A town in the tropical dry forest, on the coast

With what grows here (millet, rice, pulses), this land can feed a town of about 61,000 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Ghent around 1300.

Build a town in the tropical dry forest, on the coast

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 10 km around, 0.5 days by cart (comfortable). About 420 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 20 km around, 1 day by cart (comfortable). Grown to 150,000 people, its grain comes from 39 km around, 2 days by cart (strained). On the water, ships can bring part of the grain: for a city of 1,000,000, 95% of it keeps the haul within a day.

In history

Acapulco, on Mexico's dry Pacific coast, had been a port since Cortés in the 1530s, but its fortune began in 1565, when Andrés de Urdaneta found the way back across the Pacific from the Philippines and reached it on 8 October. Until 1815 the Manila galleons sailed once or twice a year, bringing silk, porcelain, ivory, lacquer and spices bought from Chinese merchants with American silver. The crossing took at least four months. When a galleon came in, free Afro-Mexican dockworkers unloaded it, and mule trains carried the cargo along the China Road to Mexico City and on to Veracruz. In 1614 a Japanese embassy led by the samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga landed here.

The treasure drew raiders. Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish hunted the galleons, and of the 108 ships that worked the route, 26 were captured or sunk by enemies in wartime. A Dutch fleet attacked Acapulco in 1615 and destroyed much of the town; the Fort of San Diego went up the following year. An earthquake brought it down in 1776, and it was rebuilt between 1778 and 1783. Westward went silver, cochineal and the crops of the Americas, maize, sweet potato, tomato, tobacco and cacao, which reached Asia through this port.

How large a city?

Living there

Its woods spare enough to burn: about 3,500 tonnes of wood a year for its hearths and workshops. Provisional figure.

Its market sells grain, flax, cotton, sugar cane and spices, and buys iron. About 27 market towns stand in its countryside.

About 25% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 25%, fish 50%, gardens 25%. That is some 1,400 livestock units on 21 km² of pasture, and about 610 fishers in 150 boats. Hearth estimate.

What makes it hard

• From May to November, Pacific hurricanes and tropical storms can strike the bay.
• A cargo worth a fortune arrives on a known schedule, and every enemy fleet knows it. The port needs a fort, and the fort needs a garrison all year for a few weeks of danger.
• The ground shakes. A single earthquake can bring down the fortress that guards the harbour.
• The town lives by one ship. When the galleon comes, unloading, provisioning and the mule trains inland all fall in the same rush; the rest of the year the quays are quiet.
• On a crossing of four months, hunger, disease and scurvy could kill most of a crew. A ship may come in with too few hands to sail again.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 550 of the 1,900 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 790 km² of its fields idle.

What it can make

Grain, Flax, Cotton, Sugar cane, Spices, Dye plants, Orchards, Herbs, Maize, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides, Cheese, Pigs and bacon, Goats, Honey and wax, Silk, Ivory, Timber, Charcoal, Fish, Salt fish (at a cost), Pearls, Shipyards

What it lives on

Millet, Rice, 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): Activated Charcoal, African Buffalo Hide, African Buffalo Meat, Agave Leaf, Amaranth Seed, Beeswax Block, Beetle Wing, Capybara Hide

Hear it

• The town: City in the Jungle (album RPG Ambiences Vol. 8)
• The market: Medieval Village Marketplace (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
• The quays: Medieval Harbor District (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
• The countryside: Walking in a Jungle (on Patreon, Guardian tier)

Tropical Dry Forest in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the tropical dry forest, A town in the tropical dry 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, Acapulco, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Manila galleon, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Southern Pacific dry forests, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org

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