World Building- Trade, Ports, & Harbors

Let me tell you a little story once upon a time in the ancient world a man stood on the beach looked back towards his village then out at the waves and said ah I’ll do everything out there now maybe there is just nowhere to farm maybe there are too many people maybe he

Just wanted some good old mermaid tail scholars disagree regardless this sea has a bunch of stuff to offer like fish and trade but you’ll need some boats and somewhere to put those boats that’s what harbours are useful for because you don’t want big waves damaging your ships when they’re more to

Land so if you have something to block those waves it’s nice harbors should be deep so the ships don’t drag against the bottom open so ships have enough room to maneuver around safe so ships don’t have to worry about crashing into rocks or anything and sheltered above and below water so

Waves winds and strong currents don’t pummel the vessels but if you don’t have all of these in your ideal harbor spot fear not with enough willpower time and technology you can always dredge out the bottom destroy the rocks or build breakwaters so you could either possess a natural harbour or build one

And of course as ships get bigger harbors will need to be larger but at the same time Harbor building technologies will likely be better natural ones could be found in fjords glacially called inlet valleys with steep mountain slopes estuaries and enclosed place where river meets the sea

Ria’s a submerged river valley with tree lake branches and a small river feeding into it coastal lagoons big shallow pools with a breach into the ocean straits of the water between land and an island and bays which are enclosed because that’s just how the land is

Shaped of course if you’re looking for a big port city to pop up the land around it will have to be flatfish livable and well defended because everyone in the area is going to be eyeing that sexy-ass Harbor for protection you can build defenses like walls around to the harbor

Towers and ports on its sides maybe you can have a chain to draw up to keep ships from entering maybe naval mines that explode peanut butter if you have hills around your harbor and islands and barriers in front of the port you can use these to your advantage

And of course you can have ports and rivers usually on an island or on the banks but the perfect Harbor could be totally useless if it’s not well positioned if you want a really powerful trading city you’ve got to have a port that has easy access to big trade routes

Especially on choke points there are two particularly prominent examples Byzantium and Malacca you knew that these were coming Byzantium was a Greek ven Roman ven Turkish city that was founded on the C Street connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Seas which is rife with trade the city is on

This narrow passage which allows Byzantine ships to easily hold off against naval attackers and there’s this little Inlet called the Golden Horn that’s a really good Harbor so naturally the situation of Byzantium is a major source of power for whoever controls it as it’s perfect for controlling and

Maintaining trade Malacca was a trade city that popped up on the Strait of Malacca which was the fastest way between China and the Indian subcontinent so it was overflowing with those sweet sexy spices Malaka would pay other people to control the street and to steer merchant ships

Towards it and paying tribute to the Chinese they were very well protected Miwako is also on the Indian Ocean trade routes of the monsoon marketplace which was huge because of the predictable trading winds that the sailors could use so naturally it became rich and very power of the Dutch just colonized it

Well it’s still a good port there are many other good case studies though Venice was big and trade because what else could they do in that swamp and to the Adriatic is easy to defend and maintain and it’s halfway between the trading powers of Western Europe and to the eastern Mediterranean after

Alexander of macedon death the harbor of alexandria was dredged out and built up becoming a huge port that connected the nile and the mediterranean zanzibar was a base to asian merchants trading with east african powers which had access to valuable resources like ivory and slaves chromium vladivostok are both important

Locations for russia as these ports won’t freeze over during the winter like the one in st. Petersburg will so it’s not enough to have a perfect harbor it also needs to be strategically placed to provide any benefits and real quick I just want to talk about two American

Ports that I really love New York and Pearl Harbor the ports in and around New York City are protected on two levels first the lower Bay is rather enclosed and the upper bay is accessed perpendicularly to where the ocean comes in from which protects the upper bay

From large ocean waves the upper bay is surrounded by Staten Island Long Island Manhattan and the mainland which gives it many entry and exit points it’s also dredged to be very deep it’s very wide and it has access to the Hudson River which is big and runs up half the state

Pearl Harbor is just beautiful look at that it’s so nice it looks fake it has one access point is very enclosed has a lot of room in it has a nice juicy island and is surrounded by hills and it’s smack dab in the middle of the Pacific

This Harbor is an Admiral’s wet dream building a port primarily concerns docks which are just places where ships are tied down this is usually piers jutting into the water or solid walls against the water two more ships – while their ships will be resupplied and repaired cargo will be traded in the market

Sailors would probably have a pretty good time on land dock workers would work on the ships or load tie-down and unload cargo they’ve used metal hooks to drag containers around and cranes powered by oxen a lot of people would be weighing and pricing goods on scales a customs office would keep records of

Ships and tax and inspect vessels each cargo in the port which was hard to do because products didn’t have standardized boxes or bags like they do today things being built for the port could be warehouses to keep cargo lighthouses trading posts and smaller ducts to hold row boats that could help

The ships into port oftentimes ships would maneuver around the port using or power but usually they’d be pulled in using lines cast into the dogs sometimes buoys would be placed in the harbor to indicate where the deep channels are it would also be beneficial for ports to

Not have a big difference between high and low tide as this requires more scheduling around when the ships can come and go so places like the Bay of Fundy which are essentially shaped to funnel tides in and out aren’t the best for ports there’s also the presence of

Currents which make maneuvering in the port a bit more difficult having a river flowing into the harbour may create or counteract these currents before cities were dominated by industrial and service economies ports would heavily affect the culture and lifestyles of the people living in the cities and yeah I know

Industrial cities rely on ports shipping canals and all that kind of stuff so it did change the culture there but that’s not the kind of culture that I mean I’m talking about people in port cities would often lose a lot and gain a ton it wasn’t too uncommon for ships to sink

With sailors on it that were regular people from the city along with cargo that was paid for by a rich merchant employers but people returning from voyages could have amounted a lot of wealth and foreign goods this makes it so that many institutions agreements companies and treatises we’re created to

Accommodate for the problems and risks that being a trade hub posed port cities see people come from all over so they’re at a larger risk for plague this also means that there’s going to be more diversity and usually a culture that’s more tolerant to these other kinds of

People’s because it’s good for business and if this life of risk and reward teaches anything it’s good business sense but this could mean that the politicians are more cut-through which is good for getting power and writing cool stories or they’re really good at cooperating which is good for business

And stability big port towns could have thriving businesses and markets based off of what’s essentially trade or tourism they also have a tendency to be more independent from the non trade oriented lands around them since trade heavily influences culture and language therefore trade cities in the past often become their own powers

That expanded to own more and more land and bigger and better markets and of course over time a host of issues could bring a trade power down Wars plague political dominoes all that kind of stuff but the existence of a trade power would help advance technology and art

Since ideas could be brought from all over and a lot of people would get enough money to want to hang an expensive but pretty looking piece of paper on their wall so because this is most famously the biography of Venice I’ll direct you to the overly sarcastic productions several videos on it

Anyway being at sea was a hard business you were basically piloting a barrel while in the middle of the freakin ocean series would usually be pretty busy because there would always be something to repair on a ship ships would leak ropes would deteriorate things would have rust and tarnish it would also kind

Of suck while you’re on a ship unless you’ve got a weird fetish for it you’d be chowing down on dried meat fish and hard tack for months at a time there was a strict hierarchy that could not be questioned and often people would be whipped and beaten to keep order and

Authority and there it also be scurvy and disease but they had a lot of alcohol to deal with it but that’s also a disease at the same time you’d get to travel the world to meet a lot of people and to have a lot of stories to tell if

You survived but that is a real if because storms disease pirates and Krakens I wet my pants are hanging of parapet more all big problems merchant ships would often need to be armed or travel with warships but hey someone’s got to get lured hemp’s buried chesterton the third of berming with

Shire tunning Hamm castle filled his cinnamon for his eggnog right with all of this delicious spices at stake it’s no wonder as to why people wanted to fight over ports Russia’s quest for ports that could function during the winter is the best example often times these fights would be costly and

Maintaining the land of a port can be expensive it’s worth it strategically and economically having access to trade is very profitable even if you don’t dominate it ports also allowed for navies to be made which when things like trade and colonization are present is big for securing power although port

Cities would always need to be on the lookout for people who wanted to blockade it pillage it or burn ships in cargo for the government and nobility having sports was useful for Texas diplomacy in deciding who could use your port and getting fancy had since spice for the biggest trade hubs life

Would revolve around the ports not really in modern-day though because our big port cities tend to be dominated by service economies and shipping inland is a lot less expensive than it used to be but back then anything involving the ports and trade was huge for the people

That worked there trade deals could be life changing the weather and the ocean were culturally significant there were often upper classes of merchants and proprietors and if you’re like the Greeks and you don’t have any real resources on land you’ll have to turn to shipbuilding and fishing good thing they

Had natural harbors to use having a strategic port can build an empire but it’s dependent on trade in the region which isn’t always a guarantee if there’s instability for producers on this trade routes the trade could slow down or stop entirely possessing a good natural harbour can set the course of a

Civilization towards the sea and delete it towards great wealth or perhaps a slow decline in a lot of death and despair