Earth, 2174

[bartmoss]

Wip#1



Edit: Sorry for the lack of commentary when I posted this: Basically, this is the beginning of the map of Earth for my Sci Fi universe. I'm doing a lot of research and figuring-out-how-things-change while I am working on the map; I already have a fairly good history worked out for 2012-2174, but as I draw this, I am of course forced to give more thought to the details.

I'M tempted to just let the map stand on its own, and let you guys (and perhaps the guys on alternatehistory.com) figure out what happened in those 150 years.

[bartmoss]

Wip#2:



I got tired of the dashed lines. I added all of the Americas, Greenland, Iceland and the UK. The borders in Central and South America are unchanged for now.

[bartmoss]

WIP#3:



Added more countries (should be hard to miss). "Fixed" some borders in the Americas, too.

[bartmoss]

WIP #4:



Added more countries; most of Africa is at current political boundaries (not all) and will change. Middle East I am fairly happy with, but Iraq probably needs some work.

[Steel General]

Looking forward to seeing the final version.

[bartmoss]

Thanks Mr General Sir.

Now that I'm done with the Collapsing World world map I returned to work on this one. I added a lot in this update, and changed the geopolitical situation too, by adding the Islamic Union. An Islamic super-state is a bit of a staple, but I think you'll find mine isn't quite what others usually predict. This was done partially for originality, but I figure that the usual contenders for such a state wouldn't really gain from it. Egypt is modern/moderate/western, afterall they are one of the few Israeli allies. The main Oil nations wouldn't be allowed to go too radical by the international community either.

China taking over Vietnam is probably more questionable, and I did it on a whim.



I still need to add Russia and central Asia, and I need to rework borders here and there, but I think this one is getting close to completition as well.

[bartmoss]

Alright. I've added Russia and Central Asia. The map still needs a tiny bit of work - some fluff and decorations if nothing else - but the major part is now done.

[Hai-Etlik]

You really would have been better off with something other than Equidistant Cylindrical. It's not particularly useful for a reference map like this, and it's just not all that attractive. Winkel Tripel would be my choice, but Robinson, Mollweide, Aitoff, or even good old Mercator would all work well

Having used it though, you should be careful about your map extent. A Normal Equidistant Cylindrical STOPS at 90° N and S but yours doesn't appear to do so. It's also kind of bad form (though not unprecedented) to have features extend outside the extent, or to have an extent with rounded corners. If you want rounded corners, it'd be better to have them on a neatline around the whole map layout.

You might also find a Desktop GIS handy for things like this. The editing tools are specifically designed for this kind of editing (Splitting shapes, merging shapes, editing mutual boundaries between shapes) and you can deal with projections easily. OpenJUMP, uDig, and QuantumGIS are all free and AFAIK can all export to SVG when you are done so you can finish up in Inkscape. On the downside, it's more software to learn (Unless you consider that an up side) and it's a rather different environment from graphics.

[bartmoss]

Thanks for the feedback. Projection is not something I worried much about, it's just what the base map I ended up using had. The ones with "better" projections I found (Wikimedia commons) were so huge that Inkscape didn't like to cope with them. And I do think this works well enough for the intended purpose - showing the overall political situation at a glance. People aren't supposed to use this for deep scientific projects, but rather to look at it and say "ah ok the US looks like this now" and "Oh so the Islamic Union dominates northern Africa", and so on.

GIS would be nice to use - especially for purely fantasitic worlds - but, meh, to be honest? I have a full time job and in my spare time I am trying to build worlds and write, it leaves preciously little time for mapping. Between this and the Collapsed World map, I used up say 80% of my spare time over the past week. :-(

I can cut off the Aleutian islands on the left, it's not like they are a significant part of the world.

I did omit antarctica, I can either add it (probably should, come to think of it) or shrink the map's background. Looks a bit empty down south.

[Steel General]

Poor, poor Mongolia... the unwanted meat between Russia & China.

It wouldn't be unplausible of to have some of the southernmost Philippines as part of the Islamic Union... just a thought.