What makes a great City Map?

[frog-of-dhoom]

Hey, I'm new here and have an enthusiasm for drawing maps, fantasy, sci-fi, anything really. I'm looking to improve and was wondering what people want when it comes to a city map. The size, the detail ect ect. What makes a really great map for you.

All the very best,

James

[Janden]

I think everyone can appreciate a high level of detail. Like for me, I don't just put the streets in there. I try to include major landmarks, throw in bodies of water (rivers, ponds, lakes, what have you). Think about how the town came into existence. Its history can also play a role in how it grows. What is the geography? Is it on an island? It will have to grow up instead of out. There will be more bridges. Small considerations like this help the map come to life. It's not just about the street layout, though you can still do some cool stuff as far as that's concerned. Buildings are another awesome aspect, in my opinion. It's easier for small towns, but I sometimes try to get buildings in even huge city maps. Do a zoom to the similar level as your map on Google maps and see what buildings are there. That'll help you with scale. But I like to see maps like that and wonder what each building is. It helps transport the reader/player/whatever there.

[johnvanvliet]

for me
on a city level the FIRST 3 to 5 seconds i see it matter
if it is hard to read or hard to understand it is of no use

an example
Google map VS Apple map ( not counting the 3d ROYAL MESS UP FROM APPLE)
apple is almost unusable yellow streets and BLUE highways( freeways)

[ladiestorm]

Details and points of interest. What makes the city/ town/ village special? Is it a post card picturesque type of town? Does it have a particular history that comes out in the map? Is there something going on in this city that can be shown or hinted at in the map? Those special little details like the crystal clear blue (or green) water, the ancient crumbling fortress in the center from an ancient civilization, the canals that break up the land... The.attention to those details makes for a great city map!

[Mark Oliva]

More or less what LadieStorm said ...

But more specifically ... the map should tell me rather quickly that there's a story (or several or many) behind what it shows.

On the other hand, this should not be a guideline for all maps that one makes for a fantasy RPG campaign. There are places in a campaign that have little in the way of a story that nevertheless need to be mapped. In such cases, the map can and should not telegraph the message that there is a story there. In that case, you won't have "a really great map," but rather a utilitarian but necessary map.

[waldronate]

I know I keep randomly bringing up the basic definition of a map, but a map is an abstraction of a place done for a client for a reason. Great maps convey the reason for the map quickly. If the map is intended to show political groupings in an area, it's going to look a bit different than a map that shows major landmarks. A map that emphasizes travel routes within a city is going to have a different feel than a map intended to look like a photograph with labels.

[foremost]

I think maps of cities are among the hardest to produce. Many cartographers don't understand the full scope of how big a city can be. As the others have mentioned, if your map is to have a more specific purpose than simply showing the whole city, illustrate it keeping that focus central. Consider also how a city might be built based upon the land and will have been affected during its development by the local geographical features. Nowadays we can pretty much shape the Earth how we like, but if this is a fantasy city in a time/place without our technology, then definitely consider geographical limitations even more.

[AlamoFiteCat]

All maps are a visual representation of information, both geographic and attributive. In my opinion, a map should first and foremost be able to deliver the information that it's supposed to deliver.

This is where the process of map generalization comes in play and where a modern cartographer shines. In short map generalization is a method by which the cartographer chooses specifically which information will be shown on the map in order to adapt it to the scale of the map. The best maps are those that contain AND emphasize the most important spatial elements but at the same time display the mapped area as faithful as they can.
It might sound easy at first but map generalization requires sense and finesse that take years of experience.

On top of this, since we are talking about fantasy maps you would be wise to add some artistic representations of things related to the city on the map borders.
This will probably be some object of importance like a keep or a temple, some animal that is somehow related to the city or a key person in the history of the city. For greater immersion it would be nice to put the City Coat of Arms in one of the corners of the map border, I prefer top right.

The font you use is also very important, it should be readable but also should fit the style of your map. You can't have a star trek-ish on a Roman themed map, right?
The scale of the letters/numbers you use is very important and shouldn't take much space.

You must also pay a lot of attention on the colours that you use. From what I've seen most fantasy maps use light colours in the brown/gray spectre, sometimes using a brownish red in order to represent roofs but will use other colours to represent important structures.
But if the houses have flat yellow-ish concrete tops you can't represent them as red pointy ones, right?

Mapping a bigger city will also require you to utilize symbols and etc. The scale, colour, angle, hatching and shading of the symbols must never inhibit the map and must always be adequate to the style of the map.
Different kind of objects will require different kinds of symbols. A very important aspect of using symbols is consistency. Once you start using one symbol to a specific phenomenon, keep using it to avoid confusion. Further on this topic, you should have a legend describing all symbols that are used.

If you wish to use the map to determine distances and time spent on the road it would be wise to put a bar scale on the lower border of the map, even if it's a city map sometimes, in a scenario when you're rushing somewhere, this can really help the immersion since you have an idea how much you've ran from one side of the city to another and ~ how much time you have left.

That's all I can think for now, hope this helps.

[mearrin69]

I've made a lot of city maps and I can't seem to come up with an answer to your question. I have three of which I'm particularly proud but I couldn't tell you what makes them good...or even if they actually are, objectively, good. I'm rather biased on the subject.

https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...chmentid=51870

https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...chmentid=38680

https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...chmentid=28523

All I know is, I know it when I see it.