Originally Posted by
chizLemons
Cultural representation should not be this important in a completely fantasy setting, at least not in the way most people seem to be thinking about it. They of course should use inspiration from real cultures to be able to build a realistic-sounding one, to know how they developed through their struggles and what usually comes from it, how the people behave based on their environment and development, NOT to make the players "feel represented", not to match the real world 1:1 like it is. The more they try to make this close to reality and borrow directly from real world settings, the harder it is for them to get it right. In Dawntrail, it feels like they were focusing on the wrong details of it.
It should be a world-building resource for a good story setting.
Also, I don't think they were worried about the exact positions of the countries in the map when they first planned Eorzea?