World Map

[TinyRedLeaf]

Eorzea is slightly-broken Africa, but being the melting-pot Vanilla game world, the culture doesn't quite match up as well as the others.

Let me extend that metaphor further with my personal pet theory: Eorzea is the cradle of all intelligent life in Hydaelyn, the way Africa is the cradle of humanity on Earth.

At the very least, Eorzea would be the "source" of all life in Hydaelyn, being as it is the wellspring of the planet's aether. I like to think of Lake Silvertear as this planet's equivalent of Lake Victoria, one of Earth's largest freshwater lakes.

Which makes me wonder how ecosytems change, in lands so far away from Eorzea. We know that foreigners to Eorzea experience aether sickness when they first arrive to the realm, as their bodies take time to adjust to the higher concentrations of aether in the environment. While the breaking of the seal of Silvertear may well have caused vast amounts of aether to spill over, into lands as far away as Hingashi, it would still be common sense to assume that the levels of aether in these realms would be lower than those of Eorzea.

How does that affect magic, let alone all the fantastical beasts and beast tribes that roam these parts of the world?

[Caitlyn]

I made a quick "translation" of the current world map, but I m not finished yet. If someone find some errors or new names, please let me know ^^.

[DarthSanguine]

I made a quick "translation" of the current world map, but I m not finished yet. If someone find some errors or new names, please let me know ^^.

Only mistake I can see right now, is that you put Corvos instead of Dorvos.

[Rongway]

Speaking of old maps, is there any reason why we haven't found any maps of the world from the Allagans yet? Because I'm finding it really difficult to believe that a world-spanning empire could invent space-travel without having a complete map of the world. Why bother expanding towards space if there's land next to you that you haven't yet explored/conquered?

Besides the sensible meta-reasons explained by Moose, and the Calamitous re-geography-ing explained by Razor, we should also consider that maps (as would have been accurate during Allagan reign) quite probably do exist, but they are in non-paper (tomestone) format or otherwise very well hidden. Five thousand years is a long time for paper records, and they are not likely to have survived unless kept in sealed, magicked, or otherwise protected locations.

To draw a real-world parallel, we Earthans have shifted a great amount of our record-keeping to electronic formats in the last few decades, and books from even just a few hundred years ago might require careful preservation and handling to keep them from crumbling on contact.