Posts tagged geography
The capital of the society my story revolves around is built on top of a cliff, similar to the White Cliffs of Dover (pictured below for reference). For story reasons, they settled in this location...
So in many games you have regions that are bordered on all sides by impassible geography of some sort or another. This has always bothered me as necessary but also acts as a reminder to pull you o...
Is it possible for a planet's surface to be wetlands, such that… There are no great land masses (continents). There would still be two polar caps, and I am considering a greater width of equator ...
In my world, the main "evil" race lives in a labyrinth like rock formation. They use a method of magic that gives them a hive mind advantage, so they all know how to move around within it. My quest...
Would a salt flat be near a river? I have a world with a Nile River-like region and within a few miles, perhaps 10-20, I have a massive salt flat. The arable land of the river brushes up against e...
Map is 1000 miles long and wide. In general, do these placements make sense? I'm also wondering: where volcanoes would be? why the coast is full of life and the west dead and barren? where the...
I think of a world of islands floating in the sky. The planet basically is (was) our Earth. For some reason all that is left is a small ball covered nearly completely with water. Pieces of the shat...
Pretty much the title. I was thinking that it could have originated from a meteorite impact. I think that there are meteors that are made of frozen noble gases, so that would be the source of the "...
In a "mountains and valleys" type area, there is a very large fire (say, an acre or two) that generates a lot of smoke. Where would the wind be strong enough and constant enough in this type of ge...
Suppose a highly tectonically active planet, slightly smaller than Earth, has attracted the human race's attention due to its mineral wealth. Its landscape primarily consists of mountain chains, vo...
For simplicity assume hypothetically we make multiple copies of earth: XS, S, M, L, XL. The only difference between them is their size (radius), everything else is the same. S is half the size of...
Belsaria is the City of Fountains. The capital of Nowheria, it's truly a civic marvel, due to the thousands of fountains that jet water into the air at every intersection and in the courtyards of a...
Subangea is a giantic cave that stretches below the surface through endless cavities. From oil oceans to volcanic sinkholes and even upside-down forests, the environment is ever changing from one c...
I need some help with the placement of the cities on a map of one of my continents. I'm not looking for opinions, but more for a reality check on how realistic it is in terms of where things are an...
The ozone layer depleted beyond reasonable levels and life on the surface has become impossible and life migrated underground in giant caves connected together by tunnels. Some of those caves have...
If an island in a sub-tropical region were to be unreachable because of natural phenomena, what could those phenomena be? The people trying to reach said island have 17th century seafaring technol...
I would love to shape my planet in a way, that allows me to have an extremely cold, icy desert, next to an extremely hot, sanddesert. By "next to", I don't mean a few hundred miles apart, with gr...
Back home, the Tibetan Plateau averages 4,950 meters above sea level with its highest point being Mount Everest, 8,848 meters--29,029 feet--above sea level. At such heights, problems are resulted ...
It's common knowledge that the atmosphere of Venus is too inhospitable for a proper landing. The most concerning problem with that is pressure. Venus's atmospheric pressure is said to be 92 times...
So I've created a map of a fictional world using the guidelines established in the Creating a Realistic World Series. However, like all creative endeavors, the first few (hundred) maps are not goin...
The rock is spherical. All arthropods are included. They have no time limit and are "programmed" to cooperate, but lack intelligence. While there is no time limit, the insects do this transportatio...
What scientifically would make it possible that certain large bodies of water be impassable while others that seem very similar are able to be navigated? This is not what I am attempting to do, bu...
I'm creating a fantasy-world generator. So far I've got it generating a reasonably good surface map, complete with terrain, cities, and borders. Here's a link for anybody who wants to try it: https...
I see this in so many maps. Normally, the water flows downhill because of gravity but here it is the opposite, rivers will go above the hills. When you mention this incoherence, the authors refuse ...
On the world I am building (Let's call it Bob for simplicity's sake), the days last 9 years. As a result of this, the living beings on Bob must migrate across the planet to avoid the encroaching ni...
Welcome to the Black Cauldron. The Cauldron of Storms, even. It's a sunny day now, perfect for fishing. Just not here. There's no boats on the water. The weather can go bad, quickly. And anything o...
Given an Earth-like planet, what sort of geological features or weather systems are required for a place to have the same average day and night temperatures throughout the whole year? Is such a thi...
How would you form an extended stretch of coastline that is effectively useless for overwater trade -- i.e. there are no sheltered areas to serve as ports, or trade routes that can reach all the wa...
In this universe, the planet Paveiha has a mountain range that completely surrounds a region in a semi square/rectangle(ish) shape. Inside the borders of this vast mountain range is a verdant land ...
How can a part of a continent (super or other) remain unexplored by the apparently civilized majority? The undiscovered part must be habitable but inaccessible, by land or sea, so that the rest of ...
I've looked around here a bit, but I haven't managed to find a post that really answers my question (though if there is one, please let me know). I'm trying to write a story where the two main cha...
What would be the geographical and ecological implications for an Earth-like planet that experienced intense volcanic and supervolcanic activity on a scale that, while decreasing over time, was far...
I imagine a planet similar to ours, except for two details: The presence of everlasting clouds No yearly seasons Explanation: In this world clouds are very high and thick, so that sunlight (or...
In what ways could an island be protected from tsunamis, given the following constraints?: It lies in the middle of the ocean, at least several hundred kilometers from the nearest continent. It d...
In the book Dune by Frank Herbert. Arrakis is a desolate planet composed entirely of deserts. Water is a precious commodity due to its rarity. The Fremen have found ways to live on its surface, des...
Since the geological history of the world's largest nation is as big as the nation itself, and since I don't have a master familiarity with Russia's formation over hundreds of millions of years, I'...
I'm looking at a science fiction scenario similar to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness where buildings are exposed to the elements for millions of years. I have a feeling they wouldn't be qui...
I'm building an alien world for a game mod, and want to avoid any blatant mistakes from a world-building perspective. The world has three moons visible in the night sky - two on one side near each ...
I have a planet with two moons. I want them on opposite sides during the equinoxes and together during the solstices. The seasons are a little lopsided, with spring and autumn having 90 days and th...
I'm creating a bronze age setting and one of the civilizations gets their powers from a river whose irrigation produces a vast food supply. So, I decided to figure out where the most powerful city ...
I have humans who live in a world filled with floating islands. These islands span all heights in the planet: from the core to the upper atmosphere. The problem I have is that most of these islands...
Given a planet without any relationship to Earth, what does it mean for the poles to be "north" or "south"? Is it something arbitrary that can be changed?
I am currently working with a landmass roughly 1,000 miles (1600 km) in length and width. Would insular dwarfism or gigantism occur in this landmass? If not what is the largest a landmass can be be...
Could a Snowball Earth drive our species into total extinction? The most obvious problem is: How would we grow food to sustain any grouping of people?
A key part of the plot in a story I'm working on revolves around the main region being on top of volcano that is set to erupt. The trouble is that the region in question in my setting is roughly th...
I am writing a story where a freak magical accident causes a fully-formed landmass to pop into existence like it was there all along. For the purposes of this question, let's assume: the contine...
Let's say there is planet, similar to Earth in almost all respects. However, some sort of geological process has shattered its continents, leaving lots of islands no larger than Iceland with shallo...
I have an idea for a scify/lost technology world, that I would like to check the plausibility of. What I want A terran world of large size. The crust of the world is thin, and hostile gas-organis...
I had the idea to make an artificially constructed planet which is terrestrial, but has the diameter of Jupiter. Instead of being a solid sphere, it would be five spherical layers, with land on the...
On Earth, the presence of tides due to the Sun and Moon influence certain currents and other movements of water. This in turn leads to different forms of erosion, which can transform a landscape. ...
