Fantasy Counterpart Map

Above: the fictional world of Toril. Below: the real-life Earth.

So, you are creating your own Constructed World, and the last thing on the list of things you need to do is make a map! Perhaps you want readers or your book to get a better sense of the geography and where the characters are traveling, or perhaps you are making a video game and need a physical map for the players to navigate. Some works make their Fantasy World Map of a shape unlike anything Earth has ever seen (although it may resemble a particular object). But others deliberately base their map on a real-world location, copying the overall shape and sometimes geographical features from that real place.

There are some advantages to making a map like this. If you are going for a Fantasy Counterpart Culture, it clearly indicates to the audience that your fictional region is going to take inspiration from the real region it looks like. A Medieval European Fantasy may take clear inspiration from Europe, or a specific part of Europe, in its map, for example. The other advantage is that it's just easier — you don't have to completely invent a new landmass shape and try to make it look like something that could have been realistically produced by plate tectonics.

These maps aren't always an exact copy of the location they are inspired by — some are actually more or less the real location flipped upside down or otherwise rotated. But the resemblance is still clearly there.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The world map in Attack on Titan is an upside-down and mirrored version of the standard world map, with much of the action taking place in what in the real world is Madagascar.
• Spy X Family: The map of Westalis and Ostania, from what we see of it, is an exact copy of the Cold War-era West and East Germany.

Art

• Beast Fables: Urvara's continents are in similar positions to their real-world counterparts, but have a lot of jagged peninsulas. There's also land at the North Pole.

Comic Books

• Requiem Vampire Knight: The world map of Ressurection is essentially Earth's but with the oceans and landmasses reversed.

Literature

• In A Court of Thorns and Roses, the map is clearly based on the British Isles and surrounding area, with Hybern being Ireland and the main Mortal Lands being continental Europe.
• Arcia Chronicles: The two known continents resemble Europe and Africa in shape and position, if "Europe" consisted only of France, Germany, Hungary, and Poland, the latter shared a land border with Sweden, and the Iberian peninsula were a large island. Additionally, a large steppe region stretches beyond the mountain range demarcating the eastern border of the fantasy "Poland-Hungary", but it has never been depicted on official maps, so it is unclear how large the "Asian" landmass beyond the mountains is. The land masses are also much smaller than their Real Life counterparts.
• Terra Nova from the Carrera's Legions series is basically an upside-down and sideways Earth map; the parallels are made even more apparent by the fact that each settlement on Terra Nova is sponsored by a specific nation, and the locations correspond with their Earth equivalent (for example, the area of Terra Nova settled by the United States is between the areas settled by Mexico and Canada).
• In the Discworld, the great sprawling port city of Ankh-Morpork evolves over the series. Ankh-Morpork and its surrounding areas are, very deliberately, written to depict a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of England in its various forms. If this wider area depicts England, then its biggest city becomes, by degrees, a version of London. The City Map makes this explicit: the River Ankh is a loop-for-loop copy of the River Thames as it flows through London. The isthmus of the Isle of Gods is in the same relative place, the same shape, and carries much the same landmarks, as the "Isle of Dogs" in London, for instance. The city's district names also have echoes of those in London: examples include "Dimwell" for Milwall, "Dolly Sisters" for Seven Sisters.
• In Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife series, the map broadly resembles the central area of North America, especially the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: The map resembles an upside-down version of Great Britain, reflecting the series being a Medieval European Fantasy and the main family being part of a Fantasy Counterpart Culture resembling British people.
• The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The parody Fantasy World Map at the start of the book is just Europe turned 180 degrees counterclockwise. All of its geographic features are also named using anagrams of real ones, such as the "Bay of Caysib".
• To Shape a Dragon's Breath has a map very much based on Earth's continents in shape. However, the lands have different borders and names, and some don't exist at all. Korea—Zhongu—extends high into Asia and parts of contemporary China (called Shiang-Gang). A large portion of the Middle East in the Iraq/Iran area is together as the country of Kindah. "France" is Frankland (a lot of countries are simply called -land at the end, especially in "Europe"). Several countries don't exist—where "Portugal" would be is part of the country of Vaskosland. North and South America are instead North and South Markesland, having been colonized by the Anglish (Norse) instead of the "English". Furthermore a good portion of North Markesland west of where the Rockies are is obscured in fog, indicating it has not been explored and mapped by the Anglish; it is collectively known as the western frontier.
• In World of the Five Gods, the setting's map resembles Europe rotated 180 degrees. Cultures in the world accordingly are Fantasy Counterpart Cultures to the European cultures they are positioned as.
• Xanth: The titular Magical Land is the size and shape of a mirrored version of Florida. Given that the series takes place in a World of Pun, the center of Xanthian civilization exists roughly in the same place as Walt Disney World... or in other words, The Magic Kingdom.
• In The Shaping of Middle-Earth, a pencil-sketch map showing Middle-Earth as it was asymmetrically reshaped "After the War of the Gods" makes it resemble Eurasia in some aspects, though not so much in the northwestern area of Beleriand which was the setting of the stories Tolkien was writing at the time; in particular, the landmass lying south of "The Gt. Gulf" is shaped like the African continent. To the northeast of this is an "Inland Sea" which possibly represents the Black Sea and/or Caspian Sea. South of the "East Sea" lies "Dark Land (South Land)," a Mysterious Antarctica not explored in any of Tolkien's stories. (Of course, Middle-Earth is supposed to be Earth, millennia in the past.)

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Brancalonia is basically Italy turned 90-degrees clockwise.
  • Forgotten Realms: The world of Toril has continents that are in the same general locations and shapes as Earth's continents. Among the most noticeable differences are that Europe stand-in Faerûn (where most stories take place) is much bigger, Africa/Arabia stand-in Zakhara is a vast archipelago, and Australia stand-in Osse is a massive landmass.
  • Greyhawk originally had the most literal version of this trope. For his home game, Gary Gygax initially used a map of the Midwestern US for the locations on the Flanaess, with Greyhawk itself mapped to Chicago. For obvious reasons, the map was redone once the world was published as a product, with some callbacks to the original map left, such as the Nyr Dyv looking like Lake Superior.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The setting's unnamed planet is essentially a distorted version of medieval and early modern world maps. The Old World is a scrunched version of Europe, with the Empire where Germany would be, Bretonnia in place of France, Kislev approximating Russia, Norsca as a horizontal version of Scandinavia, Estalia, Tilea and the Vaults in place of Spain, Italy and the Alps, and the mist-shrouded island of Albion a ways off the coast. Heading east, the Dark Lands take the place of the Central Asian deserts, the Mountains of Mourn are the Himalaya stand-ins, and Cathay, Ind and Nippon don't even change their names. North of it all are steppes leading into the polar Chaos Wastes. Among the other continents, the Southlands, Naggaroth and Lustria have the approximate shapes and locations of Africa (complete with a northern desert home to a pseudo-Egyptian culture) and North and South America. The only area with no real equivalent is the floating island of Ulthuan, which instead serves as an Atlantis analogue.

Video Games

• Age of Mythology: Atlantis as depicted in this game is based on the shape of the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, though it is located off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula.
• Dokapon Kingdom: The world map/game board that the game takes place on is a squished version of Earth. Each major continent has a different name (e.g. the continent that looks like Africa is called Aphrike) and its own castle and monsters, with Asiana (Asia) being the easiest continent due to being where the game begins, and Flinders (Australia) being the hardest continent.
• The map in Drakengard is an inverted version of Europe, especially Spain reflecting how it was an alternate version of Europe before magic was introduced by Stable Time Loop.
• EarthBound (1994): Official artwork of a world map shows that Eagleland represents The Americas, Foggyland represents Europe and Chommo represents eastern Asia.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, while not the entirety of the world map is currently revealed, much of what is known resembles the real world:
  • The Three Great Continents (which are categorized as one landmass) and neighbouring places geographically resemble Africa (Aldenard), Europe (Ilsabard), and East Asia (Othard). Othard in particular is even more blatant, with a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Japan set on an island east of the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of China, which in itself is south of the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Mongolia.
  • Meracydia is located roughly to the South-East of the Three Great Continents, and is more or less congruent with Australia.
  • The New World is another landmass to the west of the Three Great Continents. Fittingly, it's a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the pre-colonization Americas.
• The map of Weyard in Golden Sun resembles a map of Earth in the Late Cretaceous Period around 90 million years ago. Bonus points for the continents named Angara (after the ancient continent of the same name, now part of Siberia), Gondowan (after Gondwanaland, which includes Africa which corresponds to the same), and Indra (after the Indian subcontinent).
• The eight worlds of the campaign of LittleBigPlanet are all inspired by real countries — in order, you have England, Africa, South America, Mexico, the United States, Japan, India, and Russia.
• Pokémon regions look just like real-world areas to reflect the region being a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of that area.
  • The first four generations are based on regions of Japan (Kanto on the real-life Kanto region, Johto on the Kansai region, Hoenn on Kyushu and Sinnoh on Hokkaido (along with Sakhalin and Kunashir).
  • Hisui (historical Sinnoh) was based on Ezo (historical Hokkaido).
  • Unova is designed based on the New York metropolitan area (including parts of New Jersey). Although Pokémon regions also take inspiration in their cities and geographical landmarks from their real equivalents, Unova differs noticeably at some points to prevent the whole region from being one big city. For instance, it has a desert right above the equivalent of lower Manhattan.
  • Kalos is based on northern France.
  • Alola is based on Hawaii.
  • Galar is based on the United Kingdom. While most regions look just like their real-world equivalent without any flipping, Galar is rotated 180 degrees compared to real-life Great Britain. The Isle of Armor is based on the Isle of Man, while the Crown Tundra is based on Scotland.
  • Paldea is based on the Iberian Peninsula.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: The map of Earth seen in one of the Shadow the Hedgehog cutscenes is certainly not one of the real-life planet, but most continents depicted can be recognized as twisted versions of America, Eurasia, etc. All other games use either the same geography as the real Earth or completely unrecognizable continents, they never settled on one look.

Western Animation

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Equestria at first was sort of based on North America, with many Equestrian cities being located roughly in the same place as their real-life counterparts, such as Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and Baltimare on the east coast, with Vanhoover and Las Pegasus on the west. When Equestria was later expanded, the cities remained in roughly the same place, but the continent looked far less like North America.

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