The Commonwealth of New Columbia

[StrathconaBooster]

Hi, I'm new! The Commonwealth of New Columbia is my ongoing map-art project, which I've been working on since the very butt-end of 2015. As it took form, it was revealed to basically be a revenge project: every Canadian is very sensitive about the concept of annexation by the United States, so I thought that I would retaliate by creating the United States in Canada's image.

New Columbia has 60 provinces: I've drawn maps of 5 of them (although the first two are no longer canonical). I think I'll post the best one first, and then you'll see the rest in reverse chronological order (so, they'll get worse over time).

The master map of the entire country is coming along pretty slowly, but I feel like the end is really in sight. Once I finish it, then I can start cranking out a lot more of the detailed province maps.

The Provinces: (this listing will be updated as I make more posts in this thread, hopefully this forum is set up in a way where this is possible)

• Vanolden (joined on July 15, 1791)
• Lanauris (joined on December 7, 1835)
• Kiouat (joined on May 30, 1839)
• Gilgal (joined on March 25, 1890)
• Kanamonta (joined on September 1, 1895)

[StrathconaBooster]

The Province of Gilgal



This is my most recently completed map: I finished it up in April.

Gilgal borders Mexico to the south, Madrugada to the west, Corona and Escalde to the north, and Chijo to the east. Its terrain is mostly based on New Mexico and Arizona, but its culture is based on some of my favourite other places out West (including, obviously... Manitoba).

As for the map, I like how the highways turned out, but the topography is kind of lame. Like always, I'm proud of the dumb place names. There should probably be more national forests and other preserves, and the design on the advertisements may be lacking. There might not be enough secondary roads portrayed, but I think it works as a free welcome-centre giveaway kind of map.

OK, so this is the best map that I've drawn up until this point. Everything I post after this will probably be less compelling, so I hope it's a worthy first post.

[Josiah VE]

Haha. This is great. So is it supposed to be alternate history?
60 provinces? That's way too many for Canada.
I like the advertisements and information, makes it seem like a real travel guide Although on a real travel guide the advertisements would be this big or bigger maybe you could make them a bit smaller, after all the map is the focus,
"Come sign the longest liability waiver in the world!" "Rattlesnakes can force their way into parked cars in 15 seconds"

I'll rep you for this. Good job. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Diamond]

Ok, that's pretty darn cool, or else my name isn't James P. Towers III.

[StrathconaBooster]

Thanks for the replies and attention! These maps are mostly alternate history, but I also added alternate geography so that I could have fun drawing things (also, a warped landmass helps people accept a warped history).

The Province of Kiouat



This map isn't very pretty: there's no topography, so I probably could have picked a base colour that wasn't paint-thinner green. Most of my effort here went into trying to make a nice coastline (although, it could be nicer) a bunch of convincing English/Spanish place names, and more advertisements. The style is kind of silly - it's actually a step back from the map that I drew before this one (which you'll see posted next). The one redeeming quality here is the tourist points of interest - and, of course, I developed a lot of the culture and history of this place (which does nothing for the visual quality, but at least the narrative is more interesting).

[Hai-Etlik]

Something about those maps still gives off a vibe of "American-ness". The impression it gives to me is of the US with a different name and different internal borders rather than Canada if it had the Territory of the US. Admittedly there isn't a lot to base that on and its hard to pick out WHY it feels that way, but that's what I'm getting from it.

[StrathconaBooster]

Something about those maps still gives off a vibe of "American-ness". The impression it gives to me is of the US with a different name and different internal borders rather than Canada if it had the Territory of the US. Admittedly there isn't a lot to base that on and its hard to pick out WHY it feels that way, but that's what I'm getting from it.

That's because "Canadian values" is a meaningless phrase

Canada is supposed to be a northern and remote country, so naturally, the southern regions depicted in these two posts so far don't look very much like Canada at all. However, the structure of the federal government and the national preoccupation with language (the country is close-to-evenly split between English, French, and Spanish) give New Columbian society certain familiar aspects.

The ratio of Canada to the United States in real life is 1:9. I think that I've managed to triple the amount of Canadianness (whatever that means!) - however, that still returns a lopsided 1:3. Maybe "retaliation" was a strong word!

When I post some of the more northerly provinces, things may look different - I was just focusing on mapping out the border provinces first because their shapes (being defined by the Mexican border, which I didn't change at all) were easier to determine.

[Diamond]

Something about those maps still gives off a vibe of "American-ness". The impression it gives to me is of the US with a different name and different internal borders rather than Canada if it had the Territory of the US. Admittedly there isn't a lot to base that on and its hard to pick out WHY it feels that way, but that's what I'm getting from it.

It's probably because of James P. Towers III - he seems like an original American badass.

[ChickPea]

I think it's the rattlesnakes breaking into cars. Nothing says America more than joy-riding rattlesnakes....

[StrathconaBooster]

OK, this map is older than Kiouat but I think it looks nicer. De-evolution

The Province of Vanolden



No advertisements! My first attempt at topography, and my first attempt at a real coastline. This is a very small province that's dominated by its major city. Culturally, it is remarkable for its geographically isolated French population. Other than that, my knowledge of the Atlantic coast isn't very solid, so some of the things here might seem a bit too obviously derivative. The Great Seal is a bit of a mess... luckily, the real ones aren't too pretty either.

Drawing the municipal boundaries was fun, even though I was still unaware of some of Inkscape's slightly more advanced features at the time. Embarrassing! The road plan is a bit weird, but this is still the first map that I drew that I still look at and consider to be passable.

Someone once said that Metro Darlingport looks kind of like Metro Vancouver. I didn't intend that at all, but I can believe that it worked its way through my subconscious.

Oh yeah, and Vanolden is one of the original 17 provinces.

BONUS CONTENT:



A few weeks after the fact, I wanted to draw some county boundaries, so I decided that I would start with one of the country's smallest provinces. These may or may not stay canonical, I guess there's no reason to change them.