How to Create a Fictional City or Town for Your World

Part of the world building process is to be able to create cities and towns and settlements for a book, story, game, world, etc… Cities and towns are some of the most important locations that anyone will ever live in. Most of the bustle of daily life takes place in cities, from governments to commerce activities and beyond. A well-crafted location in a story doesn’t just serve as a backdrop, but it also helps add to your story. Cities and similar locations influence your characters’ choices and create opportunities for conflict, culture, and discovery. Whether you’re writing an epic fantasy, an intense science fiction novel, a dystopian saga, or even a contemporary tale, you need to create cities. A believable city or town will help anchor your readers in your world and create that immersion factor that matters to your writing. In this post, I’ll be breaking down how to create a fictional city the easy way so that you can get writing fast. 

Creating a city is a big part of the world building system that you will undertake when writing pretty much any sort of story. As a writer and author of over 10+ years, I’ve had a lot of world building experience. I think that it’s one of the most important aspects of the writing process, which is precisely why I’m giving away this free world building primer. It includes 10 free world building prompting questions to help you get started on your next project right away. Grab it below: 

And if you want to take your world building system to the next level, then grab a copy of my Ultimate Guide to World Building. It includes lessons on everything you need to know about world building in 340+ pages with tons of worksheet sections and guided questions. 

What is a City?

A city is basically a settlement that has a lot of people that live and work within it. Cities in our modern definition often include lots of skyscrapers, businesses, restaurants, apartments, government offices, etc… 

Some cities are designed more for commercial operations while other cities are designed more to be tourist locations. Think about a city like Columbus, Ohio vs a city like Dubai. Columbus is very much a commerce-focused city and most people don’t go there for leisure. Meanwhile, Dubai is a tourist-focused city with lots of commercial operations. It’s got plenty of business but is also designed for nightlife and fun. 

City vs Town: What’s the Difference?

Oftentimes, you might hear the word “town” being used in fantasy books or fictional contexts. A town is pretty much the same idea as a city. The big difference between a town and a city is basically the size. 

A city is officially a really large town. A town is a settlement of people. So, when you create a town for a fictional story, making it larger with a good population figure would likely push it into the idea of a city. 

Which Should You Pick: City or Town?

Picking whether to create a town or a city depends pretty much on the size of the country that this town or city is going to be located in. If your country is smaller and the population is more spread out, you’ll probably find more towns. If your country is somewhat of a massive and sprawling empire, then you’ll find cities and towns. 

Ultimately, picking your main location to create depends on what your story is and how it’s going to go. Maybe your character grew up in a small town outside of a city and eventually moves to a city later for work. Maybe you have a small kingdom in your fantasy story and there are some surrounding towns around the central castle. 

Why Fictional Cities and Towns Matter

Cities and towns are important for your stories and they matter a lot. They’re more than just where the story is going to take place, and you shouldn’t look at them as mere backdrops. Cities can create atmosphere, provide history, and shape the lives of people who inhabit them. 

Cities and towns have a big impact on the reader experience as well. When you ground the reader in the location of your story, they’ll feel more connected. They will feel like they could actually live within this city. 

When done well, your fictional city or town will be able to ground your readers in a consistent, immersive setting that feels real. It can also provide opportunities for plot development, conflict, and character growth. You’ll also be able to reflect the culture, politics, and values of your fictional world. 

A city can pretty much be one of the best reflections of the work you put into the world building. You want to think of your city almost like an entire character on its own and develop it with that in mind. 

How to Create a Fictional City/Town 

Step 1: Define the Purpose of Your City or Town

Before you even start sketching our streets and skyscrapers, you want to ask yourself this: why does this city exist? Every city or town that has ever existed in the real world existed for a reason. Some cities sprouted out of railroad towns. Other cities are located on strategic ports and harbors and became centers of trade/commerce. Other cities were built around a specific industry like textiles or coal. 

You also want to think about how the origin story of this settlement will actually impact the way the city exists in the present day. Some cities that were built around a specific industry still show signs of that industry’s impacts. Other cities have evolved over time for one reason or another, but keep records of their history. 

Step 2: Consider Geography and Location

Geography isn’t just something tacked onto a city as an afterthought. One of the most important features of a city is its geographical location. Think of it this way: A city in the mountains is definitely not going to be the same as a city along the coast. The climate and the location of a city impacts the way people live, work, speak, eat, etc… Think of the country that you live in and compare a couple of cities and think about how they’re different because of their geography. 

For instance, in the United States, you have a city like New York City and then a city like Omaha, Nebraska. These are located in two different parts of the country with vastly different climates. While NYC is bustling, along an important harbor, and is surrounded by water, Omaha isn’t. That makes the cuisine, the economic development, and the way of life completely different in both cities. 

Geography and location play a big role in the way a city survives as well. In the mountains, you’ll find more stone construction. Deserts might include lots of shade and indoor spaces. Swamp towns would probably have stilts to elevate homes and prevent high levels of flooding. 

Step 3: Build Infrastructure and Layout

Now that you’ve understood the purpose and geography of your city, you actually want to think about the city’s layout. Is the city planned meticulously with straight avenues and districts or is it more chaotic with lots of highways that intersect weirdly? Are there canals like in Venice that require differences in some of the roads and building structures? Where are important landmarks located? 

Creating a map of your city is a pretty good way to get this down visually. Some things you want to consider while creating a map are the following: 

• Roads and transportation methods
• Public spaces
• Housing and potential divisions in class
• Defenses (i.e., walls, towers, gates, etc…)

A great way to get some inspiration is to just open up Google Maps and scroll around a bunch of cities and notice the way things are structured. If you’re looking at something like Los Angeles vs San Francisco, you’ll notice some deliberate differences! Think about how you can incorporate that in your own city-building experience. 

Step 4: Add Culture and Society

Alright, now that we’ve gotten the lay of the land, so-to-speak, no city is a city without people. Cities often have very different cultures compared to more rural locations or smaller towns. However, it also depends on the size of the city, the level of diversity in the city, and the economic prosperity of the city. 

Culture helps to define the location and give it a sort of “look.” It also makes it more relatable to people who are engaging with your city. There are lots of aspects within culture, like religion, politics, daily life, class, etc… 

You’ll find things like religious institutions in most major cities. You’ll also find evidence of jobs and societal workings. There’s also a lot of daily life shown in a city. Notice when you go to a city how people dress and what they eat. Going to another city might show you something different. 

Step 5: Create History and Lore

Every city and town in the world around you will have a history behind it. That city likely had a founder and likely went through many events throughout its time. Wars, plagues, natural disasters, and other similar circumstances are all things that almost every city around you will have had evidence of. For instance, a city might’ve had a massive earthquake that caused a certain part of it to become uninhabitable. 

Maybe you’ll find statues or war generals or ruins pointing to an ancient civilization that once existed in this city. I actually grew up most of my life in Ohio, and one city in Ohio called Heath has a park with Native American mounds. These mounds point to evidence of a group of people that existed 2,000 years before the city of Newark even became a thing. It was a really cool experience to see and it shows you just how much richness is in a city! 

You might want to try your hand at creating some lore for your city/town as well. Maybe an ancient empire’s capitol city is now the current city in your story and this is seen through ruins and old buildings. 

You can work through a lot of these details with my Ultimate Guide to World Building Workbook and connect everything with logic in mind!

Step 6: Think About Growth and Change

Cities in the real world aren’t static entities that just remain as-is forever. They grow, decay, or evolve and every year counts in the way a city looks and becomes. Consider for your story how the city you’re creating has changed over time. Could it change more in your story or will it be relatively static? What exactly spurred these changes to occur? More money? A loss of industries? Population growth? 

For instance, Detroit, Michigan used to be a really wealthy city with the auto industry’s factory presence. However, when most of the auto manufacturers pulled out of Detroit, the city lost a lot of jobs and thus wealth. It essentially declined as a city compared to the way it once was. Meanwhile, a city like Dubai used to be basically nothing but then oil money allowed for an insane boost of wealth to the region. Now, Dubai is an economically prosperous location. Some cities might not change so dramatically in a given period of time, but all cities will experience some level of change. 

Free Resource: The D12 Settlement Game

If you want a free resource that can help you with creating a settlement, especially if you’re into the fantasy genre, I’ve got the perfect solution for you. I created this game called the D12 Settlement Game that’s based on the DND system, but you can honestly use it for literally anything. You don’t even need special tools to play this game. 

You get a bunch of prompts that help you design small, fun aspects of your city and can put those prompts together to create a TON of different combinations. Click here if you want to check it out for yourself → The D12 Settlement Game (FREE)

Conclusion

When it comes to creating a fictional city or town, there’s quite a lot of things to think about. By considering purpose, geography, layout, culture, history, and growth and decay over time, you can design a place that feels real and engaging. Immersion is a big part of the writing process, and any reader will tell you when they truly feel immersed or not in a story. 

A well-made fictional city will definitely linger with your readers. If you’re also designing something like a TTRPG or a DND, a city that your campaign will take place in matters a lot to your players as well. If you’re creating a city for a video game, then it’s extremely important to work on the immersion. Your players will be literally interacting with that city and playing in it, so if the city is lackluster, your players will realize this as they go through your game. A book also requires the same thing, as an immersive city will solve that idea of the white-room syndrome for readers where they can’t imagine what something actually looks like. 

Creating cities, countries, kingdoms, empires, and other settlements of all sizes is so much easier with the right system. That’s where The Ultimate Guide to World Building comes into play: You’ll learn everything you need to know about designing an entire world. And beyond that, an entire universe. Yes, you heard me… an entire universe. Grab it today and unpack the best and biggest system to create worlds → The Ultimate Guide to World Building. 

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