Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin
A figure of 10,000-20,000 dwarves seems more of a realistic maximum,
not only with slow population increase but supplying them with food, etc.
Rohan itself, in a time at the War of the Ring when they had pretty much recovered from past problems, probably had a population of perhaps 100,000
(assuming a male fighting pop. of about Theoden's 10,000 estimate.
Especially after Hollin wasn't a source of trade there's limited trade potential---
dwarves better love eating mushrooms grown in tunnels (like
in southeast Pa.). 
The image of an Alien stalking Moria is not only scary- but could be not
that far from Tolkien's conception.
Of course that does bring up the question of how the balrog organized
his orc/troll forces in Moria later. He seems to have been the generalisimo. |
I agree, just don't see Moria ever having anything near 200,000 dwarves. Look at Gondolin for example. They had an army of say 13,000. Considering they were elves it would give them a population of around 30,000. Gondolin was one of the great cities of Middle Earth.
From the lack of description as you said the dwarves never had a pitched battle with the Balrog. They probably experienced a sense of dread and were picked off.
We must also accept that enough dwarves left to populate and create Erebor. So after a certain amount of deaths, the dwarves probably decided to escape. The war with Sauron, though brief in the Second Age would have cut numbers back too.