Merseia Viewed From An Airboat

Ensign Flandry.

"...he saw the planet's curve through a broad viewport, the ocean gleaming westward, the megalopolitan maze giving way to fields and isolated castles." (CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 109)

The megalopolis in question is the original capital, Ardaig, which surrounds the bay where the River Oiss enters the Wilwidh Ocean. The city has more recently grown east to the Hun foothills. We read descriptions of cities on bays also on Hermes and Avalon. 

Ardaig might have been a city on any inhabited planet but one detail is more specific to Merseia. The isolated buildings out among the fields are not cottages, houses or even mansions but castles. On Merseia, feudal social relationships have survived into the industrial period. The southern continent had had a Republic of Lafdigu. (Also here.) However, the dominant Wilwidh culture is based around the feudal realms called Vachs. The castles remind us of this. No textual detail is wasted.