Here's what I would propose as Zanannia, per the Request for a political map of Zanannia. I'll show what I'm doing as I go - not terribly sophisticated, but hey, I like my results :-). I'll refer to the original poster as Zann, and the nation as Zanannia, to keep things straight in my small brain. A request - what's the full name of the nation, or the nation type, by which it could be formally labeled? Such as The Democratic Despotism of Zanannia - that sort of thing. This is a Fractal Terrains basemap, but I just used FT to gen the shape. Regenerate random world, regen, regen, regen - whoa, there's an island I can start with. Push, prod, poke, raise, smooth... ehhh, Okay. If the islands don't seem far enough away, just say so.


Zanannia1.gif

Yes, the OP asks for a political map. This is topo... it's how I think. This won't be a bunch of western-USA arbitrary straight lines - I'll use the topography to come up with something more organic for district borders. The rivers as shown are just the rough ones FT generated with no effort ... I count them as suggestions :-). They're on their own layer, so I'll mod, trace, and supplement them. The end result will be plainer political , with a matching topo if you want it, Zann. I'll probably snug the islands up next to the mainland, with a small inset showing their true relationship.

I greatly simplified the continental shelf that FT gave me. Since I'm not maintaining the Full Grand Fractalness of it all, I'm also modding the topography as I see fit.