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Notes -
To be fair, the book feels like it takes place across an area no larger than maybe Arizona at the outside. There's no indication of cultural variation.
In fairness, I think even the book's appendices and such almost tacitly imply that it might as well be Arizona's population stretched over an entire planet.
It never really feels like a planet. Travel distance is never relative, only we're going to the city, we're going to the desert, never we're going to this place which is twice the distance as this other place. There's only one city, and really only two or three tribal Pueblos that matter.
There's the city, the former sietch they take temporary refuge in (in the first movie), Sietch Tabr, that spot (temple?) where Jessica drank the water of life, but there's also the South, which is literally the southern hemisphere, inaccessible unless you have some way of getting past the storms (like, I dunno, spaceships? Even Feyd Rautha didn't think of that). I got the impression the abandoned sietch was rather close to Arrakeen, Sietch Tabr and the temple were a bit further and near each other, and the South really damn far away.
Sure but compare it to ASoIAF, LoTR, 40k, or Star Wars. Each has a profusion of unique places, and traveling between them is a constant process. People being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a problem which has to be solved. Dune never really has that problem, aside from maybe the first book when Paul and Jessica escape.
Arrakis should have multiple ethnicities and distinct cultural groupings across the planet, the Fremen of Sietch Tabr should barely be able to speak with the Fremen of Sietch Jytgh two thousand miles away, but it doesn't feel right for such differences to exist because in the book there doesn't seem to be room.
why? The fremen routinely catch worms and travel a thousand kms in a few days.
They're easily as mobile as 20th century populations.
Mind you, traveling in Star wars is depicted as easier than in the Culture. The only inexplicable thing is why there isn't a 2000x more starships because clearly they have intelligent droid technologies so what stopped someone commercially minded from turning some metal-rich system into his own private automated shipyard ?
Imagine how much money you could make if you turned a planetary core into starships via self-replicating labor. Not just generational wealth, galactic wealth!
Yes, they're about as mobile as the present day, maybe. A place where travel times are a constant concern. Where people are often in the wrong place, and it takes days or weeks to sort it out. Hence, at modern travel times, the whole place feels about the size of Arizona.
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