AzurePlanet's CartoBlog

Originally Posted by AzurePlanet

Hello everybody,
I'm happy to share with you my just "finished" map.
[...]
Here you can have a look at the original WIP.
[...] You can think about the USN as a contemporary place on Earth, it is not a fantasy or sci-fi world.

This is definitely my own favourite Fictional Place.

Before starting to tell you how I invented it, just a note to point out some basic issues:

NAMES OF THE NATION
Official long and short form names: The United States of The Newfoundisles, USN.
Common names: The Newfoundisles or Newfoundisles.

NAMES AND SIGNS OF THE FEDERAL STATES (AND REGIONS)
Quebentario, QO. (New Québec + New Ontario).
Longbeach, LH. (Stripland + Countryland).
New Arizona, AZ.
Otago, OG.
Texwyoming, TW. (Tex + New Wyoming).
New Pantheky, PK.

NAMES AND SIGNS OF THE FEDERAL DISTRICT
Owreaghys Federal District, OFD or FD.
District Fédéral d'Ourégis, DFO or DF.

CAPITAL AND LARGEST CITY
Owreaghys / Ourégis.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
English.
French.

GOVERNMENT
Federal Republic.

INDEPENDENCE
From Great Britain and France: May 4 1777.

AREA
6,054 km²

POPULATION
2014 estimate: 3,549,100.
Density: 586.24/km².

GDP (GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT)
Total: $ 196.27 billion.
Per capita: $ 55,300.

CURRENCY
Newfoundisles Dollar (NFD)

TIME ZONE
UTC-03:00

---

As I told you in the map's WIP thread, back in 1985 when I was 14, I had the very first idea to make a map of this ideal place.
I was inspired by the American TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard", and now you can find a town called Hazzwood in my map, just near another one mentioned in the series, called Sweetwater. Also, other elements and toponyms inspired by the series were the speedway that I drew near Inland, the marshes in New Pantheky, and names like Colonial Fjourd, Colony (from Colonial City) and Dockard (similar to Hazzard).
I wanted to create an "american" place where my fantasy could freely and happily run, so are explained names like New Arizona, New Ontario, New Quebec, New Wyoming, Florida City, and features like large plains, rivers, lakes, falls and canyons.

The very first step of the USN (formerly and mistakenly called "United Island's States" or UIS) was this piece of paper:



Here I sketched up the outline of the main islands and the features I wanted to represent.

Then I started to hand-draw the first A4 size sheet at 1:100K scale:



Here I was clearly inspired by New York City and vicinities, but I also used the New Zealand toponym Otago.

Then I continued to draw as far as sheet 26 and finally I got the following tiled map called mistakenly "United Island's States" or UIS:



Here you can see that I also put other ideas and features which were not at all related to the TV series, for example I used some "french" and "german" toponyms too. Moreover, I drew the town of Shannon inspired by my home-town and a sort of Venice in the North (!!! ), but I was only 14... at that time I was quite satisfied with my work.
When I finished the tiled map, I also wanted to make these simple handy maps at 1:1000000 scale, to compare my work with real world maps on my atlas.



Here I also decided the latitude where I wanted to place my islands (note parallel 44°N), approximately the same latitude of Tuscany, Italy, where I live. However, I did not choose the longitude at that time.

Meanwhile, I drew the first draft State Flags, and here you can see another reference to "The Dukes of Hazzard", in fact the six-pointed star of the Oregontario's Flag (now called Quebentario) is very similar to the one shown on the Sheriff's patrol car sides.



Then, I rolled the tiled map and put it on the top of a closet. All other stuff was put in a drawer and I almost forgot all my work for about 29 years (!!! ), even though I did not lose my fondness for maps, in fact I also did a course in "GIS and Thematic Cartography" in 2005/06, just after my graduation.

---

Meanwhile I found out the Cartographers' Guild and became a member...

When I decided that my old UIS map was to be reborn, I was no more satisfied with many features, of course.
First of all, I set up the position on Earth, about 300 km SE from the real Newfoundland, then I chose the coordinate reference systems (WGS84 and Transverse Mercator Zone 22N) and the scale of representation 1:200K.
So, I fully redrew the relief with contour lines and got a DTM, added many more creeks, lakes, waterfalls and roads, deleted odd features, added some other ones, and also changed some coast lines and urban areas.
Then, after I started the WIP thread, I had a weird dream where I was in a town placed over the top of a mesa: from there looking SW, I could see a wide panorama and a large quiet river in the valley. I did not realized immediately that I dreamed a place I could find on my map, just because I had not drawn any towns at that location: so it was the amazing "foundation" of Dream Town, in Dreamland, TW!



Panorama from Dream Town looking SW. Here you can see the Lower Otago River Valley.

Finally I made a full revision of town and city toponyms and got this table:



I used that spreadsheet to calculate population according to urban area size and population density.

To finish the map, I also completed the State Flags.
The old National Flag was too similar to the USA's Flag, so I kept the upper left part and centered the stars, but now it is very similar to the EU Flag too. The blue background represents the Atlantic Ocean, and the six white stars are the Federal States.

The Quebentario's new Flag is almost the same as the old one, I only changed the six-pointed star to a five-pointed, and deleted the state names under the coats of arm. The red strip reminds the fictional independence war.

The Longbeach's new Flag is very similar to the old one, I only took away the state sign and centered the stars in the blue rectangle. The green and blue rectangles represent Countryland and Stripland Regions, the white rectangle is instead the pacific union between the two Regions. Also, the upper right part is clearly a remind to the national unity, and the red star stands for Longbeach State.

I had to invent the other four state flags from scratch.
So, the New Arizona's Flag was a tribute to the real Arizona's Flag. I just removed the upper rays and rounded the tips of the star, which symbolizes copper mines present in the state.

The New Pantheky's Flag is a tribute to the real Scotland's Flag, but here the blue cross stands for the Pantheky's Fjourds, and the green background is just for land among fjourds.

The Otago's Flag is a tribute to an ancient italian state: the Duchy of Modena and Reggio. In my flag the red and white strips remind the previous original flag, while the central strip with white stars remind the national unity. The yellow star stands for Otago State.

Finally, the Texwyoming's Flag is utterly fancy but I used the same colors of the real Texas and Wyoming, that is red white and blue. The red bordered blue star on the white triangle stands for the Tex Region, while the red bordered white star on the blue triangle stands for the New Wyoming Region.

---

By the way, I think I will continue to develop the USN in my spare time.

Next steps will be to make City Maps at 1:20K scale, starting from the Capital, and a 3D Surface Model on which I am already "working". The 3D model is still in early stage, I will have to improve the DTM, but I have already been able to get the following rough "satellite" map.