As an offshoot of Alexander of the Many Alexandrias discussion:
I have always wondered what actually happened when a history book mentions "XYZ founded the City Of Blabla". Cities, even small ones, are organizationally, physically, and structurally complex systems, and they don't spring out of the ground.
Assuming you are funding the city in a new spot, you need:
1, Roads, or a river for communication and transport
2, Need to clear the forest/overgrowth within about a days walk or more to make space of the fields, orchards, pastures, etc that will supply the city in years to come (no "Lonely City" here)
3, A decently close source of building material, wood or stone
4, Enough manpower to farm
5, Enough specialized manpower to do all the masonry, woodworking, pottery, blacksmithing, mining, etc, needed to supply a city and make it viable
6, Enough building material already pre-shaped such that building whatever dwellings is not something that takes over all the time
7, A cities worth of food for a year (this might be the biggest)
I acknowledge that the geographical parts are sort of given, you don't found a city in a place where it is not viable.
And I acknowledge that moving mass amounts of people to and fro, and supplying them is well within the ability of any state large enough to bother founding a new city.
But how does this work in practice? If nothing else, a city is first and foremost a fortified camp, so how do the fortifications get done in parallel to building the city? Are we building stockades that just expand outwards as needed, and at one point replace them with stone walls?
Say I am Alexander the Great, and I just want to erect yet another monument to my ego? How do I go about it?
Say I am Consul Genericus Bellicus, and I want to settle my legion on some newly conquered land. How do I go about it?
I've read plenty of accounts of foundations of towns and colonial settlements. All you write above is true and pretty much followed. But with some modifications of relative importance.
To note - many towns were planted on pre-existing old native settlements, which were already cleared, and often had other good reasons to be there. But many were erected from scratch on entirely new ground. I'm presuming you're referring to those.
(1)
Strategic/economic considerations
What is your town for? What is the purpose? That is the first question guiding location.
Do you want to control a passage or bottleneck? Dominate a trade route or local valuable resource? A military bulwark to stop foreign raiders? A launchpad to subjugate wild pagans? Do you intend to raise plantations for profit? What kind of plantations? All these are the first consideration. Before anything, define the purpose of your settlement. And begin choosing the location depending on that purpose.
(Control trade? Place it near a fording point by a river. Erect sugar plantations? Make sure area is very flat and well-watered. etc.)
(2)
Fresh water
Next priority is availability of fresh water. But surprisingly more flexible than you'd imagine.
For human consumption, you don't really need fresh water streams, you can always dig wells, collect rainwater or make channels to a distant water source elsewhere. But to really succeed with cultivation of fields and livestock, you'd want streams, esp. if you don't have enough rainfall.
Streams also needed to get rid of waste. Don't underestimate this need. Your settlement will be producing a lot of waste - human waste, but also industrial waste (pottery, tanning, dyeing, etc. are very "dirty industries"). So you want to make sure there's some way to flush the waste out.
So a well-watered area is a priority.
(3)
Defensibility
One important consideration you forgot: defensibility. That was a major priority. Perhaps the number one priority after fresh water.
You can assume you will be attacked. So your location must be defensible.
e.g. you don't place a town under a hillside where an enemy can calmly rain missiles down over your walls. Try to put a plain between your town and the nearest danger zone (forest line, hills), so you can see attackers coming from a distance and not sneak up on you.
Islands and escarpments are often favored for defensibility in unknown and potentially hostile territories.
Obviously, it should be also defensible from natural elements - notably floods. So don't put it at the very bottom or places likely to be flooded routinely. Also try to stay away from marshes and other disease-ridden areas.
(4)
Clearing
Clearing land was generally unnecessary at the start, as you usually started off looking for a naturally open area to begin with. Chopping down forests is just too much work to get started. Yes, natural clearings are clear for a reason - they tend to be less fertile, but you're building huts & houses there.
Some clearing did happen at the beginning, but it was mostly for defensive reasons, i.e. eliminating cover to attackers, giving your defenders a clear line of fire on all sides.
(5)
Food sources
Your initial location should ideally have fertile fields in the area. Not necessarily immediately there - defensibility takes priority. But you should have fields within walking distance, which are well-watered (or can be with irrigation ditches). And pastureland.
However, you'd be surprised at how many early settlements have no farmland at all and were entirely reliant on trade for food (e.g. islands, garrison towns). But food must exist in the vicinity, and you must know you can and will be able to trade for it steadily.
(6)
Transport
This is of greater priority.
Ideally you want to be close to a deep harbor, whether by river or sea, so trade and supply ships can come and go. But you don't want to put your town right next to it, as an enemy fleet can also arrive by water. So you usually put your town a little further in, and place a blockhouse or tower by the river/sea to monitor and control anyone approaching by sea/river.
But yeah, access to a harbor nearby is very important. Which means prior scouting of all the water depths around you, and ensuring it is deep enough and calm enough so ships can load and unload calmly.
(7)
Raw material
Closeness to raw material is usually not a priority at all. You can transport building material (stone, timber, etc.) from elsewhere. And you can always make mud bricks.
As construction is only periodic, there is no need to actually be located near raw materials. Just ship it in when needed. It'd be nice if it was nearby, but not necessary.
Fuel sources are more of an on-going need. So you'd want enough wood nearby for fuel. But even that can be transported.
(8)
Preparation
You typically don't waltz into an area and say "this is nice" and suddenly decide to set up a town. Usually you have the idea of planting a settlement already in mind and so have prepared your expedition with men and materials well in advance. You may not know the exact location yet, but it is not entirely unplanned.
(Not always - e.g. a shipwreck settlement is often quite unplanned. But shipwreck settlements don't usually last.)
So, if your expedition has the mission (or possibility) of a settlement in mind, yes, you do bring a lot of colonists (males mostly, including farmers and craftsmen), as much equipment as you can (including heaps of pre-forged iron nails), and as much of the construction material as you can carry (pre-carved lumber, etc.) , as well as enough food for about a year, or at least a season, including founding livestock.
So it usually takes a lot of prep & capital before your start. A year to collect all this before you set off is about a good average estimate.
Once you arrive, it is all quick work by all your colonists & crew to set up a settlement - huts, palisade go up first. Shouldn't take more than a month, at most two. Depending on the season, you should also start immediately tilling and planting fields.
If you come by boat, you usually sleep on the boat until the first houses are ready. If you come by land, then you have tent camp until then.
The first spot is not necessarily your final spot. As your first spot goes up, you scout for area to see whether all the other considerations are met. If you find something wrong with your spot, or you find a better one, then you make plans to move there as soon as possible.
Ideally the region is already scouted before, at least to some degree (if not by you, then by someone else), and you have some idea already of what you're going to find there. So it's usually not a complete surprise.
(9)
Colonists
Recruiting colonists is a major issue.
Craftsmen are often willing to come for a season as builders (hey, it's a job), but they do not necessarily intend to stay on and live there, and many go home as soon as the job is done. Finding people actually willing to settle permanently in distant unfamiliar lands is a lot trickier.
You may be able to gather up a few fortune seekers with promises of riches, but fortune-seekers aren't necessarily the best workers. They came for an easy life, not a hard one. And if they feel it is too onerous, they'll take off.
So a large percentage of your initial colonists are often the dregs of society - convicts, landless serfs, vagabonds, orphans, etc. people with no prospects or family back home. You may think these are terrible, but they're often more reliable. They're more used to hardship, you can control them by force, and they have nowhere else to go.
It takes time to collect enough. If you're a feudal lord, you can grab a whole bunch of serfs on your land and force them . If you're just a colonial entrepreneur, you may need the collaboration of local magistrates to gather convicts, beggars and orphans.
Freedom is a strong lure. You can force your serfs to go, but if you promise them freedom when they arrive, that makes it immensely more attractive. Many new colonies were designated lands of sanctuary - escaped serfs, criminals, heretics, etc. were instantly safe upon arrival, and would not be delivered back to their masters or home authorities. Convict-exiles were also very common as first colonists - a man sentenced to death could be spared if he agreed to transportation to a colony. This of course would require collaboration with royal authorities to ratify this in law.
You'd want at least a couple hundred to start to set up your initial settlement, and recruitment takes time. Again, think about at least a year of preparation.
First shipment is inevitably all males, to do all the set up. Females (read: prostitutes, orphans) will only be sent later.
Soldiers and officials often come on fixed-time contracts (typically three years), induced by a considerable boost in pay.
Getting craftsmen - skilled artisans - to join the colony was actually relatively difficult and the few that stayed were worth their weight in gold. So no, don't expect them to be abundant until the colony is more advanced.
(10)
Sovereign authority
This seems obvious. But worth stating: you need permission. You don't want to plant a settlement, and suddenly a potentate with a large army or fleet shows up to expel you.
If want to have any hope of lasting, you need "permission" to be there - or as much permission as you can get.
At the minimum you need permission from your home government. Your colony will need supplies from home, and legal authority from home (see below), so it is useful to get that permission from your home government in advance. Moreover, it gives you protective cover if some other colonial entrepreneur tries to claim your settlement - messing with you means messing with your mother. So they're likelier to think twice.
But it would be really nice if you also acquired permission from the local sovereign of the land you are settling in (whoever he is). A negotiated treaty would be nice.
Sometimes this is not possible or very unclear. So your next bet is to find a place "between" sovereigns, like a disputed borderland. You can play both local powers against each other - ally with one if the other gets upset, and vice-versa. A local potentate is less likely to expel you from a disputed borderland, since it might provoke the other.
The more disputed the better, since it makes it less likely they will collaborate against you.
e.g Prussia had multiple competing claims back in the 1230s - the Pope claimed it for the Holy See, the HR Emperor claimed it as an imperial fief, and Duke of Poland claimed it as a Polish fief, even Danes claimed sovereignty there. They couldn't agree, and definitely did not want to one of the others have it. So the Teutonic Knights colonists slipped in and got it by default.
(11)
Law
This is actually quite important. If want to plant a settlement, there must be legal authority of some kind. Someone must have the legal right to assign land property to colonists, adjudicate disputes, punish transgressions, raise and command militias, etc. And this must be clear and unambiguous.
So long as you're sleeping on a ship, the ship's captain has supreme authority. But once you're on land or the ships leaves, the bond is dissolved and his authority is no longer applicable. The settlement needs its own authority.
Again this requires preparation. Local magistrates, captains, the extent of their powers and terms of governance must all be negotiated and designated beforehand with the sovereign home government, and be very explicit. The last thing you want on a distant colony is disputes over who has what authority.
So a first act, that often comes as soon as the first huts are ready, before even the first palisade goes up, is the opening of the seals of official credentials of the magistrates.
(12)
Settlement vs. Town
A "settlement" is different from a "town".
A "
settlement" is just a collection of huts or houses with some form of organized militia. The establishment of a "settlement" comes with the colonial contract, and its organization is often very rudimentary. Some guy is designated via the colonial contract with the power to raise and command militias, resolve disputes, etc. Anything more complicated is referred to upstairs to the feudal lord/colonial entrepreneur.
A "
town" is a higher level of organization, and requires a municipal
assembly before it can be called a "town". It often also requires a minimum set of public buildings (typically a town hall, a chapel, a jail and a pillory). A town assembly are just the representatives of the "good men" of the vicinity (usually narrowly defined as the local landowners), and they are in charge of administration (maintenance of roads, walls, etc.).
By virtue of delegated powers in colonial contracts, colonial entrepreneurs could raise a settlement to the status of a "town" on their own authority (provided it meet the above criteria). He would just gather the local landowners, declare them an "assembly", and presto, you have a town. But it would not have a "corporate" structure without a town charter, which usually has to be petitioned for and issued by the sovereign home government.
A
town charter gives the town a legal existence, that is makes it a "corporation" so that the town can own property, make contracts, sue and be sued in courts, etc. like a legal person. The charter specified a well-defined territorial boundary perimeter, its insignia, its administrative and judicial bodies and jurisdiction, and a list of rights and responsibilities of its inhabitants.
Having the status of a "town" doesn't mean independence. Towns could be "owned" by a proprietor (feudal lord, bishop, colonial entrepreneur, etc.). They may have a town assembly, but elections for town assembly mean nothing if they are not validated by the owner. But more importantly the owner controls the judicial bodies directly - it is the owner (not the town assembly) who appoints the magistrates, military captains and auxiliary officials (notaries, clerks, prison guards, etc.)
A "
free town" (which requires a special charter) has no owner, it is directly under the sovereign, and the assembly nominates its own magistrates, captains, etc. Free cities are practically autonomous republics, and much rarer.
