Lannisport Trade Routes ?

[Starfell]

A lot of the Westerlands lie closer to tributaries of the Trident or Mander than they do to Lannisport, and that includes gold poducing areas such as the Golden Tooth. In fact, I'd have thought that Seagard or somewhere close to Oldstones make more sense as a major Western port because they lie so close to the Trident and therefore offer the opportunity to bypassing half of the Continent, not to mention their proximity to the IIs and the North

ETA: On reflection, perhaps Westeros' political infrastructure is insufficient to make long distance river transport viable, I can imagine that every lord on the Trident would demand a tax on goods passing through their territory and that the Crown or the LP of the Riverlands would have to make concessions to them if they wantred to establish a single system of taxation that encompassed the whole river

[Blede]

A lot of the Westerlands lie closer to tributaries of the Trident or Mander than they do to Lannisport, and that includes gold poducing areas such as the Golden Tooth. In fact, I'd have thought that Seagard or somewhere close to Oldstones make more sense as a major Western port because they lie so close to the Trident and therefore offer the opportunity to bypassing half of the Continent, not to mention their proximity to the IIs and the North

The biggest gold mine is the one beneath Casterly Rock itself (if I recall correctly), and as a consequence Lannisport has a lot of industries and artisans working that gold. It makes sense that the western lords send their goods to the processing plants in Lannisport (thus raising its price) rather than sending it raw (less valuable and profitable) to the Riverlands.

[Starfell]

The biggest gold mine is the one beneath Casterly Rock itself (if I recall correctly), and as a consequence Lannisport has a lot of industries and artisans working that gold. It makes sense that the western lords send their goods to the processing plants in Lannisport (thus raising its price) rather than sending it raw (less valuable and profitable) to the Riverlands.

I was really suggesting that they send it to King's Landing which is presumably one of the big markets for Western gold anyway and certainly not short of artisans, not to mention closer to the lucrative Essosi markets.

[Djinn]

Areas of ore mining in the Westerlands mentioned so far are Casterly Rock(Lannister), Golden Tooth(Lefford), Castamere(Lannister), Pendric Hills(Foote, Ruttiger,Moreland). Transporting this ore to Lannisport by River road or Sea road is easier then across hills and rivers to Seaguard. Not to mention the greater amount of craftmen in a city.

[Blede]

I was really suggesting that they send it to King's Landing which is presumably one of the big markets for Western gold anyway and certainly not short of artisans, not to mention closer to the lucrative Essosi markets.

And having all the tolls/taxes owed to the Lannisters filling the Crown's coffers instead ? I think not, there is probably a directive in place saying "send everything to Lannisport", centralized trade and production is definitely something everyone's favourite lions would do.

[Naathi Prince]

Another reason Lannisport would have existed is for the entire Westerlands coastal community as a central trading hub. The Westerlands are very hilly, so I imagine it would be difficult to to travel from, say Banefort or The Crag to Casterly Rock. Mountains and hills tend to harbor lots of criminal gangs, not to mention the difficulty of using Westerosi roads. It would be much easier for the traders from smaller settlements like Banefort, the Crag, Ashemark, and Fair Castle to sail than to ride.

[Ser Lepus]

Not as expensive when you consider the distance. Going through the gold road will take less time and less effort. Saying it makes more sense for them to go through sea is like saying traders from Iraq should've traveled by sea to get to Egypt.

It still doesn't make much sense that there isn't a huge seaport in Dorne. It should be much bigger than White Harbor or Oldtown. The location around Sunspear/Yronwood is extremely good for a seaport.

Actually, a great deal of the trade between Iraq and Egypt was done by sea in the old days. If you wanted to send something from Mosul or Baghdad you could:

1.-Hire four guys to carry them down to the Persian Gulf in their river barge and once there hire a dhow with a crew of half a dozen guys who would surround Arabia and sail to Suez, and those guys could cheaply buy their food in bulk at the beginning of the trip and carry it with them.

2.-Or you could hire fifty mules with their mule drivers, and each one of those mules would need to eat about thirty pounds of hay and oats per day, making it about 10500 pounds/4.76 tons of fodder per week (and no, you can't just let them forage, a beast of burden walking long distances while carrying heavy loads needs a lot of energy, more than it can get grazing for a couple hours per day). And the workers would have to buy their food at every stop. And believe it or not, the trip around the Arabian Peninsula wouldn't take longer than the overland trip on unpaved roads.

As I said, wares from King's Landing, Pentos, Braavos, the Vale, Lorath, Ibben and White Arbor are probably shipped up the Red Fork and Blackwater Rush to the Westerlands, but, if you are sending those wares from Dorne or the Reach, it would be cheaper and faster to send them by sea.

And, if you are sending them from Tyrosh or Lys or Volantis, sending your wares around Westeros is probable cheaper and faster than sending them to Blackwater Bay and then taking them to the Westerlands by barge.

You are right about Dorne: It should have a decent port at the mouth of the Greenblood. That river is the main trade and travel route of Dorne, and all their wines and horses and other wares are probably carried up and down the river, plus it's mouth is in a good position to control the Stepstones' bottleneck, so there should be a trading seaport there.

Like I said, when the difference in distance is not great sure (i.e. with all the ports on the same coast), but the extra distance is huge. I doubt trade between Liverpool and York happened by sea. Even trade between China and the Middle East with the huge distances between them was more in the silk road on land than by sea across the Indian Ocean.

And when the Portuguese and the Dutch managed to reach China, India, Malay and Indonesia sailing around the whole of Africa, it spelled the end of the golden age of the Silk Road, because it was cheaper to surround Asia and Africa and (in the Dutch's case) part of Europe by sea, than to take the straight overland route.

That's not a proper way to count it, for these reasons:

-Wagons with two horses can carry around 4 tons, not half a ton.

-A lot more wagons would travel than ships. With the resources to make one ship you can make many wagons.

-As much as they'd need to pay taxes and tolls for every lord's lands they'll have to pay taxes and tolls for every harbor they land in.

-The more load the wagons carry, the slower your advancement, unless you pay and feed more beasts.

-But you would need at least two oxes or horses per wagon plus a driver, so you would need at least 100 beasts and 50 drivers to carry 200 tons of wares, and those beasts would eat about 11 tons of fodder per week, and the men would have to buy their food during travel or use yet another wagon to carry it. A single average cog with a crew of twelve to twenty men can carry those 200 tons of wares and all the food they will require.

-A cog would need to stop maybe a dozen or two dozen times to take fresh water and maybe food, but they don't need to enter a trading harbor every time they do so, they can send a skiff to buy it at a coastal village, and if the skiff isn't carrying wares, it doesn't have to pay taxes. A caravan, on the other hand, would have to cross the lands of a hundred or more petty lords and be taxed every time.

[Pootie Tang]

If you have something to sell, chances are somebody in Lannisport will want to buy it.

[Brandon Martell]

You are right about Dorne: It should have a decent port at the mouth of the Greenblood. That river is the main trade and travel route of Dorne, and all their wines and horses and other wares are probably carried up and down the river, plus it's mouth is in a good position to control the Stepstones' bottleneck, so there should be a trading seaport there.

Actually Lemonwood is there, but yeah there's no notably big trading seaport.

[Blede]

There is Planky Town (at eh mouth of the Greenblood), but it's not big either.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

You are right about Dorne: It should have a decent port at the mouth of the Greenblood. That river is the main trade and travel route of Dorne, and all their wines and horses and other wares are probably carried up and down the river, plus it's mouth is in a good position to control the Stepstones' bottleneck, so there should be a trading seaport there.

Dorne has only been part of Westeros for the last 150 years, rather than 300. At a guess, both Gulltown and White Harbor have grown since Targ rule and had Dorne joined at around the same time Sunspear would be in similar size to the 2 smallest cities of Westeros.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

Westeros is similar in technology level to Europe around 1400 CE. At that time, the roads were so bad that most traders used mule trains, not wagons, especially when hilly or mountainous terrain had to be traversed. A mule can carry about 300 lbs. That's 1200-1400 mules to equal a 200 ton capacity ship. Only luxury goods could be economically carried for any distance over land, and the sea route was always preferable.

The distance from King's Landing to Lannisport by sea is only 5-6 times the distance by land. Each mile on land may cost you 1000 times as much. (Yeah, you have to build the ship, but you have to buy the mules, too. The average lifetime of a ship is much greater than the average lifetime of a mule, and you need fewer operators to run the ship. Plus, a ship doesn't need to be fed. I would suggest the you read Mahan.)

[Ser Lepus]

Dorne has only been part of Westeros for the last 150 years, rather than 300. At a guess, both Gulltown and White Harbor have grown since Targ rule and had Dorne joined at around the same time Sunspear would be in similar size to the 2 smallest cities of Westeros.

I don't think being part of Westeros or not would be that relevant. The dornish nobility buy luxury wares from Essos like the rest of the westerosi highborn, and they export wine and sandsteeds, and maybe olives, olive oil, lemons and oranges too. Most of those wares must be transported around Dorne either by sea, sailing along the coast, or by way of river barges up and down the Greenblood.

Taking into account that the Greenblood is both the greatest source of sweet water in Dorne and the cheapest method of transport, most of the wine and other wares must be produced and traded along its shores. Even if Dorne doesn't export so much wine as the Arbor, it still exports a lot, and even if its population is smaller than other Kingdoms, it still has nobility that demands luxury items, so there is quite a bit of trade going there.

They have Planky Town, but it's strange that they don't have a real port with docks and piers and storehouses, and a real city growing around that. We know that warships can sail upriver, so merchant vessels can too, and the shores of the Greenblood offer a lot of space to build docks.

Also, Sunspear and Planky Town are close to the bottleneck of the Stepstones, and under the protecton of a powerful lord who can protect them from pirates and is neutral to the Lysene, Myroshi, Volantene, and Tyroshi petty wars, making it a good crossroad for travel (and a good place for pirates to sell their booty).

[geogus]

Lannisport is the only city on the west coast of westeros so it attracts a lot of the trade on the west coast. As for why people from other places go there is the same reason to go to any city there is money to be made. Also Lannisport goldsmiths are meant to be famous.

merchant ships go anywhere they can make money loading valuable cargo, and that's the case of gold and five jewelery.

I can think in,lannisport as the real life China during.XV, XVI and XVII centuries. Too far from Europe, but even so merchant nations sent every ship they could, because it was to profitable.

Besides that, ships can go to iron islands to get cheap iron ore and sell anything, since iron born, produce almost nothing

[Martell Spy]

They have Planky Town, but it's strange that they don't have a real port with docks and piers and storehouses, and a real city growing around that. We know that warships can sail upriver, so merchant vessels can too, and the shores of the Greenblood offer a lot of space to build docks.

I don't think Dorne is very developed. Doran mentions that it's a poor land and also that Sunspear is the closest thing to a city that they have.

[Rahgh Neqaj]

I was really suggesting that they send it to King's Landing which is presumably one of the big markets for Western gold anyway and certainly not short of artisans, not to mention closer to the lucrative Essosi markets.

Lannisport is much older than King's Landing. Kings Landing grew fast because that's where the court is and lot's of rich and/or nobe farts want to show off but Casterly Rock retained a fair amount of clout. Also, if Westeros economy resembles medieval European economy at least somewhat, you weren't allowed to have a market just anywhere you wanted (kings/lords had to issue market privileges to villages/towns) and guilds regulated where & who could work in certain crafts/trades. Before the Targ conquest of the 7 kindoms, the Lannister kings would have ensured that Lannisport, as the city closest to Casterly Rock, is the dominant market place in the Westerlands. Most likely, Aegon the Conqueror did not massively interfere with the system he found and subsequent Targs just kept going in the same system. Thus, Lannisport retained historic privileges and influence after Loren Lannister bent his knee.

[DavosSeaworthy]

Why would they want to sail all the way around Dorne and go to Lannisport ?

It would be a lot quicker to sail around Dorne and dock in Lannisport than it would be to land in Kings Landing and move the goods across land. Logisticly easier as well, that way all your goods land in one place at the same time instead of forming a caravan to ship everything across a land route.