Quote Originally Posted by Jandor View Post


I'd say they're pretty damn close in shape. Obviously not 1:1, but much closer than I originally thought they were tbh.

Even the basic layout of forest and desert is fairly close. Ul'dah, Ala Mhigo, Gridania and Sharlayans colony all shift over to the map of Africa reasonably accurately, even Ishgard sort of makes sense, if you picture the Sahara as a frozen desert instead of a sandy one.

The main differences seem to be the lack of mountain ranges along the west/south of the Sahara, and Africa's complete lack of a sea of floating islands

Madagascar was just shifted to the other side of the continent.
Posting in a troll thread, but just because the shape of the continent in a fantasy game looks like Africa, doesn't make that Africa. The local Hyur have legit Celtic/Germanic names, Elezen have French-esque names, and Roegadyn have Germanic/Scandinavian names and their own Scandinavian-inspired language. The clothing everyone wears is very European. Ul'dah has some Middle-East cues, but so does Thavnair, which more classically fits that theme. Ala Mhigo feels a lot like Turkey/Ottoman Empire in their design ideas. Nothing is 1-for-1, and this is a fantasy world so it doesn't matter too much anyway. Their leaning into real world places (far east, near east, far west) helps connect players to the game's background, but I feel like it also weakens the story when you just cut and paste real life places and cultures into a fantasy world.