This chapter focuses on the economic activities and interactions of Hellenistic world, and the role of the kings in creating the parameters of society. It describes regional diversities and the transformation of the polis as a focus of social life. The most basic demographic facts are unknown, for no reliable picture can be drawn of population figures in most areas, or of changes in them. Piracy provide a specific example of how the phrase Hellenistic Society is a convenient but misleading label for a set of developing and ad hoc solutions to the very various immediate or longer-term needs and problems which had to be solved within certain boundary conditions by governments and individuals. The royal land policy impinges directly on the greatest cultural phenomenon of the Hellenistic world, the transformation and revitalization of the Greek polis in areas where it was long established, together with its relentless spread into area after area of erstwhile non-Greek lands.