How densely should the settlements be placed?

[Ptakub]

I read some tutorials about demography already (that and that especially), but while providing many informations about numbers and relations, I couldn't conclude much about distances and arrangement.
So here's my question:

How densely should I place villages, towns, cities and strongholds (respectively) depending on terrain, trade routes etc.? Talking about medieval fantasy world, circa XIV century.

What I know already:
- in a typical country we have a few big cities, few times more lesser cities, much more towns and thousands of villages
- most settlements will appear next to rivers, towns and cities will be created by good circumstances (arable land, big river, hill, trade routes and especially their crossings)
- standalone military outposts and especially strongholds will be placed close to the border and in strategic places (hills, valleys etc.)

What really, really bugs me most are the villages - how often should I meet them on the road? What distance should separate these small hamlets - few hours of travel, half a day, one day? It's quite important for me because I'll soon have to work in rather small scale for my RPG. And how strong is the impact of things like terrain type (I deal with mountains here), presence of rivers and routes on the village placement and its population?

[Korash]

I think a lot of the frequency dépends on population "density". In a place like England (Large population, small area) I would feel comfortable placing villages at a day or half day walk from each other...Greenland however ...not so close at all...

It gets rougher when you are talking about mountains because they generally have lower populations, and what they have will be concentrated in the fertile valleys...which would not usually be as close as a days walk. You have to take into account that it take MUCH longer to walk through mountains (a lot of walking up and down slopes calls for more frequent rests and is slower too.). Something that might be a days walk as the crow flys, might actually take about a week on foot due to slopes, un crossable rivers and switch backs and stuff like that. ALL mountain vilages will be on a water source ...imagine having to haul water up mountain slopes all day...and usually on a route so that they can get supplies more easily. No use making mountain life harder than it has to be...

[Azélor]

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that most of the arable lands will be cultivated given enough time. Most of it is like 90-95% maybe, because there will always be areas that are not cultivated for plenty of reasons, like there are abandoned buildings in cities despite the high land value. Farmers usually live separately, not in hamlets. Hamlets and larger villages tend to form naturally because farmers need products or services that they can't make themselves. The blacksmith is a good example. Commoners don't have the tools/materials/time to do properly. Having a blacksmith is viable only if there is enough people around if he hopes to do that as a living or he could also have a small patch of land to grow his own food.

Villages is also the place where people can meet and exchanges goods in a market for example. They are mostly formed because of commerce/trade.
That would be the place where they go to church..

So the village is a place where people can go a few times a week. Small villages shouldn't be more than a few hours away at worst. But as mentioned by Korash, that would depend on the population density. More people means more villages for the same area. Some areas in China and India have crops like rice that are very productive but are also very labor intensive (rice for example). That means that people can live in small communities near the fields instead of having individual homes. In less productive areas, the same field can feed/provide work for less people so instead of walking longer, they might prefer to have their homes closer to the field.


Lastly, the presence of rivers and routes have no impact on the placement of rivers. As I mentioned above, if the area is cultivated, there is already plenty of water. the village needs to have access to freshwater but a small one could do. If your located in a temperate climate, there are plenty of them. If there is an important (or less important) route, the village is likely to become larger because it attract people from more distant places. But just keep in mind that not all villages crossed by a route will become a town. Distance between towns should be larger than for villages.

[Azélor]

In addition, look for the central place theory.
It can help you place the settlements but I could not find numbers for the distance/size of the different level of settlement.

[Midgardsormr]

You might find this thread helpful: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ead.php?t=3391