Need help on scale and travel

[Knighthood]

All,

It has bee a while since I last posted, and it's been a while since I had some time to keep writing and building out my world for a story (that I hope to one day eventually finish... I just want it out of my head...). A while back I had hand drawn a map to at least give myself something to work with. From that point I decided to find a digital means to try and recreate it. I had made a fairly rudimentary map of the area using Inkarnate.

My question/issue is regarding scaling and sizing.

I want to have the coastal city on the bottom right take about two weeks of standard wagon travel to get to the city in the upper left corner.

Some background, this is for a fantasy, medieval-esque world, that does have magic but that is not used heavily for transportation. So major forms for land would be caravan, wagons, walking, horseback, etc... Assuming that an average wagon day would be 10-20 miles a day, I estimated that the cities are about 210 miles apart (15 miles per day x 14 days). Also, what's on the map is just a part of a much larger continent. The world is not young, and there have been many kingdoms that have come and gone that have taken the entire continent and fallen. The city on the South Eastern coast is a major port city, that has stood for a very long time as it has always been a valuable entry point into this part of the continent. The city in the North Western part is not very old, and was only built around 100-200 years before the point that the story takes place. It was built as a defensive barrier between this area and the rest of the continent. So the infrastructure was originally high walls, castle structures, etc.. but as time went on and peace took over and populations grew and expanded accordingly.

The question I have, in a medieval setting like that, with that long of a journey, how likely would there be other towns or villages between those two points?

The Coastal city would be the largest, in comparison to all others, with massive amounts of trade. The city in the North West would be large as well, but it's more of a barrier between this map and the rest of the continent, and wedges itself between the Northern and Western mountain ranges.

So, again, my mind is racking itself trying to figure out my character's journey from point A (the coastal city) to point B (the North Western city) and how often they would come upon other settlements (at least what would be appropriate for a wagon ride of two weeks between two major cities like this).

Any advice, thoughts, criticism, help would be much appreciated. Thank you so very much.

[Azélor]

https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=19730

Based on the linked topic, on a flat terrain with roads, a horse can travel 40 miles per day. It's about the same speed as a pedestrian. 210/40 = 5,25 days
Maybe if they have to pull a wagon they are somewhat slower but I don't know by how much.


As for the presence of other settlements. the density is affected by population density. For instance, Russia and India would have a very different density. In India, it would be common to pass through several villages in a single day. In a sparse environment like Eastern Europe, (not Siberia) villages might be several hours away from each other. Village exist manly for trading and people living nearby need to be able to reach the village in a reasonable time (no more than a few hours trip).

[Carolyn]

This might be helpful to you. It is a source for travel times during ancient Rome. Please note that according to my husband the historian Roman roads are better than Medieval roads, so it will take a bit longer than the travel times here. But it is still a very useful tool. It shows the time taken by river, sea, and land using a variety of conveyances.

http://orbis.stanford.edu/

[Knighthood]

Thank you both very much.

As much as I know I can make the world however I want it to be, I want to at least be reasonable on scaling. The overall purpose was to put those two cities at two weeks worth of travel to get from one point to another.

And with the map I made the land very fertile, but lots of hills, and though I'm not that good at all at designing maps, I tried to get the concept that the land depressed South Easterly, so that the city at the bottom would hit the shore.

So, with the information I would actually put up the two weeks to being more around 400 miles away with decent roads since this would be the main vein that feeds these cities to each other. My other assumption is that a road would most likely follow a river for access to water, and same as with stopping at a town or village they would need water as well.

Again, thank you very much. And any other thoughts or ideas are definitely welcomed.

[Carolyn]

What I would do is use the estimator on a hilly area (for example Portugal). I just tried Bracara Augusta to Asturica on the cheapest setting and it shows that the cheapest journey from Bracara Augusta to Asturica in July takes 9.2 days, covering 275 kilometers. So that gives you an idea of what it takes to take a wagon (which is the likely conveyance someone selling things is going to take) across mountainous or hilly terrain.

[Carolyn]

Thank you both very much.

So, with the information I would actually put up the two weeks to being more around 400 miles away with decent roads since this would be the main vein that feeds these cities to each other. My other assumption is that a road would most likely follow a river for access to water, and same as with stopping at a town or village they would need water as well.

Again, thank you very much. And any other thoughts or ideas are definitely welcomed.

I am wondering how true this would be. I'm currently working on this issue myself for a novel set in 38 AD. When I took a look at the roads in Eritrea, they were not following the river, which was used for transport. They were leading to the river or to towns along the river. I think it depends on what your fictional world primarily uses for transportation. Along the Nile and on the Mississippi and the Amazon Rivers people used barges and ships to transport items. The roads led to the rivers and came from the mines or forests or farms that had the products that needed to be transported.

[Azélor]

a road would most likely follow a river for access to water, and same as with stopping at a town or village they would need water as well.

Yes and no. If you are in a temperate climate, the land is dotted with lakes and rivers. There is no need for the roads to specifically follow a river.
Usually roads follow the shortest path between 2 areas, more or less.
A road would follow the water sources (oasis or rivers) if it is in a desert for example but it's not really the case in a temperate climate.
No roads would be heading in the middle of the desert unless there is a water source not too far away. And I guess they might not always follow where the water is either but road go where the population is and the people need water to survive.

[TaniaGomesArt]

Azélor is right.

Since Portugal was brought to this thread and I'm from Portugal I'm going to use it as an example.
If you see a map of Portugal, you see the main rivers and lakes, but you don't see the huge amount of very small streams of water, fountains and other small water sources.
Nowadays a lot of these are already destroyed by our "society's progress", and its lack of respect for nature. But still, we have a lot of places like this, so in the past, I believe you could have a road that didn't follow a river but had a lot of water sources along the way.

[Knighthood]

I greatly appreciate all the advice everyone has put in here. Thank you all very much.

My issue was that I was trying to figure out distance and duration, and then possibly come up with how likely there would be hamlets or small villages along the way.

And as Azélor pointed out, doing more research, you're right. From the map I created, I assumed the river heading South Eastward towards the coastal town, so I can see transport of goods down the river. Very similar to us discussing Portugal (traveled there a few years ago, beautiful country, great music and wonderfully welcoming people), the Douro was used to send fortified wines (Port) from the vineyards down to the city of Port.

I recall driving from Port to some of the vineyards and following the Douro, with the massively winding roads that followed the river, I primarily saw many vineyards along the rolling hills leading down to the river with the occasional small eatery/gas station/and maybe a grocery store all with homes above, but other towns or villages were few and far between and were primarily more inland.

I think the hardest part is what Azélor stated:
"And I guess they might not always follow where the water is either but road go where the population is and the people need water to survive."

How does one decide to grow a population in an area from one point to another? There are so many factors, and if this is my world I could do what I want, but I want to be as fair as possible. I would like for the city in the upper left to have a much cooler climate as the land climbs, so snowy winters and pleasant summers with long springs and falls. However, the city in the lower right, I always envisioned more like Santorini, a very hilly coastal city with Mediterranean coastal weather.

So from these two points, how frequent would one come across a village or maybe a town?

I would assume that an inn every night of a two week journey wouldn't happen, that would seem like there would be sizable villages along the way.

Thoughts?

[Aileron]

I approach answering your question from a slightly different angle: supply and demand.

I assume that these two major towns would be the major trade hubs in the region, and as such they would do most the trade between each other as well. This means there would be a steady stream of traffic going both ways. Many wagons, individuals, and caravans, going back and forth between these cities. While most are likely willing to camp for the night. If the cities are a couple hundred years old, I imagine a few people would have had the idea to make an in or three along the way. Maybe not 14 of them for each day of travel, but at minimum a midpoint makes some level of sense. If the sea city is by far larger, then perhaps there is more cause for less hubs in between. At which point if all roads lead to the southeast, then the remaining inquiry I would pose to you is this: How much farmland is needed to sustain the city?

There could easily be a hundred small towns with no names in the southwest and northeast, but eventually a symbiosis between having fresh water and shortest distance between points makes for where medium sized towns would pop up. Small farmers might not worry about getting their goods all the way to the big city, so they bring their goods in to these medium towns who do the larger trading as you get closer to the big city. Ultimately someone would capitalize on the opportunities for a few inns/stables between the two, and these would make a channel for foot traffic accordingly between the two, even if not a direct route. I would say put yourself in a travelers'shoes from several spots on the map and think how when you multiply that by a larger number and over the years how many people would pay for a roof and a warm meal in between their journey from the middle of nowhere to the big city.

TLR: I personally think there would be a few friendly farmers who would lend a roof and meal for a day of work along the way, and anywhere between 1-4 major stopping points between the two cities for inns, trade, stables, and blacksmiths for wagon repair etc.