
What factors do you heavily take into consideration when deciding where to place cities on your world map?
Edit: Okay. This blew up. Thank you for all the answers. It'll take me a while to go through and respond to them. I really appreciate this, Thank you again.
TLDR: See world map. Where to place cities? Medieval ages.
I am at the stage of worldbuiling where I am about to place encampments, settlements, villages and cities on the map of my world.
I have basic ideas on where these should be placed based on various factors.
My intention in asking this to all of you is to see if there are any factors that I may have missed out or not personally thought of.
For reference, below is a gist of my world:
- Takes place on Earth 250 million years in the future.
- The continents have merged to form the super-continent of Pangea Proxima/Ultima
- Magic exists
- A lot of fantasy races, creatures and deities similar to Dungeons and Dragons lore.
- Countles cataclysmic events that "rebooted" the world back to the equivalent of the stone ages.
- The world is currently in the stage where it would be equivalent to our medieval ages.
- Cross ocean travel has not been discovered yet.
- Most of the inhabitants believe the world is flat.
- There exists a network of interconnecting massive caverns that cris-cross under the whole super continent. Nobody knows exactly how deep they go or what dwells there. (Similar to the Underdark from D&D.)
Attached is an image of how the world looks like. Not my image. I did a google search for Pangea Proxima/Ultima and that is what I found.
My world map will be based on this map. The main difference is that the areas nearer to the poles will be colder and be in perpetual winter similar to our North and South Poles. Also the areas nearer to the equator will be warmer and not go through the 4 seasons. Basically summer all year round similar to our tropical areas near the equator.
Thank you in advance.