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Sentence:

He reached the city where the people were, the city which was on fire.

Should I use a comma, a semicolon, or a conjunction to connect the two clauses?

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You are using a gapping comma to avoid repeating part of the first sentence fragment in the second.

He reached the city where the people were, (he reached) the city which was on fire

A semicolon would work:

He reached the city where the people were; the city which was on fire

but the two sentence fragments aren't independent, so I would consider its use inappropriate here.

A conjunction such as 'and' suggests that 'which' is dropped, and this changes the dramatic effect of the sentence:

He reached the city where the people were, and the city was on fire.

I'd stick with the comma.

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    Another option is to replace the comma with an em dash, which might be effective here because it functions rather like a film camera that goes from being zoomed in for a close up of "the city where the people were" to zooming out to show "the city on fire." Also, if you are writing in the United States, rather than in the UK, that might sound more natural than which. The resulting sentence: "He reached the city where the people were—the city that was on fire."
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 5:23
  • A change in tense?
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 16:41
  • @EdwinAshworth; edited - i've been struggling with that all day :)
    – JMP
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 16:48
  • The introduction of "and" does not absolutely mean that "which" gets dropped. If the listener/reader was already aware that a city somewhere was on fire then it might call for He reached the city where the people were; and the city which was on fire. It entirely depends on what sense you wish to convey.
    – WS2
    Commented Sep 23, 2017 at 17:18

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