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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/7482
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There are different schools of thought on how masterful and complete a writer's knowledge/research should be, and I think they often correlate to how seriously you want your work to be taken. Are you trying to simply write a more "commercial," non-lasting book that will provide a bit of fun and entertainment, or to write a book that is more lasting and ambitious? Is it more important to you to produce lots of work quickly, or to produce truly excellent work (not intended as a put-down to commercial writing, which fills its own niche)? It's a good idea to clarify your own priorities.

If you are satisfied with quicker work, you can always research only the things that will relate directly to your plot, and throw in cool details to add atmosphere. You could try to get natives of the place to read your work for any inaccuracies. Maybe you can even use Google maps to plan characters' routes through the location.

If you want the story itself to be shaped by the period and location (in my opinion, this is super cool) immerse yourself as much as possible before writing the story. How much research you need to do (via books, calling people for interviews, etc.) depends on how foreign and unknown the place is to you. Yet research still doesn't need to be absolutely exhaustive (it can't be, can it? :-)). You can still specialize in a certain neighborhood/social class/religious or cultural group, etc.

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