A town in the alpine meadow, on a river

With what grows here (barley and dredge, rye and maslin, oats), this land can feed a town of about 3,300 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls.

Build a town in the alpine meadow, on a river

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 44 km around, 2 days by cart (strained). About 1,000 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. On the water, ships can bring part of the grain: for a city of 40,000, 95% of it keeps the haul within a day.

In history

Gondar stands at about 2,130 m in the Ethiopian Highlands, north of Lake Tana, on the Lesser Angereb River. In 1636 Emperor Fasilides chose it for his royal camp, at the place where caravans from Sudan and the Red Sea met. He built a castle of stone and lime and, beside the Qaha river, a pleasure pool with a stone pavilion. In 1648 a Yemeni envoy saw beds from Constantinople there, and mattresses from India glittering with gold. In 1669 and 1670 Emperor Yohannes I ordered Muslims and Jews to live apart from Christians: the Muslims settled in the lower town near the Qaha, and the Beta Israel were given quarters near the same river. Under Iyasu I (1682 to 1706) the city was estimated at more than 60,000 people.

Lhasa stands at about 3,600 m on the Kyi River, a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo. Its old name, Rasa, meant "goat's place": it was a herding site. In 637 King Songtsen Gampo built the first palace on the Red Hill, where the Potala now stands. In 1716 the Jesuit Ippolito Desideri found Mongol, Chinese, Muscovite, Armenian, Kashmiri and Nepalese traders in its market. Tibet sent out musk, gold, medicinal plants, furs and yak tails, and took in tea, sugar, saffron, Persian turquoise, European amber and Mediterranean coral.

How large a city?

PeopleGrain fromBy cartVillagesScholarsBy ship to fit in a day
3,00024 km around1 day (comfortable)31012–
10,00044 km around2 days (strained)1,0004070%
40,00087 km around3.5 days (not by land alone)4,20016095%
150,000170 km around7 days (not by land alone)16,000600more than ships can bring
1,000,000440 km around17.5 days (not by land alone)100,0004,000more than ships can bring

Living there

Its woods spare enough to burn: about 18,000 tonnes of wood a year for its hearths and workshops. Provisional figure.

Its market sells grain, flax, herbs, potato and wool, and buys timber, iron and salt. About 250 market towns stand in its countryside.

About 50% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 59%, fish 35%, gardens 6%. That is some 6,500 livestock units on 97 km² of pasture, and about 850 fishers in 210 boats. Hearth estimate.

What makes it hard

  • The air is thin: Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world, and its air holds only about two thirds of the oxygen found at sea level.
  • The rains close the roads: in the rainy season expeditions stop, and even an emperor stays in his capital.
  • A capital lives and dies with its court. After 1706 Gondar declined, and in 1767 the warlord Ras Mikael Sehul killed the emperor and crowned another.
  • A crowded capital catches epidemics: an outbreak of smallpox was reported at Gondar in 1770.
  • A rich valley capital draws armies: a Qing army entered Lhasa in 1720, and a riot in 1750 left more than a hundred dead.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 460 of the 1,600 tonnes of grain its land gives it, and the water lets it bring the gap in. A plague that kills 39% of the town, as the Black Death did in Europe's towns, would leave about 7,400 km² of its fields idle.

What it can make

Grain (at a cost), Flax, Orchards (at a cost), Herbs, Potato, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides, Cheese, Pigs and bacon (at a cost), Goats, Honey and wax (at a cost), Furs, Fish, Shipyards (at a cost)

What its land cannot give, a town here must buy: timber.

What it lives on

Barley and dredge, Rye and maslin, Oats

Underground

What a city digs depends on the rock under it: Granite, Volcanic rock, Ultramafic rock (peridotite, serpentinite), Schist and gneiss, Marble, Limestone and chalk, Sandstone, shale and clay, Salt beds, River gravels and sands

Found here

Gathered (Rerum): Bistort Bulbils, Bistort Root, Alpine Marmot Fat, Alpine Marmot Tooth, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beeswax Block

Hear it

Alpine Meadow in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the alpine meadow, A town in the alpine meadow, on the coast

By city size

1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000, 100,000, 300,000, 1,000,000

Sources

Open the city builder — MGS Toolbox