Questions tagged [map-making]
For questions that have to do with the science or practice of drawing maps. If the question has to do with making maps this tag is a good fit. Note: This tag is about creating maps of physical features, not creating the physical features themselves nor using the maps for navigation. For that see the geography tag or navigation tag..
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Would the rain shadow effect cause this area to be a desert?
The arrows are the wind currents. This would affect this the most. The purple triangles are the mountains. They are similar in height to the Ural Mountains of western Russia.The turquoise area is ...
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Would it be possible to make a custom zoomable world map (kinda like google maps)?
Would it be possible to make a custom zoomable world map (kinda like google maps), where you can have all the cities of the world but are able to zoom out to the whole world (and no longer see the ...
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Realistic desert size?
I have figured out a fair bit of processes for my fictional world but am having trouble trying to decide if this desert is a realistic size.
I have highlighted the area in yellow and a rainforest in ...
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How to measure land area for a map?
Is there a site, app, or technique that you can use to measure the area of your world’s continents. It is rather easy to find the surface area of your world if the map is equirectangular or just a ...
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How does one accurately deduce scale from any given fantasy map (to the best one can)?
Sometimes, a person might wish to know the touch scale of a map, whether made by another person or you, in order to better understand the world a story is taking place. How might one go about deducing ...
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Mapmaking: How do I project svg (and vectorial) maps?
I'm currently creating a worldmap. For technical reasons, I want to do it on a computer, as a vectorial image (I can't use pixel images because I need small details).
For more accuracy, I want to have ...
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Which map-making software is best suited for my interests?
I'm interested in creating a map for a world I've been creating. I've done some research to determine which software would suit me best, and it came down to Inkarnate, Campaign Cartographer, and ...
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No idea where a current should come from
I was designing a continent and I placed it pretty far south of the equator and far from basically everything (just below 20 degrees south) and have now run into an issue with the ocean currents on ...
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Common -and unforgivable- mistakes to avoid when drawing a map? [closed]
I'm about to begin drawing a map for my fantasy world. Although I did draw a few maps in the past, I've never paid too much attention to making them realistic.
This time around, I'd like to be able to ...
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Is my map believable?
I am requesting feedback on my in-progress fantasy world map, primarily in 4 major areas:
biomes
rivers
cities
borders
Do they make sense? If not, what should I change? Any observations or ...
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Are the rivers in my fantasy map accurate?
Color legend: The brown shapes are hills, the darker the brown the higher the mountains and the highest peaks I've made white. They are mostly clustered on the east and west edges. The green shows ...
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Creating a map of a planet with a strange shape? (edited) [closed]
I have a planet that has an odd pull of gravity because it’s shape is an amalgamation of large landmasses merged together, and held in place by magic forces. Aside from the fact a shape like this on a ...
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Is my environmental map consistent?
This is the map of my alien planet's continents and I want to know if the environments are accurate.
The symbol at the top is the Arctic island. It's like Greenland and has some greenery or should I ...
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What do you need to check to assess if your map is realistic?
Here you are: you are building your world, have come with a nice looking map for it, and now you are asking yourself if that map is realistic or if there is something you have overlooked.
And you want ...
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How would mapmakers deal with moving cities?
Imagine a city on treads; if you've seen or read Mortal Engines, imagine that instead.
beep beep losers here I come
They're constantly moving, and have decent populations. Don't worry about how it ...
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Is My Map Realistic?
I'm creating a continent for a story I'm developing. I was just wondering if this map looked realistic from a geographical point of view (weather, city placement, environment, etc.)? Thanks for any ...
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Does my world map make sense scientifically?
I'm currently working on a world map. This will be used for various things. I'm trying to get it realistic looking and I want it to make sense scientifically. It doesn't have to be 100% perfect, just ...
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Which would be the Koppen-Geiger climate distribution of this map?
The existence of closed seas makes it difficult to me, especially the East one. I have it clear that in the souteast region the climate would be influenced by monzoon, but if the world has only one ...
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Advice to start creating a plausible fantasy map with plate tectonics
I'm going to create a fantasy map for a speculative biology project, I had created some before, but this time I want to create a map with these characteristics:
A supercontinent with 2 smaller ...
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Reasonable placement of tectonic plates
Im working on this little hobby project and i've come to the stage where i want an actual world map. So id decided to use one of the mapgens out there untill i found one i was happy with:
Now i have ...
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What would a map of an Earth that is 50% land look like?
This here is a plain, simple, good old-fashioned map of our planet:
As everyone here would know, land makes up only 29% of the planet's surface. But suppose for a moment that someone has pulled the ...
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Can someone please doublecheck my ocean currents map?
Just looking for another knowledgeable eye to see if they see any glaring errors with my ocean currents. The world is the same size as Earth, rotates the same direction, same prevailing winds, only ...
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Does squeezing image height/width distort true image scale? [closed]
My issue is specifically that I am making a map, but I am planning to use it in the digital format, where I am only limited to let say 1870x860 in size per map. The issue is that when I prepare the ...
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Converting an Equitorial-Centered Azimuthal Projection into Equirectangular
The Problem
I made a map of a tidally-locked world under the premise that I was drawing it as an Azimuthal Projection, or a Planar Projection or something like that (I'm afraid I don't know the ...
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are my rivers and map little realistic
This is my first world map so I just need to know if said rivers are realistically flowing from point to point. And if you have other tips those would be helpful as well. Rivers flow from the ...
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Name for a neutral region created by multiple states
Four warring countries sign a compact to cease aggression.
The compact establishes a city to act as neutral territory for economic and foreign policy meetings. The city has an independent government ...
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How to explain the presence of tropical rainforest and temperate forest at an equal latitude near the equator, in a fictional world?
That's the rough outline of my fantasy world. The entire location is somewhat shifted towards the Northern Hemisphere because you can't see the polar ice caps of the southern hemisphere.
Now, the dark ...
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How do i make a galaxy map similiar to this?
https://i.stack.imgur.com/16dpM.jpg
This is a star wars galaxy map i found. I have inkarnate but i dont think its possible to make a galaxy map like this on it.If anyone knows of any tutorials that ...
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How do you map the climates and biomes on a tidally locked planet with no Coriolis Effect?
I've been looking through some videos and reading up on mapping out climates and biomes for fictional worlds very similar to Earth (Artifexian's videos have been a huge help), but I have been curious ...
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Confused on the way Natural Borders should work with mountains on a fantasy map
so I'm in the process of creating the map of my fantasy world, which has a medieval fantasy theme. I saw a few posts and videos, such as this one, that talk about using Natural Borders to define my ...
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Does anyone know of certain galaxies that are at certain distances from Earth?
Okay, I have this quadrumvirate of godlike aliens, each born far from Earth. I would like to make a map of the universe for their fictional homeworlds that use existing galaxies. I’ll refer to the ...
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Himalayan sized/altitude mountains at the equator
I’m crafting a map for my world and I was wondering what the biomes of mountains the size and height of the Himalayan Range would be like at the equator? The region south of them has multiple large ...
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What Tools to use to generate a fantasy world map with some preset parameters?
I have a world I would like to use for a fiction I am using, and the free tools I got from google (first page) mostly don't do it well.
The world is a Disc. The landmass is about 475 million square ...
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What would be the geographical effects on a map of a 1mm black hole on the earths surface for 5 seconds? [duplicate]
First of all I've read the other posts and know what the effects of a black hole appearing on the earth's surface is. It goes through the crust, the tectonic plates break apart, volcanos appear ...
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Maps of star clusters
Inside star clusters, there are regions where stars are within 1 light year of each other. I wish to create a sci-fi setting in one of these regions. To start, I have tried to find maps/charts of ...
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What would maps look like in a post-apocalyptic world where every 2x2 mile square of land is subject to a different supernatural gimmick?
So, I've got this setting. It's a supernatural post-apocalyptic story involving guys with superhuman abilities traveling across an America that's become a grid of 2x2 mile "squares" (...
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Does anyone know of a stellar map that gives the distance between the nearest systems? [closed]
What im looking is for something like this but with more stars
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How to map a world that changes continuously?
This world is made of living creatures instead of land. Many, small or big, some as big as Scotland, moving around the world.
What they eat doesn't matter, how they are alive doesn't matter.
The ...
user81643
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When starting a new village, what are the sequence of buildings built?
Obviously I know that everyone who is living there is going to want a house but what comes after? Do they build a butcher’s building next or maybe a blacksmith’s building? And what comes after that? ...
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How do I draw these weird mountains on a map?
My world is covered in these-
How do I draw them on a map?
You can't draw them like a normal mountain, they're too different. Plus, these are my land- nobody lives anywhere except for on these ...
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How do I start building a map worthy of a society? [closed]
How do I take a fantasy society with their own variations (architecture, fields, etc,) and the basic landforms I want to see, and integrate it into a map with determinable borders, cities, for better ...
user80981
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Where would rivers and lakes make sense on this continent?
Fellow world-builders, I need some guidance. I've been drawing a map of the continent Anai'vora, the landmass where my current D&D Campaign takes place. I'm very new to world building, and this is ...
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How many Ultra massive black holes should be added to a map of known black holes?
I was wondering how many Ultra-massive black holes can be added to the list of 8 known black holes with mass over 10 billion solar masses within 1 billion light years.
Looking at our current maps, the ...
user78658
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When designing a map of the local universe how should currently unknown/obscured areas be treated?
I am building a map of the local universe for my story and for the time being I will base it on the real universe and our current understandings and observations although later will likely change the ...
user78658
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Map projection for a pseudospherical world
A pseudosphere (or antisphere or tractricoid) has a surface of constant negative Gaussian curvature, in contrast to a sphere, which has constant positive Gaussian curvature.
Source: http://xahlee....
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Is there any other ways to represent a star chart that is not the classic bright dots on a black field?
So, I am modding a game where the distance in pixels between star systems DOES matter on how the game calculate stuff.
We currently have a cool looking sub-way style map, with a lot of things in ...
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Are my plate tectonics/land masses realistic?
I'm building a new planet up from scratch, and wanted to get a sanity check on my plate tectonics and land masses. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic, but I'd like it to be plausible to someone who ...
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Is Alagaesia a climatically realistic world?
https://inheritance.fandom.com/wiki/Alagaësia
https://www.paolini.net/2017/11/10/map-alagaesia-prints-2017/
Looking at the map, you have a tropical desert at around the same latitudes as Urubaen. ...
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What needs to be changed about the plate tectonics of my world?
So, after trying to make a few different world maps and not really feeling satisfied with them, I decided to attempt making a world a bit more from scratch, by adding in plate tectonics. Now, I did ...
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Can a low-tech sailing ship tell how deep the water is?
I'm trying to figure out the challenges faced by a low-tech civilization mapping its world. They have access to roughly Renaissance level technology, plus some (not very abundant) magic.
One question ...
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