Imaginary Places

A Look at Fantasy Maps
On Tor.com, a series of posts by Jason Denzel that examine maps in fantasy novels, fantasy computer games and other fantasy media (with a digression to geocaching). Update, July 23: Add to that a fourth post on maps for Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series….   Read more →
Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 8:02 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Maps of Imaginary Places: A Roundup
Kidlandia is an interactive map builder that allows you to create custom fantasy maps for children; you choose from one of four maps (which seems rather limited to me), which you customize with your own place names. Prices for giclée posters range from $40 to $180, but it’s free…   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 6:20 PM
Categories: Art, Blogs, Imaginary Places
Cross-Stitched Legend of Zelda Map
Okay, brace yourselves: a cross-stitched map of the video game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Via Boing Boing….   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 9:00 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Modified Mars
Frans Blok has been imagining maps of a future, terraformed Mars. He writes, “Almost ten years ago I made this map of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars. Recently I created a more sophisticated visualisation of a terraformed Mars, although no longer directly linked to Robinson’s novels. This map has the…   Read more →
Posted on Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Imaginary Places
Fantasy Cartography
Fantasy Cartography is a blog that reprints scans of maps from science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as role-playing and computer games. The archives are quite extensive. Via La Cartoteca….   Read more →
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Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 6:57 PM
Categories: Blogs, Imaginary Places
Maps of Non-Fantasy Fictional Worlds
Try to find a fantasy novel without a map; but what about what we science-fiction and fantasy enthusiasts call “mainstream” fiction? “My undergrad thesis argued that world-building wasn’t just for fantasy and sci-fi writers — every tale has a setting, every tale creates a world in the reader’s mind —…   Read more →
Posted on Monday, June 2, 2008 at 5:11 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
The Cartographers’ Guild
Another online forum about maps — The Cartographers’ Guild — with a decided focus on fictional maps. The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional…   Read more →
Posted on Friday, July 20, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Categories: Groups & Societies, Imaginary Places
Fantasy Atlas
The Fantasy Atlas is a German-language collection of maps from various fantasy (and some science fiction) novels. That there are so many entries speaks to the fact that it’s virtually impossible nowadays to write a fantasy novel without creating a map of the secondary world in which it takes place….   Read more →
Posted on Monday, July 9, 2007 at 10:02 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Strange Maps
Strange Maps is a relatively new blog about maps with a taste for the hypothetical, the fictional and the unusual. Via Cartography….   Read more →
Posted on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 9:49 PM
Categories: Blogs, Imaginary Places
Storybook England
Storybook England is an interactive map to the locations associated with children’s literature, whether as fictionalized setting or behind the scenes. Briefly mentioned in the New York Times, which article promises a downloadable map, link to which downloadable map generates a 404. Via MapHist; see also Cartography….   Read more →
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Posted on Monday, October 9, 2006 at 9:50 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Tolkien Maps at Upcoming Field Museum Exhibit
Between November 2 and January 27, there will be a maps exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. Not many details yet, except that it’s called “Maps! The History of Cartography” and it’s co-sponsored by the Newberry Library — and that three maps from the Tolkien collection at Milwaukee’s Marquette…   Read more →
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Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 at 2:16 PM
Categories: Exhibitions, Imaginary Places
Les voyages extraordinaires de Jules Verne
Garmt de Vries’s Jules Verne Collection has several pages of interest to us: The Maps from the Voyages Extraordinaires, a collection of scans from the original (French) editions of Jules Verne’s novel (Verne apparently didn’t invent a geography for his books; he placed his imaginary places and voyages on…   Read more →
Posted on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 8:43 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Globe of Sawyer’s Quintaglio
Science fiction writers frequently create maps of the worlds they create for their stories; one of Robert J. Sawyer’s fans turned around and made him a globe from those maps. From his blog: “A fellow named Patrick J. O’Connor, who lives in Chicago, made this wonderful globe for me…   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 6:37 AM
Categories: Globes, Imaginary Places
Question: Fictional Maps with worldKit?
Tony Straka is looking for a way of creating maps of imaginary places with open-source web mapping tools. He writes, “One thing I have searched for is fictional maps created with one of these programs and I cannot seem to find any. The short question is, do you know if…   Read more →
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Posted on Thursday, June 15, 2006 at 2:04 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places, Questions
The Middle-earth DEM Project
The Middle-earth DEM Project is, writes Carl Lingard, “a non-profit, hobbyists’ project devoted to mapping Middle-earth as a fully georeferenced digital elevation model and topographic map (using Google Earth as one of its targets). We are also seeking to develop new tools for terrain modelling/visualisation.” See previous entry: Mapping Middle-earth….   Read more →
Posted on Sunday, May 7, 2006 at 6:49 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
The Marvel Atlas Project
Today is Free Comic Book Day, in honour of which, here is the Marvel Atlas Project, an online attempt to map the locations of the Marvel comics universe. As it turns out, Dr. Doom’s Latveria is in the Balkans. Via atlas(t). See previous entry: Maps of Imaginary Worlds….   Read more →
Posted on Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 5:03 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Map of the Star Wars Galaxy
This map of the Star Wars galaxy (or, in insiders’ lingo, the Galaxy Far, Far Away or GFFA) is probably not “canon” (i.e., official), but it’s sort of interesting anyway. Via Cartography, who didn’t think much of it….   Read more →
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Posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 at 8:56 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Map of Narnia
This interactive map of Narnia, a tie-in with the upcoming movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is actually quite good: it’s a compilation of material from several Narnia books (specifically, Prince Caspian and The Silver Chair) and adds locations from the first volume, which to my surprise does…   Read more →
Posted on Wednesday, November 2, 2005 at 4:20 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Adrian Leskiw’s Fictional Road Maps
The Map Realm: The Fictional Road Maps of Adrian Leskiw is a marvellous collection of hand-drawn and digitally made highway maps of non-existent places conjured straight from Adrian’s imagination. I love this stuff. I used to draw maps of made-up places all the time as a kid; it’s good…   Read more →
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Posted on Monday, September 12, 2005 at 8:45 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
A Literary Map of Manhattan: The Results
Back in April, Randy Cohen solicited submissions from readers of the New York Times Book Review for a literary map of Manhattan (see previous entry). That map is now online as scheduled, and it’s well done: interactive, with lots of stuff to click, and with locations from more than 70…   Read more →
Posted on Sunday, June 5, 2005 at 3:21 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
A Literary Map of Manhattan
Randy Cohen in the New York Times Sunday Book Review (free registration required): “I propose to create, with the help of the Book Review’s readers, a literary map of Manhattan — not of its authors’ haunts but those of their characters, a map of the literary stars’ homes.” Reader submissions…   Read more →
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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 3:10 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places
World of Warcraft Map Viewer
Those interested in computer game maps (see previous entry) should take note of WoWmapview, a map viewer for World of Warcraft: “It uses the data files included with the game to display the 3D game world, which you can explore by flying anywhere. It allows access to off-limits developer areas…   Read more →
Posted on Monday, April 11, 2005 at 12:03 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Karen Wynn Fonstad
Karen Wynn Fonstad, the freelance cartographer who authored atlases of Middle-earth, Dragonlance and other fantasy worlds, died March 11 of complications from breast cancer. She was 59. This Toronto Sun article from 2002 reviews her best-known work, The Atlas of Middle-earth. (See previous entry.)…   Read more →
Posted on Monday, April 4, 2005 at 12:25 AM
Categories: Books, Imaginary Places, Obituaries
Watership Down
This page on the differences between editions of Richard Adams’s Watership Down also has scans of the different editions’ maps (the 1972 original hardback had something that looks like a UTM grid; the 1973 Puffin paperback had a more traditional fantasy-literature map by Pauline Baynes, who did maps for Lewis…   Read more →
Posted on Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 9:39 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Mapping Middle-earth
Since The Map Room started at the end of March 2003, the about page has said, “from medieval Mappæ Mundi to satellite imagery, and from topo maps to Tolkien.” I’ve done posts on all of these subjects save one: I’ve never done a post on maps of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Part…   Read more →
Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 at 11:17 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Mythical Geography
The Philadelphia Print Shop has a page on mythical geography in antique maps: Illusions, Confusions and Delusions. Old maps are filled with inaccuracies — rivers running a wrong course, cities placed incorrectly, coastlines lacking bays, and mountains, lakes and islands missing completely. The mistakes in old maps are one of…   Read more →
Posted on Friday, July 30, 2004 at 12:53 PM
Categories: Antique Maps, Imaginary Places
Mongo
Jeff Patterson writes in to point to a map of the planet Mongo (187 KB JPEG). You pathetic earthling….   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2004 at 9:51 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
The Night Land Maps
William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land, published in 1912, is apparently a cult classic, with the usual fan-generated materials, including, notably (else why I would I mention?), maps. Jeff Patterson writes to point us to this page, which he describes as “[p]art of a site dedicated to William Hope Hodgson’s…   Read more →
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2004 at 11:29 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Stephen King’s Maine
Stephen King’s official web site has a map of Maine that includes the fictional towns — like Castle Rock and Derry — from his works. It’s a popup from the Miscellany page….   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, March 4, 2004 at 8:05 AM
Categories: Imaginary Places
Online Video Game Atlas
“The Online Video Game Atlas is a site made for video game maps. This site is made possible by gamers who rip or draw maps and contribute them here for others to view.”…   Read more →
Posted on Thursday, February 5, 2004 at 2:01 PM
Categories: Imaginary Places

Note: Entries from 2003 were not categorized and will not appear in the category archives. Please consult the monthly archives.