City Plan: Stellan#

Interactive street plan for stellan. 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 harbour, the walled city and the country round it.
About 2½ times: the twenty wards, the main streets 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	Stellan Free City, "The coast's great trading harbour, facing the Line." (34:45) It is the southern state of the three free Oreth coast states.
People	3.1 million, "a trading port" (33:59). The Free City holds 8.5 million (33:62). The others say it is "Rich, quick, and the least brave of the three" (33:64). A Stellan person is a Stellani (32:28).
Where	"The southern harbour, facing the Line and the Imperial port of Hesk" (32:123), on one of the coast's "Drowned river mouths" (32:129). The Imperium's Hesk Holding lies to the south (32:114).
Climate	Tropical: 24 °C in the coldest month, 29 °C in the warmest, 2,050 mm of rain a year (32:143). "Girdle storms reach Stellan in the late summer." (32:137)
History	"When the Imperium founded Hesk Holding in 1470, Stellan walled itself and became a Free City." (32:170) The flag is "a white anchor
Government	"The Syndics of Stellan: 60 syndics, 40 chosen by the guilds and the Exchange" and "20 by the wards" (33:61). First Syndic Dalia Salas has held office since 2309 (33:60).
On the plan	The sheet is 44 × 36 km. About 305 km² is built up across twenty wards and the estates beyond them, and 720 km² of the coast country is still farmed. The plan shows 5,634 streets, about 5,500 km of them. 5,487 have names, which is every street longer than 80 m.

The walled city and the twenty wards#

The Free City Wall. The plan draws the wall round the old city on the harbour's west shore, 10.9 km round. The Quays run along the harbour below it.
The twenty wards. The canon has twenty syndics chosen "by the wards" (33:61). The plan gives the city twenty wards, numbered as a trading city would number them:
- the First to Fourth Wards are inside the wall;
- the Fifth to Eleventh ring the wall, on both sides of the harbour;
- the Twelfth to Twentieth lie beyond them, on the landward side.

Ward	What is there	Its streets are named for
First Ward	Inside the wall, by the harbour: the Stellan Exchange, "The coast's market, and the leak in every blockade" (34:47); the Bank of the Three Shores, which issues the shore-note (33:156; 34:46); the office of the Stellan Exchange Letter	the First Syndics since 1471, by their whole names (32:204–220): Jana Holt Lane, Tobiah Marl Lane, Oswin Lind Street
Second Ward	Inside the wall: the Syndics' Hall	the First Syndics: Talia Holt Street, Mira Tey Street, Emrik Ruel Lane
Third Ward	Inside the wall: the City Guard, the Stellan City Guard of 9,000 (canon, 33:111), and a Refuge House (canon, 32:286)	the First Syndics: Tobiah Doral Lane, Emrik Maro Street, Konrad Holt Street
Fourth Ward	Inside the wall: the Stellan School of Commerce (canon, 32:295)	the First Syndics: Teodor Dunstan Street, Esra Holt Lane, Konrad Voss Street
Fifth Ward	North of the wall, round Stellan Station	the harbour: Quay Street, Bollard Street, Pilot Lane
Sixth Ward	Across the harbour, facing the Exchange	trade: Scrip Lane, Factor Lane, Tariff Lane, Bond Avenue
Seventh Ward	Across the harbour	the guilds' crafts: Tanner Street, Dyer Lane, Wheeler Lane, Scrivener Lane
Eighth Ward	Down the harbour toward the sea	the Line's ports and great carriers: Glasswater Street, Tern Lane, Farstep Lane
Ninth Ward	West of the harbour mouth	the towns and cantons of the three Shores: Tessmere Street, Oldharbour Lane, Ashvale Lane
Tenth Ward	West of the wall	the garden flowers of the tropics: Hibiscus Street, Lantana Way, Tuberose Lane
Eleventh Ward	North-west of the wall	the coast's family names: Rivas Street, Asken Street, Holt Way
Twelfth Ward	The planned ward by the Aldport road	numbered, First Street to Twenty-ninth Street, crossed by roads named for the cantons
Thirteenth to Twentieth Wards	The outer wards, one theme each	fruit (Lemon Street, Coconut Street), birds (Finch Lane, Rook Way), stones (Basalt Avenue, Onyx Street), herbs (Yarrow Lane, Hyssop Street), native life (Tidehound Street, Glassmoth Lane), flowers (Peony Street, Snowdrop Lane), trees (Cherry Road, Linden Street), the harvest (Dairy Street, Hops Lane)

Where the city builds upward#

The Exchange towers, about 90 of them, stand round the Exchange inside the old wall. Stellan keeps its money where its walls are, as old trading cities do.
The Station towers, about 170, stand round Stellan Station in the Fifth Ward.

The towers carry storm shutters for the Girdle storms. On the plan they show as dark footprints in blocks built almost to the street.

Getting around#

The Merrin road (canon: "the Stellan road", 34:26) runs north by Fennick to Low Merrin.
The Aldport road runs west along the coast to Aldport, "Stellan's southern town, a few days' sail from the Imperial port of Hesk" (34:25).
The Harbour Bridge and the East road cross the harbour and lead east.
The Shore Line, "the one railway" of the coast, runs "to Aldport" (33:164). The canon does not name Stellan as a stop; the plan brings it through Stellan Station.
Air. "Tessmere and Stellan airports" (33:166). The plan puts Stellan Airport on the coast plain to the west.
By sea. Stellan's food "comes in on Rovessa decks" (33:98). "Stellan trades with everyone, the Imperium included" (33:64).

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 Stellan Exchange (canon)	The First Ward	During the Corridor War "The Crown accuses the Stellan Exchange of leaking Imperial phosphate through its blockade." (32:100) With Cordale's banks, it holds the Vesper Compact's Ring bonds (42:208).
The Bank of the Three Shores (canon)	The First Ward	"issued since 1911 by the Bank of the Three Shores at Stellan" (33:156)
The Syndics' Hall	The Second Ward	The seat of the 60 Syndics (33:61).
The Stellan School of Commerce (canon)	The Fourth Ward	(32:295)
The Stellan City Guard (canon)	The Third Ward	9,000 (33:111).
Stellan Airport (canon)	The coast plain, west	(33:166)

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 Stellan the rules take this form:

The leaders' streets sit together. The First Syndics fill the four wards inside the wall, by their whole names, with no titles.
Everything is numbered that can be. The wards are numbered, and so are the Twelfth Ward's streets, First Street to Twenty-ninth Street.
Each ward has its own theme, so a Stellani can tell a ward by its street names.
The coast country's old lanes keep their founders' names: Marl's Lane, Maro's Lane.
The old villages keep their own streets: Cane Street, Boat Lane, Chapel Street. The villages are Canefield, Heronby, Mangrove Cross and Palmhurst.
Estates were built on the fields that sold, each with a theme, and fields whose owners never sold are still farmed.
Every street longer than 80 m has a name: 5,487 of 5,634.
- 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.

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-".
First Syndics of the Varro and Brennan families have no streets, because the canon's near-identical groups crowd them.