What do you think of when hearing “map”?
These days my most commonly referred to map is in the form of Google Maps, with it abstract vectors outlining streets and buildings and parks. It covers a few use cases: How to go to some new destination; which route to pick with the least traffic; checking opening hours for a restaurant; finding an ATM close to the shop that only takes cash.
But there are so many more types and uses of maps. The best collection of real-world maps with incredible details I’ve seen are in the Vatican museum. They have a long gallery with gigantic maps, covering the walls on both sides.
(if you’re reading this on a small screen, tap the images to load the full image and zoom in; then navigate back here)
Some of these are incredible detailed. This map of Italy shows many mountain ranges in the Alps:
Some more examples from that gallery:
Maps also show up in a lot of fantasy books. One of the best known is Tolkien’s map for middle earth in The Lord of the Rings. In one German edition of the books, this large print was included:
The book The Writer’s Map has a lot more example of maps created by writers for their novels. Some of my favorites:
When I was running my own pen&paper RPG campaigns, I drew a few maps as well, both on paper and digital. For example, for a Western campaign in 1880s Colorado, I scribbled maps for some of the scenes.
For later campaigns I also used tools like Excalidraw to draw some simple digital maps:
For a Song of Ice and Fire campaign set in The Vale of Arryn, in Westeros, I used a satellite image from Norway and scribbled some paths and places on top:
Not pretty, but it did make travel along the Vale much easier.
To close it off, let’s quote Tolkien (in a letter to Naomi Mitchison):
I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story — as I fear you have found.
And since I mentioned Discworld, let’s also quote Pratchett:
Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs.