World Maps and Posters

[heffnerc1]

i'd stick with a more classical style so prob 30 x 24. keep in mind the 2 x 1 ratio is something used in real-world maps and projections and the fantasy ones you mentioned are generally more artistic and rarely have anything like graticules on them so you can afford to be more lax. at least thats a laypersons opinion

You have to think in terms of US printing standards first, I think. I you want some commercial release, try not to be stuck in really custom sizes because it could increase the printing costs.
Example of ANSI sizes

Agree with you both since realism won't mean a lot if its printing price increases by 50-200% due to a non-standard printing size.

(condensed) No, this is wrong. There are a number of projections which map the surface of a sphere onto a shape with a 2:1 aspect ratio, but none of them is generally used for general reference maps like the typical wall map.

(snip)

That doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want and have it work out, regardless of what aspect ratio or shape you use. If you want your world to really work (say you want to be able to display it on a sphere in 3D, or you want to be able to figure out proper spherical distance) you need to understand at least the rudiments of projections and spherical geometry.

To be honest, I'd rather not reinvent the wheel, and asked in part to see what options were available that work within a printed medium. You've cited several 2:1 map examples, but if you were printing the map on a 2D surface, which one would you recommend as the most realistic for determining the distance between two points?

Thank you for your help,
Chuck