What are your favorite imaginary/fictitious maps?
(Only took me 2 months /s). Also this map is by no means a complete list.
Santa-pocalypse: What if santa was (a tiny bit more) realistic?
A timeline where Santa delivers his presents via quantum tunneling and due to a failure in this device, he causes a nuclear explosion when he accelerates to relativistic speeds in order to gift Children worldwide. Given nuclear fusion doesn't work like that and the Shockwave travels westward counterclockwise, I disagree with the notion this is realistic, but that's pedantry.
Someone mashed dozens of fictitious worlds and the real world at different times to make a very weird and high-effiry map.
Industrialized, colonial, imperial China
A timeline where the Ming is an expansionist empire and puppets nearly half of the world's population. Given China has been as large and populous as entire continents at times, the fact that China had so much the leadership felt they could be self-sufficient and refuse to try to expand until like, 10 years ago, I find this scenario something that could totally have happened but didn't due to disinterested leadership.
What if the new world didn't exist?
A world where columbus is right about Geography and the Americas don't exist. While I don't think it's particularly realistic, I find this scenario underrated.
A grim, dark rainbow: What if the current rightwards shift of politics doesn't stop?
What it says on the title. Not particularly realistic given the CCP and NATO apparently collapse, but I like to use this map as a stand-in for the worst-case scenario of the near-future.
The dragon in shackles: Qing China and Japan in 1932
A timeline where Qing China re-unifies China, but at large costs to their economy, independence, infrastructure and territory.
Flavo et purpura: A world in which Islam never leaves Arabia Ca 800 AD
A very detailed map with quite a few differences from what happened IRL. Far more romanized.
Spain if the re*conquista continued into North Africa
A timeline where the Spanish conquer the Western half of the Maghreb. The justificarion is that Pre-columbian empires ally themselves to other European nations to not be colonized by Spain, so the Spanish focus their imperialist efforts into neighboring Morocco. Obviously not very realistic, but the maps are cool.
Fictitious maps based on real data:
The world divided into 200 areas of equal population
What it says in the title.
I've always loved Jerry's Map. It's a fictional map that's been drawn one 8"x10" tile at a time, using some elements of random generation to determine what goes in the new tiles. I've futzed around with a similar bit of doodling, but using just pencil/ballpoint pen and post-its.
The map of the Beklan empire is my favorite map because it gave so much context and information to the book it’s from: Shardik by Richard Adams. Combined with Adams’ detailed descriptive writing about the land, it provides an unparalleled sense of reality to the world he created. While it isn’t particularly detailed, it provides a sense of scale that makes the incredible feats just that much more incredible, and it even affects the politics of the world. I remember reading the book for the first time and constantly switching back to the inner cover whenever a new town or city was mentioned.
This book basically ruined the entire fantasy genre for me because I could never find anything that captured all the reasons I loved it. The author actually published a prequel, but it was... not great. Shardik is to me a once-in-a-lifetime treasure.
Direct imgur link since the browser doesn't seem to like how that one is formatted.
Ah, that makes sense. And that's causing Tildes to interpret it as a relative link and fill in this thread's link at the beginning.