How many cities do your stories have?

I'm kind of cheating my setting my book in the real world Generally speaking, though, I would think it would depend on how your story is laid out. Is it set only in one country? Then I would limit your map to that country, with important cities (capital, other places your characters may visit or refer to). Is it a political intrigue where they only stay in one place, but mention other countries? Then I might add the other countries, but point out fewer cities...You don't want to overwhelm you reader with places never mentioned, but you want it to be detailed enough to make it realistic.

I hope this helps!!

 

To be truthful, I don't have every place mapped out for the readers, and I don't have every major town or city named and established. Really, I don't have a 'map' for the reader--well, technically there is since it's a post apocalyptic setting. This also lends iteself to the POV used.

One thing isn't necessarily just adding cities because there isn't enough. There has to be terrain and resources available to support the cities and their populations. Just my two cents.

 

My main country has a good amount of large towns, but only four universally accepted city. The largest is set in the area of highest agricultural yield. The rest of the country is a little on the barren side, suitable for little more than grass, and therefore lower in population.

On the other hand I imagine some of the more fertile countries to have many more cities in smaller areas.

 

The setting of my story is in a country that is a marriage between barbarians and civilized types. (basically, a tribe of barbarians came down and kicked out a lordling from their old homelands, and the peasants stayed behind because they hated his guts.)

I kinda gave them a highland/scottish/irishy theme. The main city is called Ardbaile, yet its not a city. No stone. Wooden pallisades, wooden buildings, there's a port but its just some docks, a tavern, and ships on the sea. No real cities as we know them.

In other countries? how many is determined by the size of the kingdom.

 

I need to plant some more cities to my map because I've worldbuilt for an army of 5-600,000 men and I need to show where they all came from. I have planned out about twenty-something provinces for the Divine Empire, but I don't know that much about the cities except in areas where the story proper takes place.

 

How many cities? Erm...one? I don't really go in for world-building on a grand scale. Writing about a modern-day city riddled with faerie half-breeds, vampire mafia and unscrupulous magicians, whilst steering clear of cliches and "supernatural romance", is more than enough to keep me busy at the moment... Basically, it's a playground where I can mesh real-life city elements with pure invention, and explore different themes through focusing on the lives of the individuals who live within this environment.

The only down side is that I don't get to draw pretty maps with mountains and forests T.T

 

Hundreds, but most of them are very vague at this point.

That's different. The stories themselves are usually based in one city. A few stories have more than one city or town, but they take place one region. Having several cities on the map can make the map more realistic, but as a reader, I'd wonder when all these cities become relevant to the story. I'd have a basic story-based map for the book and the detailed one for people to peruse on my website.

 

I have four cities so far, one razed by a passing army, one hilltop walled city of temples, one standard city with tradesmen, etc. and one small village. There are many more, but not that has any part in my story yet.

 

Main cities/towns/villages
About 50.
Secondary ones three times that.

 

My story - well, stories - takes place primarily in one country, which has sixteen Provinces, and each has a number of mapped locations. I really only add to the map when I write something that takes place there or mentions it. I've got a number of different storylines (eight in the works, and another 5 I'm plotting), and each takes place in a different location around the country.

 

I've currently got 2 but as time passes, I hope to top that to 20. I really want my worlds to be this immersive place

 

I'm yet to decide. So far, one of the cities is a mega city and the other is just your average city, the planet itself will be rather large, you could compare it to a world in Final Fantasy.

 

I've only named a couple cities... and one country. Naming is the hardest part for me- characters, countries, cities, deities, etc. Hopefully, it will end up with a fully fleshed out world (a little bigger than our own) with dozens and dozens of cities. How many will actually be mentioned in stories, however...

 

That's always the challenge, isn't it? It's the balance between making the world as realistic and, as has been said, immersive as possible without loading the reader with too much needless info. I know people who have full planets plotted and mapped out on paper and in their minds, but it's never mentioned in the book unless it's relevant. Pratchett (my favourite reference for doing fantasy right ) is great at that. We know there's a whole Discworld, but when the book is set in Lancre, or Ankh-Morpork, there's nowhere really outside of that city.

 

One of my goals is to never make a place (country, city, wherever) the main setting of a book or a key point in a book unless it has been mentioned earlier in the series (with the obvious exception of the first book). A while ago I read The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan (not bad, but it is very YA so most people here probably wouldn't like it. I was [even] younger when I read it). It infuriated me that in almost every book we would be taken to another country we had never heard of. It started out interesting: oh, there's a viking like race to the north in a country called Skandia? Cool. Then it got annoying. Where the hell did the Temujai or whatever they're called come from? Certainly not anywhere before the third book. So, to sum this paragraph up, don't make up places right before you release your new book and throw them in as the main location. It pisses me off, and yes, I should be your main concern