A town in the taiga, on the coast
With what grows here (barley and dredge, rye and maslin), this land can feed a town of about 6,800 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Winchester around 1300.
Build a town in the taiga, on the coast
A town of 10,000 here
Its grain comes from 30 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). About 1,400 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 61 km around, 2.5 days by cart (fragile). A city of 150,000 cannot live off this land alone.
In history
In 1553 an English ship looking for a sea route to China ended up in the White Sea, near the mouth of the Northern Dvina. Ivan IV gave English merchants trading privileges in 1555, Dutch ships followed from the 1560s, and in 1584 Ivan ordered a town founded there, later named Arkhangelsk. Although it was icebound in winter, it stayed Muscovy's main sea outlet while Sweden held the Baltic. Fire destroyed most of the wooden town in 1619 and again in 1637. Peter the Great set up a state shipyard there in 1693, but five months of ice limited the port, and from 1703 Saint Petersburg drew its trade away.
On Hudson Bay, the Hudson's Bay Company built York Factory in 1684 near the mouth of the Hayes River. Seagoing ships could not come close: they anchored at Five Fathom Hole, 11 km away, and smaller boats carried the goods ashore. For its first century the post did not send traders out; First Nations traders brought furs to it down the rivers. The French took it in 1694 and again in 1697 and held it until 1713. In 1837 a chief trader took leave of the place, “its fogs, and bogs and mosquitoes, with little regret”.
How large a city?
| People | Grain from | By cart | Villages | Scholars | By ship to fit in a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | 17 km around | 1 day (comfortable) | 420 | 12 | – |
| 10,000 | 30 km around | 1.5 days (strained) | 1,400 | 40 | 35% |
| 40,000 | 61 km around | 2.5 days (fragile) | 5,500 | 160 | 85% |
| 150,000 | 120 km around | 5 days (not by land alone) | 21,000 | 600 | more than ships can bring |
| 1,000,000 | 300 km around | 12.5 days (not by land alone) | 140,000 | 4,000 | more 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 iron. About 250 market towns stand in its countryside.
About 45% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 25%, fish 50%, gardens 25%. That is some 2,500 livestock units on 37 km² of pasture, and about 1,100 fishers in 270 boats. Hearth estimate.
What makes it hard
- Ice closes the sea for months each year, so all trade must come and go in the open season.
- Shallow coasts keep big ships far out, and every cargo must be ferried in by small boats.
- Frozen ground heaves. A fort of stone and brick built on permafrost may crack and have to be torn down, while timber buildings stand.
- Wooden towns burn: a timber port can lose most of its houses in a single fire.
- A ruler can move the trade by decree. When a better port opens, the old one may be barred from handling more than it consumes.
Hard years
About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 480 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 7,100 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, Goats, Honey and wax (at a cost), Furs, Timber, Charcoal, Pitch and tar, Fish, Salt fish (at a cost), Whale oil, Shipyards
What it lives on
Barley and dredge, Rye and maslin
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): Activated Charcoal, American Bison Meat, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beetle Wing, Bilberry, Juniper Wood
Hear it
- The town: Fantasy Medieval City (album RPG Ambiences Vol. 6)
- The market: Medieval Village Marketplace (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
- The quays: Cold Harbor (on Patreon, Raven tier)
- The countryside: Walking in a Lively Tundra (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
Taiga in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds
The same climate
A town in the taiga, A town in the taiga, on a river
By city size
1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000, 100,000, 300,000, 1,000,000
Sources
- Wikipedia contributors, Arkhangelsk, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia contributors, Pomors, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia contributors, York Factory, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
Open the city builder — MGS Toolbox