabit Dendronel and Piliny(l) together, NOT counted in that City total. The various soldiers around the place can be assumed to belong to some town or city or other.

In the major cities: New Grunland accounts for 40000, Alfmyr 25000, and Losetrel 17500. All of these will refer to what we'd call a "metroplex", like the City of the Stars includes Wendolen. New Grunland, in particular, has its urban centre at Jelden, but nobody says "I'm from Jelden".

The Core so far can account for 339,500 souls. I judge this count as solid. Let's send our censustakers to the less-documented habitations.

The map marks a distinction between the bighouse Towns, like Dendronel; and the doublehut Villages. I count four other towns: Dunedea and Renathys also in the core; Jeredor and Durdael in the south. Those four account for another 15000 total if I assume Dendronel as the baseline, and round up. Then there are ten villages. Another 10000 villagers, eh wot?

Castles next. Larkpoint won't count - that's the New Grunland acropolis, where Jelden is the surrounding city. Since all four castles are in greenery, the others can be assumed palisaded villages. Those are: Desrii, Sylaros, Saulia. I consider Rastignac as good as a castle too, but we've already counted it. Another 3000 souls.

‭367,500‬ total. Maybe I can fudge that up to 389,000. For that we must allow Dendronel (3000 minimum) to be smaller than average. The thirteen castles and the villages are then 1500 on average, with the four towns each 7500. Note, I don't see the four towns needing this many people each; and I'm pushing it for the castles and villages.

Even so fudged, and even after I add another few thousands in new castles on the Dragon Lake: I've now got to share no less than 150,000 strays over not-that-many mines, none as important as Alfmyr's, and "towers" which are likely reserved for the military where they're not squatted by ifrits and jinns from Hell. (Allahumma ehfazni!) And these elves are not Huldrefolk content to live in treehouses. They are shadow-elves with a deep community asabiya. They live in villages or they don't live long.

Are there elves living off the map entirely? If so, the transliminal villages aren't any larger than Dendronel, or we'd know about them; and remember, too far out and the City Of The Stars loses control, like it hasn't any hold over Oenkmar up above, and (literally) can't count on those elves for its census. I don't think the City can even count on the elves south of the Lost Souls.

More realistically, consider that many thousands of shadowelves are not in the Shadowdeep... at all! They have infiltrated elven and even orkish communities up above. Even here, I am not seeing Alfheim (nor Darokin) letting the shadow elves get away with over a hundred thousands of them.

To sum up, the maths DON'T sum up. The City can claim nowhere near 550,000 elves. This population isn't even cracking the 400,000 mark and really, 375,000 seems more like it. But what's a 31.8% discrepancy among fellow elves?