Over the past three months, I have been really crunching down on creating a campaign map for a world I've spent a few years conceiving. After some consideration, I settled on a world size of roughly 22,000 miles around the equator and circling the poles. I understand that the axis poles should be cold and icy, and regions closer to the equator warmer. Plants and animals tend to be similar on lines of latitude equidistant from the equator.

Simple enough.

What I need help with is some other general things that tend to be universal on Earth. Also, given the size of the map in question, how might I go about presenting it in a digestible format to my players?

1. What size image should I make it on GIMP as far as scaling in order to make reasonable details like major roads, villages, etc. (pixels/mile)?

2. Should I use projection techniques?

3. Should I perhaps just make multiple maps of each continent so detail can be preserved?

4. Three dimensional model?

5. How far up the creek am I with these options?

Any ideas on how to present this are greatly appreciated. Thank you.