Most people in the 1600s lived in rural areas. In Europe, for example, about 90% of the population lived in villages or on farms. This was due to a number of factors, including the lack of industrialization and the difficulty of transportation. Most people were subsistence farmers, meaning that they grew their own food and did not produce enough to sell. There were also few large cities in the 1600s. London, for example, had a population of only about 200,000 people.