A town in the temperate conifer forest, on a river

With what grows here (rye and maslin, oats, barley and dredge), this land can feed a town of about 7,200 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Winchester around 1300.

Build a town in the temperate conifer forest, on a river

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 29 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). About 830 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 59 km around, 2.5 days by cart (fragile). A city of 150,000 cannot live off this land alone.

In history

In Japan's Kiso valley, the upper Kiso River runs through a narrow V about 60 km long. Steep mountains leave little flat land: the fields lie on narrow flats along the river, and about 3,000 mm of rain falls each year. A mountain road through the valley is recorded from 702. Under the Tokugawa, logging grew fast, and works on the river made it possible to move large amounts of timber. The forests ran short, so the Owari branch of the Tokugawa brought in rules to conserve them and limit felling; the valley's great cypress forests are the result.

On the upper Columbia, near today's Canadian border, the river dropped nearly 50 feet through the rapids of Kettle Falls. People gathered there to fish for at least nine thousand years. Interior Salish speakers arrived about two thousand years ago, and the falls became the heart of a wide trade network built on salmon, drawing people from the coast and the Great Plains. Up to fourteen tribes met there in the spawning season, from June to October. Fishers stood on the rocks or on an island in the falls with spears and J-shaped baskets. A Sinixt writer explains that his people took the salmon too weak to clear the falls, so that only the strongest went on to spawn.

How large a city?

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, dye plants, orchards and herbs, and buys iron and salt. About 120 market towns stand in its countryside.

About 30% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 52%, fish 35%, gardens 13%. That is some 3,500 livestock units on 52 km² of pasture, and about 510 fishers in 130 boats. Hearth estimate.

What makes it hard

• Flat land is the scarce resource. In a steep river valley the fields fit only on the narrow flats along the water, and the town must live on its road and its timber.
• Timber sent off by the river pays well, until the slopes run short: then the lord must decide who may fell which tree.
• The salmon run is the year's harvest. It comes between June and October, and the whole region gathers at the falls to take it.
• A great fishing place draws many peoples, and someone must keep the peace: at Kettle Falls the villagers settled disputes and never joined a war party.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 640 of the 2,200 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 3,400 km² of its fields idle.

What it can make

Grain, Flax, Dye plants, Orchards, Herbs, Potato, Maize, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides, Cheese, Pigs and bacon, Goats, Honey and wax, Furs, Timber, Charcoal, Pitch and tar, Fish, Shipyards

What it lives on

Rye and maslin, Oats, Barley and dredge

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, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide, Black Bear Meat, Beeswax Block, Beetle Wing, Bilberry, Chamois Meat

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 Forest (on Patreon, Guardian tier)

Temperate Conifer Forest in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the temperate conifer forest, A town in the temperate conifer forest, on the coast

By city size

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

Sources

• Wikipedia contributors, Kiso Valley, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Kettle Falls, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Okanagan dry forests, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org

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