A town in the cold desert, on a river

With what grows here (barley and dredge, millet), this land can feed a town of about 3,700 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls.

Build a town in the cold desert, on a river

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 41 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

In Khwarazm, the Amu Darya fed Gurganj, today Kunya-Urgench, capital of the Khwarazmian rulers and a Silk Road crossing. A dam just east of the town irrigated the land and held back the river from flowing on to the Caspian. In 1221 the Mongols destroyed both town and dam, and the country around turned to marsh. The town rose again, then rebelled against Timur, who in 1388 razed it, wrecked its irrigation and had barley sown where it had stood. With a sudden change in the river's course it declined until Khiva replaced it as capital in the 16th century, and in the 17th century Khiva grew into a slave market.

In upper Ladakh, Leh stands at about 3,500 m in a cold desert, a stop for centuries on the trade routes of the Indus valley between Tibet, Kashmir, India and China. Caravans carried salt, grain, pashm wool, indigo, silk yarn and Banaras brocade. Farming was hard: at that height only one crop a year grows, mainly naked barley, ground for tsampa, the staple food. The water comes from the Indus, which runs low in March and April, just when the barley fields need it most. King Sengge Namgyal built the palace that still overlooks the town, probably between 1631 and 1642.

How large a city?

PeopleGrain fromBy cartVillagesScholarsBy ship to fit in a day
3,00022 km around1 day (comfortable)31012–
10,00041 km around2 days (strained)1,0004065%
40,00082 km around3.5 days (not by land alone)4,20016095%
150,000160 km around6.5 days (not by land alone)16,000600more than ships can bring
1,000,000410 km around16.5 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, herbs, wool, horses and cheese, and buys timber and iron. About 220 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 river can leave. A sudden change in the Amu Darya's course helped finish old Urgench: a town on a desert river may one day find its channel dry.
  • The dam is the first target. When the Mongols broke the Gurganj dam in 1221, the irrigated land around the town became a marsh.
  • The river is lowest when the fields need it most: in Ladakh the Indus runs low in March and April, just as the barley wants water.
  • At altitude there is one harvest a year, and a bad summer cannot be made up before the next one.
  • People are a trade good too. Khiva and Bukhara were great slave markets: in the first half of the 19th century some 30,000 Persians, and Russians in unknown numbers, were enslaved there before being sold.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 410 of the 1,400 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 6,500 km² of its fields idle.

What it can make

Grain (at a cost), Flax (at a cost), Orchards (at a cost), Herbs, Wool, Horses, Cattle and hides (at a cost), Cheese, Pigs and bacon (at a cost), Goats, Camels, 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, Millet

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): Bactrian Camel Meat, Bactrian Camel Milk, Bactrian Camel Wool, Beetle Wing, Sagebrush Leaves, Sagebrush Seeds, Chukar Egg, Chukar Meat

Hear it

Cold Desert in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the cold desert, A town in the cold desert, 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