First of all, they actually discussed this on Pottermore. Until the Hogwarts Express, it was always a pain to send students to Hogwarts. And remember, the British Isles as a whole aren't that big, when you compare the distance from the Netherlands to Portugal, never mind at least Bulgaria to the northern fringes of Europe.

And why wouldn't there be settlers to America? Assuming discrimination against "squibs and mudbloods and blood traitors" always existed, at least some of them could have decided to immigrate for a new life. British colonialism in America (never mind Spanish or French colonialism) was around decades before the Statute went into effect, so even the most insular wizards should be aware of it. And I'm sure plenty of poor people tried America (or anywhere else, for that matter) in desperation. Hell, I could imagine brief periods were criminals were exiled to America or Australia back when both were British.

And how much evidence do we have on muggleborn birth rates? Of the forty or so people supposedly in Harry's year, how many do we know anything about besides their name, never mind blood status? Not many. For that matter, why does everyone automatically assume there are general low population rates? And before you mention something about "only children", consider the fact most people we know for sure are only children have parents who for whatever reason couldn't have more kids, we do have evidence of plenty of people with siblings and multiple kids, and we just don't know anything about plenty of people.

And three thousand miles is no laughing matter. Britain from one end to the other is what, a few hundred miles? A bit of a difference between the two. Of the three methods of teleportation, apparation is explicitly stated to be bad for such extreme distances, I doubt anyone could create a floo network that stretches three thousand miles, and making enough portkeys would be a logistical nightmare.

 

Wizards in HP are not very good at traveling significant distances.

 

So Wizards in the west of Europe kinda have to know French, I can see that causing unrest.

Geographically, this does somewhat fit with Napoleon's expansion.

 

I've been ruminating on this. I'd say that all of the assumptions above are in play- many nations have no formal magical education, defaulting instead to a bunch of Master-apprentice arrangements. Small temples or shops run by a handful of Masters working together might serve a region, but the Worldwide Eleven are probably recognized as having (relatively) open enrollment, so long as the student can speak the language of instruction.

Here's a possible breakdown:

• Hogwarts, Scotland [English]
• Beauxbatons, France [French]
• Durmstrang, Latvia [Polish]
• Salem Witches Institute, U.S. [English]
• Mahoutokoro, Japan [Japanese]
• Brazilian Institute of the Arcane, Brazil [Portugese; serving southern Africa as well due to Portugese influences]
• Vaults of Hatta, underneath Cappadocia [Greek, Arabic]
• Before Thought (a.k.a Temple of Zero), Nepal [Nepalese, ancient Tibetan]
• The Bo-lor, Sierra Leone [Krio, Mande (old Bantu)]
• Caana's Shadow, Belize - [Spanish, Ch'olti'an]
• Murphy's Naturalist Preserve and Toxicology Lab, Gibson Desert, West Australia [English]
  

Some other non-scholastic libraries have survived as well, including the Vatican, Stockholm's Sequestry and the Smithsonian archives.

Other schools have been destroyed over the centuries, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and the Dynastic libraries in China (16 different centers of learning, each destroyed as harbinger of that dynasty's loss of the Mandate of Heaven).

 

Ha, I like the Australian one. Here's my headcanon version:

Worldwide Schools of Wand-based magic

Name: Hogwarts School
Location: Scottish Highlands
Primary studentship: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland
Language: English
Notes: Smallest school of magic in the world, renowned for Transfiguration.

Name: Beauxbatons Academy
Location: Southern France (Pyrenees)
Primary Studentship: France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands
Language: French
Notes: Renowned for Charms

Name: Durmstrang Institute
Location: Northern Europe (Norwegian Fjords)
Primary Studentship: Germany, Western Russia, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe
Language: Russian
Notes: Renowned for dueling. Teaches the Dark Arts. No Muggleborns accepted.

Name: Salem Witches' Institute
Location: Salem, Massachusetts
Primary Studentship: United States, Canada
Language: English
Notes: Female students only, famous for their potions.

Name: Mahoutokoro
Location: Hokkaido, Japan
Primary Studentship: Japan, Korea, South-east Asia
Language: Japanese
Notes: Strong martial focus. No Muggleborns.

Name: Unnamed
Location: Amazon Rainforest, Brazil
Primary Studentship: Brazil, Portugal, Latin America, Mozambique, Angola
Language: Portuguese
Notes: has something of a dark reputation. Like Durmstrang, they teach the Dark Arts

Name: Unnamed
Location: Alexandria, Egypt
Primary Studentship: Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa, Middle East
Language: Greek
Notes: Possesses the largest magical library in the world.

Name: Unnamed
Location: Harappa, Eastern Pakistan
Primary Studentship: South Asia, Middle East
Language: Sanskrit
Notes: Oldest school of magic in the world, it was abandoned for over a millennia before being refounded as a school of wand magic.

Name: Unnamed
Location: Hawaii
Primary Studentship: United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
Language: English
Notes: Founded in the early 20th century

Name: Unnamed
Location: Peru
Primary Studentship: Latin America, Spain
Language: Spanish

Name: Unnamed
Location: China
Primary Studentship: China
Language: Classical Chinese
Notes: Largest school of magic in the world, a test is required to enter

Areas where most do not attend a formal school: Indonesia, Central and Northern Asia, most of Western, Central and Southern Africa.

"Primary studentship" means that they send invites to eligible young wizards and witches in those nations.

 

Please inform me of the distance limitation of floo travel and apparition.

 

Floo appears to be limited to Britain. The Delacours take a portkey to the wedding, for example.

JKR has said out-of-book that apparition increases in difficulty with distance and very few wizards are capable of inter-continental apparition.

 

So basically all American wizards go to school in Hawaii in your headcanon, Taure? Lulz.

 

Am I the only one whose seriously troubled by the distances involved? Seriously, ignoring the Language Barriers (which one would think would prove a headache), it would be a logistical nightmare to get all these kids to school hundreds or thousands of miles away from them.

Also, one of those little things that really bothers me is the Salem bit. It was literally a throwaway line, one of many bits of proofs that there are in fact Wizards outside of Britain. And why on Earth would anyone have a single-sex Magical school when there aren't that many students to begin with? The only way I can possibly say that school makes sense if the name is in memory of the Witches who died in Salem. Otherwise, it's just bull.

PS: When did they ever mention the Japanese school?

 

Yup Salem being a school for witches is quite annoying, as it means you need to create a second school for North American wizards... I figured I'd have it cover Australia et al too (a dedicated school for Australians seems a bit much), so Hawaii seemed like a good mid-point.

Of course, we don't know that Salem is a school. It might be a magical version of the WI.

You only have to do it twice a year, or six times a year if they all go home for the holidays and the holidays match those of the British school system (unlikely).

I imagine each school has their own methods of travel, and I doubt many of them are as mundane as portkeys or apparition. Durmstrang's ship and Beauxbaton's carriage may well be the standard means of transport to and from those schools.

It's in Ollivander's notes on wand woods on Pottermore:

Edit: incidentally, I recall JKR saying in interview that Irish witches and wizards go to their own school, not Hogwarts, but I think that must have been before she decided on the 11 schools thing, because having one school just for Ireland is a bit much (having one for just the British Isles is already a waste of one of the eleven!).

 

Can you end around this by saying only 11 schools, but many more polytechnic sort of things.

Somewhere small like New Zealand couldnt logically have a school, but would need som sort of ministry to deal with keeping magic a secret and magical flora/fauna. So magical education is done by work experience from day 1. They go to normal high school, then after school wizard work/education.

 

My personal way around it is that these are schools of wizardry, which in my mind means spellcasting using a wand.

So if there are other schools that teach other forms of magic, they don't count. And in my mind, wand magic is something that started in Europe.

Plus, you also have the whole "other forms of education" thing like apprenticeships.

 

On a somewhat related note. What do you guys think the geopolitical boundaries of the wizarding world are? They probably couldn't have evolved as nations the same way as their muggle counterparts. So shit like France and England would have their own singular respective ministries. But other new countries might be under a different "nationalities" flag. So something like New Zealand might be under the same banner as Australia, as might Germany be under Bulgaria or something. What kind of regions do you think would emerge?

 

Well, we know that wizarding and Muggle nations don't align perfectly. In his History of Magic exam Harry writes about representatives from Liechtenstein boycotting the first meeting of the ICW (which must have taken place pre-1689), which has only been a Muggle nation since 1866, prior to that being a member state of various German confederations.

 

Yet another aggravating detail from Pottermore. 11 schools worldwide isn't at all believable if there are more than 3 schools in Europe alone as Hermione indicates in GoF.

They should have gone with a slightly higher number. 30ish would have been adequate as it's still small enough to indicate that wizards are scarce.

 

I quite like it. It appeals both to my preference for inequality themes (lots of people are no doubt receiving substandard magical education, as there aren't enough schools) and also my preference for a prominent Europe (~10% of the world's population, ~30% of the world's magical schools).

It also keeps the magical community very small, which I like. I like to think of magical Britain as being similar to a small town of around 7000 people.

 

Where would the other magical schools be in Europe if there are indeed more than three?

Maybe something in Rome? Or maybe in Greece?

 

30 would be realistic if one assumes all Wizarding communities use schools as a method of teaching, or if you assume that all large countries even have a large enough Wizarding community/government to support a school.

It would actually make sense if wizards only grouped together in certain countries, and Muggleborns who are born elsewhere go untrained.

Small populations of magic folk would probably just teach their children themselves.

Hell, I would probably train my own children if one of the top schools in the world is run like Hogwarts.

 

Hey, guys, these are my thoughts about the eleven wizarding schools:

1. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Scottish Highlands, UK) – United Kingdom and Ireland.

2. Beauxbatons Academy of Magic (Pyrenees, South of France) – France, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.

3. Durmstrang Institute (North of Norway) – Scandinavia, Germanic countries and Eastern Europe.

4. Mahoutokoro School of Magic (volcanic plateaus of Hokkaido, Japan) – Japan, South Korea and North Korea.

5. Salem Witches’ Institute (Salem, Massachusetts, USA) – United States and Canada.

6. School #6 (Amazon Rainforest, Brazil) – Brazil and Latin America.

7. School #7 (central plateaus, Mexico) – Central America and Caribbean.

8. School #8 (Himalayas, China) – China and Central Asia.

9. School #9 (Alexandria, Egypt) – North of Africa, Middle East, Greece and Italy.

10. School #10 (in a Pacific Island) – Australia and New Zealand.

11. School #11 (somewhere in the Indian jungles) – India and Southeast Asia.

 

According to your list, Eastern Europe has no schools, which I find very unlikely.