Beware of taking these sources too literally.
I know that Middle-earth is a "fictional world," but Tolkien strove to make it as realistic as possible, and to abide by as many rules of the world that we live in now as possible (indeed, he said that Middle-earth WAS this world).
This means that there are many things that need to be taken into consideration regarding the stated sized of towns/cities, and the populations present in Middle-earth that do not "precisely" jibe with the reality of the situation (for instance, given the stated size of Minas Tirith, it would be hard to get 2,500 people into the city, much less the 250,000 it is supposed to hold).
The town of Bree is actually larger than Minas Tirith if you just do the math.
But in "The History of Middle-earth" both CJRT and JRRT are quoted as saying that they hadn't sufficient time to check their assumptions about such things.
And be VERY Wary of the Peter Jackson films as a source.
The films are extremely flawed in both their consistency and adherence to canon sources (for instance, Dale is over 2X the size of Minas Tirith in his movies - and he puts Thranduil on an Elk, something that comes from a Pagan tradition that Tolkien tended to reject).
