Trading posts
Build a trading post as merchants settled them at the edge of their world: a row of Hanseatic houses on the quay, a fort with a palisade and corner towers for the fur trade or the spices, a caravanserai with a courtyard on the Silk Road, or a Viking harbour with a jetty. Choose Bryggen, Lübeck, Dejima, Elmina Castle, York Factory, a caravanserai in Anatolia, Hedeby or Birka. At the bottom you can read how everything is calculated.
Point at a block for the explanation. Click a block to mark it as placed. The side view shows the section at the chosen column, Layer shows the chosen layer from above.
Build plan
Per layer
| Layer | Parts | Blocks |
|---|
A number is the count of blocks of that part in that layer, in the colour of the part. Click a layer to see it from above.
Build tips
- Put crafts together as they were: in a town, smiths, bakers and weavers often had their own street. Think of Smith Lane or Tanners’ Row.
- Every villager profession in Minecraft has its own workstation. A building with the right workstations does double duty when villagers live in it.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the trading post as a schematic file and paste it with WorldEdit, or build it with a hologram in Litematica.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
Offices and forts of the merchants
The Hanseatic League, a union of merchants from towns on the North Sea and the Baltic, had four great foreign offices: in London, Bruges, Bergen and Novgorod. In Bergen stands Bryggen, a row of wooden houses with their gable to the quay. In 1641 the VOC was given a trading post on Dejima, an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki, and remained the only European trader in Japan there until 1859. The Portuguese built Elmina Castle in Ghana in 1482.
Caravanserai and Viking harbour
Along the Silk Road a caravanserai lay roughly a day’s journey apart: an inn with a courtyard, rooms around an arcade, stables and a well, behind one gate that closed at night. In Scandinavia Hedeby and Birka were trading places of the Vikings, with a palisade, storehouses and jetties for the ships.
Did you know?
- Bryggen in Bergen has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1979.
- Elmina Castle in Ghana from 1482 is regarded as the oldest European building south of the Sahara.
- Dejima was until 1859 the only place in Japan where European merchants were allowed to trade.
Sources and further reading
Read more about the history here. The links go to museums, archives and heritage organisations outside this site.
- Bryggen (opens in a new tab) UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Description of the Hanseatic wharf in Bergen. - Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions (opens in a new tab) UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Description of the forts in Ghana, including Elmina. - Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke (opens in a new tab) UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Description of the Viking trading place Hedeby. - Birka and Hovgården (opens in a new tab) UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Description of the Viking trading place Birka.
About this tool
With this planner you build a trading post in Minecraft: a Hanseatic office on a quay, a fort with towers, a caravanserai with a courtyard or a Viking harbour with a jetty. You choose the size, the number of houses and the goods.
You see the build plan layer by layer, a 3D preview and the block list, and you can download the trading post as a schematic for WorldEdit or Litematica.
Frequently asked questions
How do I build a trading post in Minecraft?
Choose a kind: Hanseatic office, trading fort, caravanserai or Viking harbour. Set the size, choose the number of houses, towers and the goods. The tool puts down gate, walls, warehouses, well and quay. Build the walls and the site first, then the buildings, and place the goods and stalls last.
Where do I put a trading post?
By water or by a road: a quay by the sea or a river, or on a route through the desert or the mountains. The Hanseatic houses and the Viking harbour must stand by the water, the caravanserai along a road.
Which trading posts are there as examples?
Bryggen in Bergen, a Hanseatic office in Lübeck, Dejima in Nagasaki, Elmina Castle, York Factory of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a VOC fort in Asia, a Seljuk-era caravanserai, Khan al-Umdan in Acre, Hedeby and Birka.