A town in the temperate forest, on the coast

With what grows here (wheat, rye and maslin, barley and dredge, oats, pulses), this land can feed a town of about 22,000 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Toulouse around 1300.

Build a town in the temperate forest, on the coast

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 17 km around, 1 day by cart (comfortable). About 550 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 34 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). Grown to 150,000 people, its grain comes from 65 km around, 3 days by cart (fragile). A city of 1,000,000 cannot live off this land alone. Its farming is worked out on England, c. 1300.

In history

Bruges lay inland until a storm in 1134 broke through the Flemish coast and opened a tidal channel, the Zwin, reaching some 15 km into the land. Its merchants turned the city into one of the great ports of medieval Europe. English wool, Normandy grain and Gascon wine came in; the Hanseatic League kept a trading house there, and the first Genoese merchant fleet arrived in 1277. To take the bigger cogs, the harbour was pushed down the channel past Damme to Sluis. Around 1350 Bruges had at least 46,000 people. But the Zwin silted from the late 13th century, and around 1500 it became unusable.

On the other side of the world, Hakata on Kyushu faced the strait toward Korea and lived by trade with China and Korea; it housed Japan's first Chinatown. In November 1274 a Yuan and Korean fleet landed in Hakata Bay, burned the town and then withdrew to its ships. Expecting a second attack, the shogunate had a stone wall about two metres high built along the bay in 1276, and stakes driven into the river mouth and the likely beaches. In 1281 the invaders could not get past the wall, and a typhoon wrecked their fleet at anchor.

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. About 30 market towns stand in its countryside.

About 27% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 40%, fish 50%, gardens 10%. That is some 2,400 livestock units on 36 km² of pasture, and about 650 fishers in 160 boats. Hearth estimate.

What makes it hard

• Harbours silt up. The channel that made the town rich can fill with mud within a few generations, leaving its quays far from the sea.
• Ships keep growing. The port must move its landing toward the sea or build an outport, and the old quays lose their trade.
• One storm can remake the coast: it may open a new channel, or wreck a whole fleet riding at anchor in the bay.
• The sea brings raiders as easily as merchants. A harbour town can be burned in a day; the answer is a wall along the beach and stakes in the river mouth.
• Foreign merchants bring the money and can take it away: when the harbour fails, they move to a rival port.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 720 of the 2,500 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 880 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, Fish, Salt fish (at a cost), Whale oil, Shipyards

What it lives on

Wheat, Rye and maslin, Barley and dredge, Oats, 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): Aconite Branch, Activated Charcoal, Alder Bark, Alder Wood, Handful of Almonds, American Bison Meat, Black Bear Fat, Black Bear Hide

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 Forest in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the temperate forest, A town in the temperate forest, on a river

By city size

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

Sources

• Wikipedia contributors, Bruges, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Zwin, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Mongol invasions of Japan, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, Wikipedia, accessed 2026. en.wikipedia.org

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