Thanks for the positive comments thus far.
Here's another section of the map that I've been working on. Normally when I'm doing a map I wait until the very end to give specific names to things. Part of it is the fact I tend to think more generally about putting the cultures in first and then coming up with the city and landform names later. The other part of it is the fact that I just hate coming up with names for things. There's something very "final" about naming something and seems harder to go in and change it after that.
Good case in point is some of the names I've put in already. I decided to try starting naming things this time earlier on and I can't say I'm particularly happy with some of them at this point.
As Mark pointed out, most of the names in the first map are your "standard" medieval England variety and that's not the general feel I'm going for. The world in general is built around a Norse theme; this particular region especially so. I think I've interjected a little too much cultural variety. I think this second area I've been working on is a bit more representative based on the naming, which is more Anglo-saxon, Germanic, and Nordic.
The "political" districts represented are more akin to states or provinces than separate nations, although each have their own cultural and historical backgrounds. The map when finished will represent a futuristic setting, so the political districts are somewhat inconsequential compared to the corporate entity that actually controls the whole island-continent. But that is the main reason I chose to label them with the more strict Nordic convention than the more colloquial name (i.e., Whitestone in the first map.)
So far everyone seems to like the texture/terrain shading which is great. I used some real-world topography (very heavily modified) as the base to hopefully give it an ultra-realistic feel. I will probably go back and adjust some of the color by gently painting in some satellite imagery samples to provide a little more variation and give it a better indication of land usage.
The land mass is intended to be very mountainous, particularly along its spine (the mountain chain in the northwest of both map samples). The majority of the population lives on the temperate SE coast, which is very warm for this latitude (the latitude line in this second map is 30N, but the world overall is MUCH colder than Earth). I'm a bit concerned that the topography shading may make it look a bit more rough than it actually is, especially in some areas near the coast (or, for example, in the first map, the SW area). I will probably lighten some of the darker shading to give more of an impression of rolling hills and plains if at present the terrain seems too choppy.
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