How Do I realistically position my fictional archipelago on the globe (lat/long)

[Edward Daniels]

I want to place my fictional island chain on the real world map. I know its surface area, and roughly where I want it, but I want the Lat/ long co-ordinates I give for it to make sense-- IE, it lies between latitudes X° and Y°N/S, and longitudes A° and B°E/W.

So how do you sanely place your fictional nations on our globe? It not being easy is expected...

[Mouse]

Hello Edward

How about placing the archipelago along an existing plate boundary - along the mid Atlantic Ridge, for example? That way it could at least be somewhere believable. You could get the coordinates from any reasonably good atlas that shows the ridge.

Or if you don't want to create it there, try another plate boundary

[Edward Daniels]

SENSIBLE!

There is an additional wrinkle I should have mentioned, and I feel like a twink for not doing so.

This chain was formed from space rocks.

I'm doing a modern fantasy thing here, and there's a good background it didn't just impact and cause a KT extinction event. But yeah...

Your idea still seems sensible, place it according to plates, but imposing its area on the globe and giving sane lat/longs still vexes me. It TASKS me, Mouse, it TASKS me! (hangs head)

[Mouse]

You'll get there. Don't rush it. spend some time just looking at an atlas map of the Earth's oceans and daydream a bit

[waldronate]

First: decide what the general sea-level climate should be, as well as climates at higher altitudes. If you want a tropical sea-level climate, for example, you probably aren't going to be much above 40 degrees latitude. Similarly, a temperate sea-level climate probably won't be particularly close to either the equator or poles and a frigid sea-level climate won't be close to the equator.

Second: get a general sense of the size of your archipelago in both north/south and east/west directions. If you don't know how big it's going to be, it will be tough to get coordinates.

Third: The sea-level climate type (or biome, if you prefer) will broadly tell you the latitude placement and the size will tell you the extent (roughly 110km per degree of latitude and roughly 110/cos(latitude) per degree fof longitude).

All done.