what doesかどうかという mean in this sentence?

Question

I've been watching anime and came across this sentence:

全員足しても15人いるかどうかという寒村ぶりだ

I can't understand the meaning of かどうかという in this sentence.

The context is that the village is isolated, and it only has one classroom and one teacher. This is the MC monologue about this.

Answer 1

verb + かどうか is a grammar pattern that roughly means either of:

• (forming an embedded question) "whether or not"
  • What does this usage of 「かどうか」mean?
  • VかV-negか vs. V | V-neg vs. Vかどうか
• (forming an no-adjective-like phrase) "may or may not", "problem of whether or not", "whether-A-or-B situation"
  • Understanding ～かどうかだ

In your example, かどうか is used in the latter sense. For example, 生きるか死ぬかです means "We may or may not survive" or "We are in a life-or death situation". Click the above link to see some more examples.

Therefore:

この村は、全員足しても15人いるかどうか(だ/です)。
(literally) As for this settlement, even if we counted everyone, there may or may not be 15 people.
→ There are only 15 people or so at most in this settlement.

全員足しても15人いるかどうかの村
a settlement which has only 15 people or so at most

全員足しても15人いるかどうかという寒村ぶりだ。
(literally) It's the deserted-ness to the point where there are only 15 people at most.