Updated map of The Three Great Continents

[Iscah]

I thought Eorzea was Africa and Meracydia was Australia. Ilsabard is Europe (which means yes, Garlemald is there), while Old Sharlayan is the British Isles.

People keep repeating this and there's really no resemblance to it besides the very loose shape of the continent and the fact that there's something between it and "Asia".

Turn your map of Europe sideways, maybe gather in some of northern Africa, and you've got a much better analogue. Norse-themed dragons in the northwest, large island nation off the west coast, peninsulas and islands off the east coast, Turkish-inspired Gyr Abania in the northeast. (This also explains why Eorzea's climate seems out of whack if you put too much thought into it, with Gyr Abania being well north of its apparent influence and seeming like it should be on the latitude of Ul'dah rather than Coerthas.

Meanwhile, though the Eorzean map seems loose in its real-world equivalent (whatever it is) Othard is more tightly overlaid to Asia, down to the mountain ranges – except Russia is missing.

If you assume the Bay of Yanxia is the Yellow Sea and cut a line from South Korea to Mongolia, the northern borders of Mongolia and Kazakhstan seem to follow the same shape as Othard's northern coast. It gets vague after that – the northern inlet seems to be the Caspian Sea but also covering some real-world dry land.

But the key thing is, Russia isn't there, and it's not attached to Eorzea either, so I'm expecting that it's been pushed off sideways to become Ilsabard, along with the remaining parts of the Middle East.

Also the few real-world things we know to be from Meracydia (aloe and sesame) are from Africa.

[Iscah]

Just a silly thought from my mind. When 5.0 was new, before the Eden storyline, I was hoping that in a future story we would try to finish the "Rejoining" of the worlds, but in a different way from the Ascians. A way that wouldn't result in the destruction of the reflect and the Calamity of the Source, but just transportation of the remaining place.

Realistically, dropping an entire new continent into the world would probably be disruptive enough to be a calamity in itself.

[Fenral]

People keep repeating this and there's really no resemblance to it besides the very loose shape of the continent and the fact that there's something between it and "Asia".

Well, there's the whole "age of exploration" thing, too. Like, Eorzea is simultaneously an area that has been settled for 1000+ years where everyone speaks Common, but also this great land of adventure that people flock to from other parts of the world, not unlike Africa in the 19th century. Nobody really goes on expeditions to France or Turkey. That's just going on holiday.

[Vyrerus]

Honestly, I think the cultural references are really the only real world references. The geography and climates for FFXIV don't really line up with the real world.

And they routinely tell us on gathered items where they originate from, but then the places we find them in game don't really make sense with the climates they're supposed to grow in, usually.

To me, Eorzea as a whole just looks like a jank version of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Vylbrand is the Canary Islands but lumped into one. Africa and the rest of Europe really don't exist. Old Sharlayan is Britain by location but completely deleted culture wise.

Meracydia is supposed to be a wasteland now, and that doesn't fit in with Africa at all. I guess maybe the Sahara? But where's the rest of it, lol.

[Kiurai]

Ik the topic has kinda died but Bukyo has been on my mind lately, it's a closed off region to foreigners (Ijin I think we're called) And all of the Nagxian region has me intrigued, the one thing that wish was a thing is to see Bukyo since it also has a unique city icon but we know next to nothing about it right now