City Plan: Arvenne#

Interactive street plan for arvenne. Enable JavaScript to explore it.

Using the plan. Drag to move, and zoom with the mouse wheel, the + and − buttons, or a pinch. Names come in as you zoom, each set lettered to read at the same size on screen. The ⤢ button fills the screen. North is up, and the scale bar bottom left is always true.

The city at a glance#


What it is	The capital of the Kingdom of Arvenne, "eldest of the Lesser Crowns" (atlas), and the seat of the Council of the Lesser Crowns (18:388). Arvenne is the Seven's state "most like the Crown" (18:55).
People	4.1 million, the largest city of a state of 31 million (17:665; 18:47). Queen Clemence I, of House Carrow, has reigned since 2302 (18:48).
Where	"Built in terraces on the upper steps of the Stair" (18:47). The Stair is "a staircase of raised beaches: bands of old shoreline that climb the coasts like steps" (00:74), and the steps "are flat, well drained and easy to build on" (01:66). There are "Vineyards on the upper steps" (17:156).
Climate	4 °C in the coldest month, 23 °C in the warmest, 720 mm of rain a year (17:174): "Warmer and drier on the Stair coast" (17:167).
Country	The Hollow Downs: "Chalk downs grazed by Earthkin sheep since the Kindling. Arvenne's wool country." (17:157) The Kingdom's old wealth is wool and cloth: Arven broadcloth (18:260).
Speech	"Stair burr in Arvenne, Cordale and Brightwick: soft, and close to the capital's speech" (17:676).
On the plan	The sheet is 40 × 32 km. About 467 km² is built up, and 813 km² of the steps is still vines, downs and fields. The plan shows 7,899 streets, about 7,450 km of them. 7,686 have names, which is every street longer than 80 m.

The steps#

The plan draws the upper steps as bands running north-east to south-west, each rising some 26 m above the one below it at a short steep face. The city climbs them to the north-west. The streets run along the steps and straight up them, and a street that climbs a step face is a Stair or Steps.

District	What is there	Its streets are named for
The Old Town	"the old town" (canon, 18:47), on a middle step	the Kings and Queens of Arvenne since AL 861 (17:243–314): Gaspard Street, Tancred Lane, Odo Lane, Ysolde Street, Maelle Street
The Upper Steps	"The Stair Accord Secretariat stands on the city's upper steps" (canon, 17:74), "above the old town" (18:47). The Council of the Lesser Crowns meets there (19:73), with the Accord Fund (canon, 18:275) beside it. The Royal Arvenne Guard, the household regiments, 52,000 strong (canon, 18:201), has its barracks here.	the states and the Crown that sit in the Council, and its offices: Sallow Street, Hastholm Road, Council Street, Speaker Avenue, Seven Crowns Street, First on the Stair Lane
Broadcloth	The wool district below the old town. The Wool Hall, the Kingdom's parliament of 212 (canon, 18:50), stands here, with the Crowning Green beside it, where Crowning Day keeps Aveline I's crowning.	wool and cloth: Fleece Street, Broadcloth Street, Spindle Street, Woad Lane, Shears Lane
The Lower Steps	The new city round Arvenne Station on the Stair Railway	numbered, First Street to Thirtieth Street down the steps, crossed by roads named for the downs
The Vineyards and the steps below	Vines on the upper steps (17:156), downs and fields below, crossed by old lanes. The villages are Tresk, Lanwen, Carnvel and Penvellan.	see How the streets are named

Where the city builds upward#

The Station towers, about 250 of them, stand round Arvenne Station on the lower steps.
Not on the old steps. None stand on the steps of the old town or above it.

Getting around#

The Stair Railway: "The Stair Railway (1890s) links all seven capitals. Electrified, not maglev." (18:281) Arvenne Station is a proposal.
The Western Road: "from Arvenne to Westhaven" (18:282).
The Arvenmouth road goes down the Stair toward Arvenmouth, "Arvenne's port on the south coast" (19:29).
The Brightwick road runs north-east to the Free City, which lies "entirely inside Arvenne" (17:150).
Air. There is an airport at Arvenne (18:284). The plan puts Arvenne Airport on the steps to the south-east.

How the streets are named#

streets are often numbered;
famous people, leaders above all, get streets, and those streets sit together;
an estate takes a theme, such as flowers;
many streets keep the name of whoever first laid the road;
some streets simply stop at a field whose owner never sold, and the suburbs have their cul-de-sacs.

In Arvenne the rules take this form:

The leaders' streets sit together. The Kings and Queens of Arvenne fill the old town. The reigning Queen has no street.
The Council's streets meet at the Secretariat, named for the states and the Crown that sit in it.
The Lower Steps are numbered, First Street to Thirtieth Street.
The old lanes keep their founders' names. They come from mixed pools, as the canon's rosters do (17:241): Jago's Lane, Pascoe's Lane, Morvan's Lane.
The villages keep their own streets: Fold Lane, Press Street, Stile Street.
Estates were built on the fields that sold. On the upper steps they take the vineyard's words: Trellis Drive, Cellar Close, Grape Road. Elsewhere they take flowers, trees, birds, herbs and stones. Fields whose owners never sold are still farmed.
Every street longer than 80 m has a name: 7,686 of 7,899.

The names avoid everything the naming rules and the canon forbid:

Nothing is taken from Earth's places or history (05:266).
No new name uses the crowded families.
House Carrow has no street, because the canon's Harrow group crowds it.