I’ve greatly admired writers and artists who create their own worlds.
Creating new planets/dimensions/environments and those that dwell in them takes great talent, especially if those worlds, societies and characters are within the fantasy genre.
The following are maps taken from some of the best-loved pieces of fantasy ever written and spans more than 150 years worth of literature,
I’ve gathered this collection from all over the interweb and made notes where I had the information handy.
Click on the image for a more detailed view.
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YOU'LL FIND PART 2 HERE
Arrakis, the desert planet from Frank Herbert's DUNE
Like most fantasy's Ursula K. Le Guin’s
Earthsea trilogy became something more and expanded into a seven book series.
Alagaesia is the world of
Eragon written by Christopher Paolini.
It was also intended to be a trilogy but suffered writers Elephantiasis
And became the four book Inheritance Cycle.
Neverland is the magic Island that Peter Pan steals Wendy and her brothers away to.
In most movies the compass is actually shown as part of the island when viewed in aerial shots.
Raymond E Fiests
Riftwar Cycle once again started as a trilogy and went onto become a whole series of tales from both sides of the warring worlds.
Of course there are two maps for the two worlds
Midkemia and
Kelewan
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| MIDKEMIA |
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| KELEWAN |
The Narnia series by CS Lewis has several maps as the series covers many centuries during the telling of the tale.
These two cover the Lion the Witch and the wardrobe and Voyage of the DawnTreader
Of course, no fantasy map essay would be complete without Middle Earth. BUT!!! As well as the more popular map, below is the world that Middle Earth is ONLY a part of. ARDA.
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| ARDA |
L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories have been interrupted and reinvented several times most notably by
Ruth Plumly Thompson and
Gregory Maguire
Baum changed his maps from the original story to accommodate new story lines.
Oz is surrounded by deserts to stop “outsiders “ coming in. It wa later expanded to show it surrounded by sea..
Maguire’s map expands on the four districts in more detail.
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| Original map |
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| Expanded map |
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| Latter expanded map |
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| Maguire version from Wicked |
Phillip Pullman’s
Northern Lights series tells of a parallel world to Earth and it reflects so in the map. Since the story is placed vaguely in the mid 1800s to early 1900s the names of the countries have their colonial names applied.
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| Commonly referred to as Lyra's World |
Alice in wonderland the times tale by Lewis Carroll has had many maps applied to both it and Through the Looking Glass/
The very popular reworking by Tim Burton added a whole new Dimension to the tale and more maps.
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| Concept map from Burton's film |
The map of Westeros, the continent of the 7 Kingdoms from The tales of
George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire
An updated more recent Map of Westeros and Essos
A link to Detailed Map of Character travels from A Song of Ice and Fire
This recent addition is a political relief map, which is quite handy for new comers to the series.
It comes from
gameofthrones.net
