Swamplands Map Guide for Cities: Skylines

Swamplands Map from Cities: Skylines
Swamplands
DLC Required Sunset Harbor
Map Theme Boreal
Buildable Land 71%
External Connections
  • Highway
  • Railway
  • Ship
  • Air
Natural Resources
  • Fertile Land
  • Forest
  • Ore
  • Oil

Overview

Swamplands is a map from the Cities: Skylines Sunset Harbor DLC.

Swamplands in the new game screen / Cities: Skylines
Swamplands in the new game screen

The map is almost entirely a flat valley, with various rivers winding throughout.

A bird’s eye view of the Swamplands map / Cities: Skylines
A bird’s eye view of the Swamplands map

Swamplands gives you plenty of buildable land, with the irregular shapes of the rivers and other natural features providing lots of potential for creativity.

Beautiful details such as this small hill range by a river make Swamplands a visually interesting map despite being mostly flat / Cities: Skylines
Beautiful details such as this small hill range by a river make Swamplands a visually interesting map despite being mostly flat

Starting Tile

The starting tile is a flat area surrounded by water on three sides.

The starting tile on Swamplands / Cities: Skylines
The starting tile on Swamplands

There’s dense forest here, as well as fertile land for anyone who wants to work with specialized industry early game.

Unfortunately, there is no strong wind anywhere on this tile. So you’ll have to opt for a “dirty” energy start (oil or coal), unless you’re willing to deal with underpowered wind turbines or having to pay extra to boost their efficiency.

There is no strong wind anywhere on your starting tile, so a wind turbine start isn’t ideal / Cities: Skylines
There is no strong wind anywhere on your starting tile, so a wind turbine start isn’t ideal.

External Connections

This map gives you access to all four possible connection types:

  • Highway
  • Railway
  • Ship
  • And air

There are also two highway routes:

  • One going from west to south
  • And another route that intersects the first route near the center of the map, heading east.
The highways meet at a junction northeast of your starting area / Cities: Skylines
The highways meet at a junction northeast of your starting area

The external railways are quite hard to see (as is often the case on boreal maps) but they come from the north, east, and west of the map, and converge near the center.

The external railways highlighted in green / Cities: Skylines
The external railways highlighted in green

And despite being an inland map, Swampland actually has a ship connection.

You’ll find it near the bend in the highway southeast of your starting tile.

The ship connection near the bend in the highway / Cities: Skylines
The ship connection near the bend in the highway

Natural Resources

Swamplands in natural resources view / Cities: Skylines
Swamplands in natural resources view

Swamplands has all four natural resource types available (fertile land, forest, ore, and oil).

Fertile land and forest are in abundance, including in the starting tile as well as north and west of it.

The nearest ore location is just west of the starting tile; there are more in the southern part of the map.

Oil isn’t particularly plentiful. You’ll find most of it northwest of your starting tile.

Fishing

All four possible fish types are available on this map (anchovies, salmon, shellfish, and tuna).

In the northern half of the map you’ll find more anchovy and shellfish; then in the southern half you’ll find more salmon and tuna.

Swamplands in fishing industry view / Cities: Skylines
Swamplands in fishing industry view

First Expansions

The four tiles adjacent to your starting tile on Swamplands / Cities: Skylines
The four tiles adjacent to your starting tile on Swamplands

All four tiles adjacent to your starting tile provide plenty of buildable land, which makes them all equally viable for your first expansion.

So where should you expand first?

Honestly you could just choose whichever one brings you closer to the connections, resources, or features of the map that you want to use most.

North Tile

This tile includes a long stretch of highway, and a large amount of fertile land and forest.

East Tile

This tile includes the junction that connects your starting town to the highway, and is also where the two railways merge.

There’s also fertile land and forest here.

South Tile

The south tile gives you a stretch of the southwest railway.

It also has a very dense area of forest near a large rock and dried river bed, which could make for a beautiful feature in a city park or nature reserve (Parklife DLC).

Alternatively, the dried river has ore that you can mine.

West Tile

A river winds through the top half of this tile.

This tile also has fertile oil, forest, and ore fairly close to one another, making it a good choice for your specialized industry area.

Milestones

Below are the population targets for each milestone on Swamplands:

Milestone Population Required
Little Hamlet 380
Worthy Village 800
Tiny Town 1,200
Boom Town 2,200
Busy Town 4,600
Big Town 7,000
Small City 10,000
Big City 16,000
Grand City 20,000
Capital City 34,000
Colossal City 46,000
Metropolis 70,000
Megalopolis 85,000

Liz Villegas

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Liz is a writer and photographer with a love for building and strategy games. Her spare time is often split between lifting, reading, drawing, annoying her dog Mr. Porky Butt, and squinting at stat tables on the wiki pages of whatever game she's currently playing.

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