Historically speaking, most nation's borders followed some sort of natural landmark. This made it not only easier to define what land was yours and what land was your neighbors, but also gave some forms of natural defense (if in the case of a forest or mountain) or source of trade (if in the case of a river, lake or ocean).

Nations in more inhospitable areas, also tended to be larger, take Russia and China, both with well over 50% of their land being areas few people would care to live in. This area also tends to be area that other nations would not overly be eying and going "Oh yeah! i want that desert!" and thus not generally fought over.

Most nations will tend to be in contact with one form of water, whether it be a river, lake or ocean, both for irrigation and drinking supplies, but mostly for trade. These areas of land connecting important water ways are very valuable and unless a country is well settled there, generally a place of conflict.

In medieval times "grey areas" or undisputed territory was not uncommon in Mountainous areas, deep deserts, tundra or other areas that could not feasibly be defended/patrolled (despite some countries "claiming" it's theirs)

Nations that control key trading locations do not necessarily have to be big, as they can be dependent on other countries for goods, and not have to produce any themselves.

While most nations will follow these guidelines, there is always exceptions, depending on the size of the landmass, many countries may become landlocked. These countries will generally come to rely on one or more surrounding countries as a a source of trade, unless the country is completely self sufficient (a rarity) without some sort of partnership between countries it will begin to crumble economically. On the world that i am creating, one of the things that throws off alot of borders, is the fact that much of the world is covered in forests, this makes it harder to find "natural borders" upon which to put the country borders.


mmmm haha ok i think thats most of the basics for countries at the moment.

The map below shows the borders, with countries lightly shaded to define them a little more, I realized after i exported it that i need to make the borders of the countries a little more transparent so you can see the rivers that they run on, I may actually remove the borders along rivers altogether in a future render if I can get it to were the countries are still recognizable.


the countries are still subject to change at this moment, but here's what i've got

http://homepage.mac.com/alexwhisenhu...dCountries.jpg