City Plan: Sallow#

Interactive street plan for sallow. 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:

Whole city: the Meres, the districts and the villages.
About 2½ times: main streets, the causeways and the great buildings.
About 6 times: the longer streets and the smaller places.
About 12 times: the name of nearly every street.

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 Sallow, "on causeways at the eastern edge of the Sallow Meres" (18:112). The kingdom takes its name from Ingrid Sallow, "captain of the Lodestar, one of the Three Captains who brought the ships down" (17:215).
People	1.3 million (17:670; 18:112), in a state of 14 million (18:115). Queen Nesta IV, of House Callow, has reigned since 2299 (18:113).
Government	"The Meremoot: 90 members, elected every four years, and First Minister Cadell Rook." (18:114)
Where	On the Meres: "About 74,000 km² of lakes, channels and blackreed beds", "The kingdom's heart and its moat." (17:160) "The Meres have never been taken by an army." (18:119)
Climate	−3 °C in the coldest month, 21 °C in the warmest, 880 mm of rain a year (17:177). "Mere fog in Sallow is thick enough to close the rail line for days in autumn." (17:170)
Speech	"Mere-speech in Sallow: slow, with old words the capital has lost" (17:678).
On the plan	The sheet is 40 × 32 km. The Meres and the town's channels take 554 km² of it. About 279 km² is built up, and 446 km² of the fen country and the far isles is still farmed. The plan shows 5,123 streets, about 4,830 km of them. 4,973 have names, which is every street longer than 80 m.

The districts#

The Meres fill the west of the sheet: open water, isles and blackreed beds, with channels between the beds. The old town stands on the Mere Isle, just off the eastern shore. Causeways join it to the shore and to the near isles, and three channels run from the Meres into the town on the shore.

District	What is there	Its streets are named for
The Mere Isle	The old town, in rings round the Moot Green. The Meremoot (canon, 18:114) stands on the green. The Mere Wardens, "who patrol the channels by boat" (18:117), keep their station and their boats on the isle's west shore.	the Kings and Queens of Sallow (17:496), with the Captain and her house: Ingrid Street, Elin Street, Oskar Street, Lucan Street, Perrine Lane, Morwen Lane, Idwal Crescent, Meresby Avenue
The Isles	The three near isles, joined to the Mere Isle by causeways, each town ringed round its own green	the Meres and the boats on them: Punt Street, Coot Lane, Warden Street, Reed Lane, Choir Street, Pike Lane, Oar Way, Channel Road, Fog Crescent
The Staithes	The eastern shore, with its landings and the three channels. Two reed-paper mills (canon trade, 18:116) stand on the channels.	reed-paper: Watermark Way, Sheet Street, Quire Avenue, Pulp Lane, Deckle Street, Drying Loft Lane, Folio Lane
The New Town	The planned town east of the Staithes, round Sallow Station	numbered, First Street to Thirtieth Street, crossed by roads named for the fen's plants: Alder Road, Osier Road, Withy Road, Reedmace Road, Watermint Road
Eastside	The town round the New Town, north, east and south	the fen's plants: Frogbit Street, Willow Lane, Withy Lane, Watermint Lane, Fen Lane, Carr Lane, Kingcup Lane, Meadowsweet Lane
The far isles	Isles out in the Meres, farmed	the old families: Dafydd's Lane, Ifan's Lane, Gethin's Lane
The fen country	Fields and farms east of the town, crossed by old lanes. The villages are Kingcup Staithe, Sedge End, Osierby and Coots Green.	see How the streets are named

Getting around#

The causeways (canon: the city stands "on causeways", 18:112). The plan names five:
- Captain's Causeway, from the Mere Isle to the shore, for Ingrid Sallow;
- the Lodestar Causeway, for her ship;
- the Isle Causeway, out across the Meres from isle to isle;
- the North Causeway and the South Causeway, to the near isles.
Boats. The Mere Wardens patrol the channels by boat (18:117), and mere-racing is "Reed boats on the Sallow channels" (18:350).
The Stair Railway: "The Stair Railway (1890s) links all seven capitals. Electrified, not maglev." (18:281) Mere fog closes it for days in autumn (17:170). Sallow Station is in the New Town.
The Wychford road runs east toward Wychford, the "Forest town on the Sallow border" (atlas).
Meremouth, the "Lake port of Sallow, where the Meres drain west into the Wild" (19:37), lies far to the south-west, off the sheet.
Air. The canon lists no airport at Sallow (18:284).

Landmarks#

Canon places are marked canon. Their position on the plan is a proposal unless the text gives it.

Place	Where on the plan	Note
The Meremoot (canon)	The Mere Isle, on the Moot Green	90 members, elected every four years (18:114).
The Mere Wardens (canon)	The Mere Isle, west shore	"who patrol the channels by boat" (18:117).
The reed-paper mills (canon trade)	The Staithes	Reed-paper is one of the kingdom's trades (18:116). The mills are proposals.
The Choir Water	West of the Mere Isle	Where "Sallow's Mere Choirs sing the Canon from boats on Song-Night: the most famous sight in the Seven" (17:695).
The blackreed beds (canon)	Out in the Meres, and round every shore	The Meres are "lakes, channels and blackreed beds" (17:160). The beds' shapes are proposals.

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 Sallow the rules take this form:

The rulers' streets ring the Mere Isle. The Kings and Queens of Sallow fill the old town, with the Captain herself (Ingrid Street) and House Meresby, which claimed her descent (17:110). The reigning Queen has no street.
Each district names its streets for its work or its ground: the boats and the Meres on the Isles, reed-paper in the Staithes, the fen's plants in Eastside and the New Town.
The New Town is numbered, First Street to Thirtieth Street.
The old lanes keep their founders' names, the given names of the fen families: Hywel's Lane, Madoc's Lane, Seren's Lane, Tomos's Lane, Iolo's Lane.
The villages keep their own streets: Staithe End, Reed End, Ferry Street, Boat Lane.
Estates were built on the fields that sold, each with a theme:
- flowers (Violet Road, Larkspur Way, Kingcup Gardens);
- stones (Obsidian Grove, Sunstone Way);
- trees (Walnut Road);
- herbs (Sage Way);
- birds (Owl Avenue, Tern Drive).
Fields whose owners never sold are still farmed, with the estates round them. The canon says Sallow's farmers "are still draining reedland" (18:120).
Every street longer than 80 m has a name: 4,973 of 5,123.
- A name is used once in the city.
- The estates may repeat a name found far off, never within 6 km or in the same locality.
No towers. Sallow is "Old, poor, stubborn" (18:119), and the poorest per head of the Seven (18:116). It does not build upward.

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: "-gate", "-mere", "-combe", "Salt-", "Grey-" and "Hollow-". The canon's own Meres, Meremouth and Meresby keep their names.
House Callow and King Bran have no streets, because the canon's Sallow and Brannock groups crowd those names already.
No village takes a name beside the canon's Wychford or its Brightwick.