History Main / LeftJustifiedFantasyMap

* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' used a square map with shores on the east and south. Direction of emphasis was from top-right (the location of the only airport you have access to for the majority of the game) to bottom-left (the location of the enemy-controlled capital). The original ''Jagged Alliance'' game was set on an island, but also featured advancing from right to left (this time, from your base in the bottom-right to the enemy base in the top-left).

* Mostly averted and oftentimes inverted in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' regions. [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Kanto]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Unova]] have oceans to the south and east; [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Johto]] and [[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Fiore]] mostly have southern coastlines; [[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Hoenn]] is a large island with numerous smaller islands to the east; [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Sinnoh]] is a roughly diamond-shaped island or peninsula with oceans on all four corners of the map and east as the only cardinal direction with a coastline; [[VideoGame/PokemonRanger Almia]] is mostly a south-pointing peninsula; [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Alola]] is a chain of Hawaii-inspired islands; and [[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Galar]] is based on Great Britain and has ocean to the east and west. The only regions to play it straight are [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Kalos]], which, fitting the trope description, is based on a European country, (France) and [[VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness Orre]], which oddly enough is based on Arizona.

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The main reason for this is the popularity of MedievalEuropeanFantasy. A {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}} of Medieval Europe will naturally imitate the geography of Europe: ocean to the west and vast stretches of land to the east. For the same reason, the north is often a [[GrimUpNorth harsh tundra full of barbarian tribes]], the east a mysterious land whence [[BornInTheSaddle ride]] the HordesFromTheEast, and the south a [[TheSavageSouth hot land of jungles, tropical islands, and savages]].

* ''ComicBook/ElfesEtNains'' features Arran, a world inspiring itself like most fantasy stories from Europe, and the map is dominated by the eastern sea with various archipelagoes scattered in the middle of it, with a supercontinent to the East and what appears to be a smaller one to the South.

* Avoided in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'': the ocean is on the east and south sides of the map, with the accompanying map also showing ocean on the west side[[note]]the in-game maps have ocean in the south-west, but the farther north the more land extends west until the ocean can neither be reached nor seen[[/note]]. Also avoided in ''Might and Magic VII'' and ''VIII'', as there are oceans on both sides in the former case, and on the south of the map in the latter case. In fact, ''all'' of the RPG games either avert or invert this trope -- beyond the ones already mentioned, I, II, and IV/V showed the world from end to end (they took place on flat worlds), III was surrounded by water, and IX had water north, east, and south.

%%* ''{{Spellsinger}}''

* Literature/TheMonarchiesOfGod series by ''Creator/PaulKearney'' plays this very straight. The landmass looks similar to Europe and there is a huge, undiscovered continent to the west of the ocean.

* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' by Robert Jordan: {{Grim Up North}}? Check. {{Hordes From The East}}? Check. Ocean on the left? Check. [[TheSavageSouth Hot jungles in the south]]? Che-oh wait, no jungles. There is, however, a swampy southern shore. The series plays with the convention in two ways, though: the protagonists spend a fair amount of time off the eastern edge of the map, in what turns out to be a harsh desert. Maps of this area are never shown, and there's another country even further east that is never explored. Secondly, although there are several factions that could qualify as HordesFromTheEast, the ones who do the most damage throughout the series actually come from the ''west'', over the sea. ''Nobody'' sees this coming.

** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' takes this concept (like so many other concepts from plain ol' fantasy ''Warhammer'') and launches it [[RecycledInSpace into space]]. No noticeable geographic features, obviously, and exceptions apply, but the galaxy of ''40k'' is divided into Segmentum including, for example, Obscurus (up "north", featuring Fenris, planet of the space Vikings and Vostroya, the planet of space Russians) and Ultima (out "east", featuring the {{Animesque}} Tau and space Mongol White Scars).

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series for the most part has its continents fully surrounded by ocean, but also a number of those which play it straight.
** The continent of [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Elibe]] (setting of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade Binding Blade]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Blazing Blade]]'') is surrounded by water from all sides, with the exception of a stripe of land that lies east of Sacae (itself a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Mongolia), and gets cut off by the edge of the map.
** [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Tellius]] (''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]]'') seems to be a large peninsula, with a large desert east and north of Daein and Begnion. Unusually for the series, there's at least one nation located outside the map's borders - Hatari, that lies beyond said desert.

* While the first ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' game showed the realm of Nosgoth to be land-locked - it was in fact very unclear whether Nosgoth was meant to be the name of the country or the whole world, and further it was unclear as to whether or not the world was meant to be a globe at all - the fourth game in the series revealed that Nosgoth did in fact have a south-western coastline that had been just slightly further than previous maps had shown.

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* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', the political geography is a blatant magical analog of Medieval Europe, so this is naturally the case.

** Oddly averted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', there is no coast or ocean. The largest body of water is Lake Hylia, which is landlocked (and to the south).

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', the ocean is to the south and east.

%%* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}''
* Invoked in ''LightNovel/AltinaTheSwordPrincess'', which is essentially a fictional analog of 18th-19th Century Europe.

* In the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series, Elibe (''Sword of Seals'' and ''Blazing Blade'') and Tellius (''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'') are left-justified. The majority of the maps in the series have ocean on all sides, however. Elibe does have a southern and northern coast as well, we just don't see anything not connected to the main landmass (beyond the Western Isles and several other islands, of course). The one unresolved aspect is whatever lies east of Sacae, itself a mass of grassy plains which ends/gets cut off on the far right of the map we get...

** This may also have been what happened with the mountains, which are so unrealistic as to make [[http://www.tor.com/2017/08/01/tolkiens-map-and-the-messed-up-mountains-of-middle-earth/ geologists discuss them in terms of car-wreck fascination]].

* In the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, Valdemar and its neighboring countries are landlocked, but are on the western side of the continent. The sea is beyond the [[LostWoods Pelagiris Forest]], which is full of monsters and WildMagic. Off east is the mysterious [[TheEmpire Eastern Empire]].

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'': the ocean is on the east side of the map. Also avoided in ''Might and Magic VII'' and ''VIII'', as there are oceans on both sides in the former case, and on the south of the map in the latter case. In fact, ''all'' of the RPG games either avert or invert this trope -- beyond the ones already mentioned, I, II, and IV/V showed the world from end to end (they took place on flat worlds), III was surrounded by water, and IX had water north, east, and south.

* ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicles'' uses a very Europe-like map, with sea to the north, west, and south and land to the east and southeast.

* The map on the ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'' splash screen which is also used for most storytelling segments of the campaigns.

* Entirely ignored in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', despite being set in what is obviously a European analog. Amestris is landlocked, and surrounded by lots of much larger countries. There is mention of an island nation beyond Xing, however, and the larger map of the world briefly glimpsed in episode 64 of Brotherhood showcases a small amount of ocean touching upon Aerugo, the nation to the south and east of Amestris, thus making the Fullmetal World a bit more of a right-justified map (an even briefer glimpse of a chalk drawing of the world is glimpsed in the flashback to King Bradley's childhood, showing continents similar to Earth's with Europe, Africa and Asia kind of merging a bit around the Middle East, which is likely where Amestris and its fellow nations are located)

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Though a sci fi franchise spread across a galaxy, maps of that galaxy consistently portray the known regions as being to the east with the Unknown Regions to the west.

* Since ''Dies the Fire'' and its sequels mostly take place on pacific coast, it also follows this trope. However, ''The Scourge of God'' takes place in the Midwest, and thus has no coasts (Unless counting the Great Lakes) and then the ''Sword of the Lady'' roams from the Mississippi to the East Coast, thus avoiding the trope. Also, since it takes place on an Alternate History Earth, there do exist several maps that detail the rest of the world, at least in-universe.

* The Old World in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' is a not-very-subtle version of Europe (and beyond), so the layout is much the same as a real-world map. As the primary focus is on the Empire (Germany), Bretonnia (France), and the frozen, inhospitable wastelands only inhabited by desperate, drunk, and brutal deformed humans (Scandinavia), that's what most of the maps show. The larger map is has approximations of North & South America, East Asia including an island named "Nippon", Africa. England is represented as the island "Albion" (which despite the origins of the game, wasn't particularly explored until 2 decades into it's lifespan). The biggest changes are that there is a gigantic circular island planted in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean equivalent, and that Australia & South East Asia is smushed into a handful of large islands or pushed into the Antarctic equivalent "Southern Wastes".

** Zig-zagged in ''TabletopGame/{{Birthright}}''. The basic rulebook and accompanying materials focused on the fractured nation of Anuire, which is positioned on the southwest edge of the setting's main continent of Cerilla. Accordingly, it was ocean to the west and south (though with a destroyed land-bridge to the "Old World" continent of Aduria), and land to the north and east. However, as more sourcebooks for the setting were released, the continent's map was eventually fully expanded and the all of Cerilla was detailed, ultimately subverting the trope.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'': the ocean is on the east side of the map. Also avoided in ''Might and Magic VII'' and ''VIII'', as there are oceans on both sides in the former case, and on the south of the map in the latter case. In fact, ''all'' of the RPG games either avert or invert this trope -- beyond the ones already mentioned, I, II and IV/V showed the world from end to end (they took place on flat worlds), III was surrounded by water, and IX had water north, east, and south.

* Played straight in ''Myth: The Fallen Lords'' who's map also looks very similar to that of Literature/TheSilmarillion.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', Westeros is the westernmost landmass in the world. It is the fantasy equivalent of the British Isles, though continent-sized and contains equivalents to other parts of Europe. The western sea is called the Sunset Sea, and there is no known land in that direction. Lord Gylbert Farwynd of the Lonely Light, the Westernmost of the Iron Islands and point of land, claims there is a paradise-like land to the West. Many of the Iron Islanders don't believe him and think him mad. Westeros sits off the western shore of Essos, which is the fantasy equivalent of Eurasia. Essos extends beyond the eastern limits of all official maps, so its eastern shores are never seen. The limitations in the maps are meant to reflect the limitations of Medieval maps. An equivalent of Africa also exists, though it's never been visited yet in the books, and its reaches are unmapped.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' could have started this phenomenon. Creator/JRRTolkien had set out to create a mythology for Europe and especially England (the available myths, such as [[KingArthur Camelot]] (which is really French/Welsh) and Literature/{{Beowulf}} (which is Anglo-Saxon and set in Scandinavia), being alien to the modern English culture) and thus, in the context of the fantasy, Middle-earth is supposed to be western Europe as it was in the extremely distant past.