City near river and/or fresh water

[c0pr4x]

I know it is a newbee question. I know what it does... but maybe there are thing i don't know about so i want to know from player better than me.

Why is it better to have your cities near river and/or freshwater tile?

 

[aoklo]

Gives you fresh water health bonus. Also allows many useful river only city buildings to be built (like River Port and River Authority).
Tiles next to rivers also give 1 commerce bonus if there are no forests on it.
Also, cant build farms on non river/fresh water lake tiles without irrigation.

 

[Sgtslick]

Cities where a river meets the coast are by far the best. Basically always try and grab as many of those as you can b4 others get them. They're good because of the extra river buildings you can build and cities by the coast are good because of the trade routes.

 

[ls612]

I often take things like rivers into consideration second in my City layout planning. My first priority in the early game is always to get as many strategic and food resources in the Fat Cross as I can, and then look at nice defensible tiles or coastal tiles.