A town in the mediterranean scrub, on a river
With what grows here (wheat, barley and dredge, pulses), this land can feed a town of about 25,000 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Toulouse around 1300.
Build a town in the mediterranean scrub, on a river
A town of 10,000 here
Its grain comes from 16 km around, 1 day by cart (comfortable). About 330 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 32 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). Grown to 150,000 people, its grain comes from 62 km around, 2.5 days by cart (fragile). A city of 1,000,000 cannot live off this land alone.
In history
Seville grew on the soft alluvial ground of the Guadalquivir, a river port and a flood plain at once. Around 1200 its Almohad governor built the Torre del Oro and drew an iron chain across the river to a tower on the far bank; the tower also served as a shelter during floods. The river was the city's road and its weak point. In 844 about 80 Viking ships came up it and took Seville by storm, and in May 1248 Ramon Bonifaz sailed up and broke the bridge that carried food from the Aljarafe farms; the city surrendered that November. From 1503 Seville held the royal monopoly of trade with the Americas, and its Casa de Contratación took a fifth of all precious metals entering Spain.
The river silted, floods kept coming, and the plague of 1649 may have killed some 60,000 of 130,000 people; the poor rioted over bread in 1652, and in 1717 the Casa moved to Cádiz. Rome knew the same bargain on the Tiber: ships went 100 km upriver and Ostia took in wheat, oil and wine, but the Campus Martius flooded regularly up to 2 m deep, and silt forced Claudius and Trajan to dig a new harbour.
How large a city?
| People | Grain from | By cart | Villages | Scholars | By ship to fit in a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | 9 km around | 0.5 days (comfortable) | 100 | 12 | – |
| 10,000 | 16 km around | 1 day (comfortable) | 330 | 40 | – |
| 40,000 | 32 km around | 1.5 days (strained) | 1,300 | 160 | 40% |
| 150,000 | 62 km around | 2.5 days (fragile) | 5,000 | 600 | 85% |
| 1,000,000 | 160 km around | 6.5 days (not by land alone) | 33,000 | 4,000 | more than ships can bring |
Living there
Its woods spare enough to burn: about 8,800 tonnes of wood a year for its hearths and workshops. Provisional figure.
Its market sells grain, vines and wine, olives and oil, herbs and maize, and buys iron and salt. About 34 market towns stand in its countryside.
About 30% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 33%, fish 35%, gardens 33%. That is some 2,200 livestock units on 32 km² of pasture, and about 510 fishers in 130 boats. Hearth estimate.
What makes it hard
- The river that makes the town rich also silts up, year after year, and a rival port with a better harbour waits to take the trade.
- Floods come with the heavy rains. Low quarters go under, and a great flood can kill more than a thousand people.
- An enemy fleet can sail straight to the walls. A chain across the river, towers on both banks and a guarded bridge are the town's first defence.
- Cut the bridge and the town starves: its bread comes from farms across the water.
- A crowded river port is a door for plague, and a town that has lost half its people is a town on edge: three years after its great plague, Seville rose in a bread riot.
Hard years
About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 600 of the 2,100 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 980 km² of its fields idle.
What it can make
Grain (at a cost), Vines and wine, Olives and oil, Flax (at a cost), Dye plants (at a cost), Orchards (at a cost), Herbs, Maize, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides (at a cost), Cheese, Pigs and bacon, Goats, Honey and wax, Timber, Charcoal, Fish, Shipyards
What it lives on
Wheat, Barley and dredge, Pulses
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): Agave Leaf, Handful of Almonds, Amaranth Seed, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beeswax Block, Beetle Wing
Hear it
- The town: Fantasy Medieval City (album RPG Ambiences Vol. 6)
- The market: Medieval Village Marketplace (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
- The quays: Medieval Harbor District (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
- The countryside: Walking in a Mediterranean Region (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
Mediterranean Scrub in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds
The same climate
A town in the mediterranean scrub, A town in the mediterranean scrub, on the coast
By city size
1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000, 100,000, 300,000, 1,000,000
Sources
- Wikipedia contributors, Mediterranean climate, Wikipedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia contributors, History of Seville, Wikipedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia contributors, Tiber, Wikipedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
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