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Comment by tarikjn | Hacker News Reader

Not really, as coastal city can also benefit from fishing, and certain coastal area had maritime trade back in ancient times.

But it's not sea level either, my understanding is that the reason why most ancient capitals are built inland is military.

Coastal areas are harder to defend from foreign invasions than inland areas, as there is little signal and time to mobilize troops, moreover, martial strategy privileges high ground.

Capitals were usually built around a river that connects to the sea, and where that river meets the sea, you can usually find a fortified town which had a military garrison.

My guess is that the advent of the airplane bomber has changed the considerations.

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Did you mean to reply to me? I ask because your comment appears to be disagreeing with arguments that I never made.

My major point was that (1)the coast, by itself, was not a critical factor either pro or con. (2) What appears to matter when it comes to becoming a first rate city is food production and access to trade, be it by road, river, or sea--preferably, all three.

Your defense thesis doesn't make sense. If defense really mattered, cities would be built on mountain tops, but they aren't. Instead, cities grow where trade flourishes. They take their lumps, periodically, from invasion, and then rebuild and get back to business. Virtually every major city from the ancient world is still in business, even though the empire that founded it has long since been destroyed. Only when the economic basis of the city gets destroyed, does the city die. That argues for economics trumping military considerations, which, again, was my thesis.

Finally, bombers don't appear to have altered this equation one bit. To the best of my knowledge, the major cities from before WWII are still major cities today.

Yes I meant to reply to you. I think we are confounding flourishing cities and capitals. I was more talking specifically about the later. Most ancient and especially modern capitals (D.C., Canberra, Ottawa etc.) are built inland, but the land mass offer less protection than it did in ancient times, not so much because of bombers actually (land offers ground air defense), but missiles, which were rendered effective at the end of WWII (V-2). Nonetheless it is still a preferred configuration for capitals for the same factors. Coastal cities are just more vulnerable in times of war.

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