Fantasy World Map

[Raptori]

I've slowly been bringing together some ideas I have for a fantasy series I'd like to write, and started to get them a bit more organised over the last couple of weeks. I wanted to create a realistic world for the series, with a realistic climate and consistent distances in particular. Having found this forum and seen some of the beautiful work on here I've started to map the world before deciding anything else, since that way I'll have a base to work from and can use Google Earth to measure distances accurately.

I made the map below over the last couple of days, and exported some projections from G.Projector. Since it's just intended to give me a clear idea of what the world looks like, I stuck to a semi-realistic physical representation, kind of like what you'd see in a physical atlas of the real world. If I do end up writing about the world, I'd then use this as a reference for creating a set of maps for whichever region the book is set in (vorropohaiah's Atlas Elyden would be the inspiration for that!).

Any criticism would be very welcome, in particular whether or not the climate looks like it makes sense. Hopefully the general colours will make the climate self-evident in each area, but if anything needs explanation then let me know.

I started adding in some rivers, but it turned out that the smallest I could make them scaled up to roughly 10 miles wide according to Google Earth, so I'll just add those in on smaller scale maps. Generally speaking the planet is identical to Earth in terms of axial tilt, dimensions, orbital path etc, so standard principles should apply. I've labelled the continents with numbers in case anyone wants to refer to a specific area, since I don't have any names chosen yet.

world-map.jpg

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There are a few details I'm not happy with (such as one of the northern tips of the main island in continent 3, as well as some of the mountain ranges), but since they don't really affect the overall scheme of things I've left them for now.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

[Lingon]

I like your mountains… The artistic style overall is very nice, actually! It has that atlas look, but also something else…

The reused land shapes from Earth is a bit distracting though. Taking parts of existing coastlines and putting them together in new ways is a good technique, but if the coast section is so big it's recognizable, it breaks the feeling that this world could be real too. It's just in a few places though – Scandinavia, Turkey and Antarctica was the parts I saw. I like the rest of the shapes.

[arsheesh]

I agree, the mountains are lovely, and I really like how you've done the ocean floor. Great colors too.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Raptori]

I agree, the mountains are lovely, and I really like how you've done the ocean floor. Great colors too.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

I like your mountains… The artistic style overall is very nice, actually! It has that atlas look, but also something else…

Thanks, glad you like it!

The reused land shapes from Earth is a bit distracting though. Taking parts of existing coastlines and putting them together in new ways is a good technique, but if the coast section is so big it's recognizable, it breaks the feeling that this world could be real too. It's just in a few places though – Scandinavia, Turkey and Antarctica was the parts I saw. I like the rest of the shapes.

Good point, those two areas have been bugging me the most, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I'll go back and remake those areas completely, as well as a couple of other areas that I'm not happy with.

I'll probably post them in a few hour's time

[Maraxus_]

I just now realized that most maps of earth show the northern pole blue instead of white ... So I guess your world does have pole caps, too?

In any way, the arctic regions are quite small, from the globe projections this looks like the snow-covered zone is somewhere >=80° northern and southern longitude. On earth that border is more like 75° (Asia) or less (Greenland (60°N), Canada (60-70°N), Antarctica (63°S)).

According to Global Warming Science, a world that warm would probably have more extreme and more unpredictable weather that earth.

[seredemia]

Nice work so far! I agree with Maraxus that it seems to be lacking in arctic regions. Considering you said it was identical to Earth, then I guess you want to make the climate more or less similar? I like all the colours you've used so far though. Making it into a globe is a really neat idea

[Raptori]

I just now realized that most maps of earth show the northern pole blue instead of white ... So I guess your world does have pole caps, too?

In any way, the arctic regions are quite small, from the globe projections this looks like the snow-covered zone is somewhere >=80° northern and southern longitude. On earth that border is more like 75° (Asia) or less (Greenland (60°N), Canada (60-70°N), Antarctica (63°S)).

According to Global Warming Science, a world that warm would probably have more extreme and more unpredictable weather that earth.

The planet has ice caps comparable to Earth's, they're just shown at their lowest point in both hemispheres since I was basing the colouring off this map. I used Google Earth to compare latitudes, particularly with reference to Eurasia since I hadn't really considered adding glaciers - I think I'll add some big glaciers to continent 2 since it's a bit featureless at the moment.

I'm guessing that the principle in that map style is to show each hemisphere as it appears in summer (i.e. northern hemisphere as it appears in July, southern in January). For example where I live is entirely covered in snow in winter (complete with sea ice thick enough to walk on), but it's green even further north than the Arctic circle in the summer. I think making it green on the map gives a better idea of the climate than showing it as either snow covered or half and half (since the entire country feels like one massive forest!), so I just went with that. I'm planning that kind of climate to be the location of one of the major cultural centres of the world, since it gives an interesting dynamic that fits a few ideas I've had

I think the south pole on my planet would be considerably warmer than Earth's due to the lack of a large landmass covering it, but the continents close to it would create a situation similar to our northern hemisphere. It'd also have better heat distribution because those continents would deflect the currents away from the pole, so again it'd be closer to our northern hemisphere. However, like I said before I've only looked into this a little, so my calculations could be completely wrong D:

Good point anyway, I like thinking that kind of thing through and seeing whether it makes sense or not

Nice work so far! I agree with Maraxus that it seems to be lacking in arctic regions. Considering you said it was identical to Earth, then I guess you want to make the climate more or less similar? I like all the colours you've used so far though. Making it into a globe is a really neat idea

Thanks!


Illustrator crashed on me... but luckily I had only spent five minutes or so altering the coastlines. Time to start again...

[Azélor]

I think the south pole on my planet would be considerably warmer than Earth's due to the lack of a large landmass covering it, but the continents close to it would create a situation similar to our northern hemisphere. It'd also have better heat distribution because those continents would deflect the currents away from the pole, so again it'd be closer to our northern hemisphere. However, like I said before I've only looked into this a little, so my calculations could be completely wrong D:

Good point anyway, I like thinking that kind of thing through and seeing whether it makes sense or not

Illustrator crashed on me... but luckily I had only spent five minutes or so altering the coastlines. Time to start again...

No, more landmass means more heat. On Earth, the south hemisphere is colder than the north. It seems hotter because all we can think about are places like Rio, Sydney... but these place are at near the 30th parallel. Only a small portion of the souther lands are located under the 45th parallel, while a lot of northern cities are located near that latitude. When thinking about the south, we often forget about Patagonia, Antarctica and that most of it is covered by water. Places where the whether are much colder than their norther counterparts. (maybe with the exception of Siberia)

And yea, illustrator always crash where other software would just lag and function normally afterward. At least, the CS3 version seems to be a poorly optimized software.

[Raptori]

No, more landmass means more heat. On Earth, the south hemisphere is colder than the north. It seems hotter because all we can think about are places like Rio, Sydney... but these place are at near the 30th parallel. Only a small portion of the souther lands are located under the 45th parallel, while a lot of northern cities are located near that latitude. When thinking about the south, we often forget about Patagonia, Antarctica and that most of it is covered by water. Places where the whether are much colder than their norther counterparts. (maybe with the exception of Siberia)

Yeah I said that I think I think the southern hemisphere on my planet would be considerably warmer than Earth's, since it's similar to Earth's northern hemisphere instead. That matches what you're saying about the difference between the two on Earth, right?

Edit: I re-read my original post - the confusion was caused by me mentioning the lack of landmass on the pole in my planet. Iirc, landmasses = greater temperature sensitivity to solar radiation, meaning generally higher temperatures in summer and lower temperatures in winter. I was under the impression that this meant the location of Antarctica actually lowered Antarctic temperatures (albedo = little solar heat absorbed in summer, land instead of sea = lower temperatures in winter), exacerbated by the lack of other continents nearby (which would lack ice cover and be in the sun more often, and would alter the currents to provide a more variable climate down there). I don't really have a particularly in-depth grasp of any of this though, so if I'm wrong then please explain

And yea, illustrator always crash where other software would just lag and function normally afterward. At least, the CS3 version seems to be a poorly optimized software.

Yup, and it's one in which I always seem to save the least often. I use CS5, and it's not usually this bad... but then again I don't usually have this level of detail in a single file, which might explain it!

[Raptori]

I played around a bit with those coastlines, and I think they're a bit better now - what d'you think? I still want to alter the coast towards the south-east of continent 1 - it looks a bit odd to me, think it needs to be broken up a little. I tried extending the ice cap further south on continent 2 but it looked a bit rubbish so I've left that for now... any ideas for how I can improve that area?

### Latest WIP ###
world-map.jpg

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