Some weird questions about maps, areas, regions and locations

[ZleapingBear]

Hay all... long time no see...

So! I'm currently working on a project for a text based game.. more exactly a script for one, and I'm at a stand still!!...

I really hope someone here will be able to help me, because none of the worlds google search have helped neither me nor my friends in this project.

How do you subdivide a world map.. and then divide that.. and that ... and that.. and...

Okay.. that was vague, sorry, I'll try to explain:

The script is made to handle a ton of data, here among sort through all regions, areas, cities and even buildings (no coordinates are used) but how do you subdivide a map, without the notion of countries or territories?
do you divide a world into regions, regions into areas, areas into local areas and local areas into locations?



What I'd like to be able to make is something like this (But correct instead):

World¨Material plane
:Fellmerth A Region of the South
:-Deep rift An Area of Hills and rivers
:--The Local Area Blue river, a wide and slow river
:---The Location River bend, where the river turns back to the south
:---The Location Sorrows deep, deepest place in the river where many has drowned
:---The City Blue Sails, a small community of fishers and farmers
:--The Local Area Flush hills, far reaches of Hills forests and marshes
:---The Location Deers Hills, a small forest on the top of a hill
:---The City Spring Songs, a happy place build by hobbits
:-Area
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:---Location/City
:---Location/City
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:---Location/City
:-Area
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:--Local Area
:---Location/City
:---Location/City
:Region
..... And so one


Can anyone make a list with the proper naming convention, starting at the biggest right after World, and ending with Locations and Cities/Towns?
:Biggest
:-
:--
:---
:----
:-----Locations/Cities/Towns?


Any help will be extremely appreciated..

-ZleapingBear

[Jalyha]

I think I'm confused about the question? I would think (without nations/countries/territories) a map would be divided into hemispheres, or continents, then by regions ... then cities then landmarks or points of interest??

Do they have counties? Are we talking about tribal peoples? They might have clan boundaries?


I don't know if it will help in writing a program, but a culture that had no organization of its' people might divide maps into sections based on the geography "mountain area" "plains area", etc?

Sorry I wish I understood the question better. I hope someone smarter than me can answer your question soon

[Azélor]

starting from the world I would put: world, continent, region (of which the size vary greatly), city, building

about dividing a world map, if it's not the above you could also subdivise it using a grid like this http://www.amt.org/Multimedia/images/grid-na.gif

[ZleapingBear]

starting from the world I would put: world, continent, region (of which the size vary greatly), city, building -SNIP-[/url]

WEll... this... kind of... but I need more levels... World being level 1 and city level 5-8 ish (the higher the better.) like this:
Level 1: World/Dimension/Universe/plane/
Level 2: Continent/Ocean/
Level 3: Country/Region/
Level 4:
Level 5: Area/Territory/Sea
Level 6:
Level 7: Local Area/Lands/Plateau/Lake/Forest
Level 8: City/Town/Settlement/Camp/Location/Cave/

Like that.. but.. correct if you know what I mean, and with multiple options for each... :S

[Redrobes]

I think each area of the map has different amounts of detail. After world and region, a desert may have nothing more to map. On the other hand some built up areas might have more regions then down to cities, blocks, buildings and even finer grain than that. I don't think there is a correct (proper) answer just that you have to decide yourself. If you plan on showing it with some tool which needs levels of detail in some fixed manner like google maps then you have some technical reason why you may need certain levels.

[ZleapingBear]

-SNIP- If you plan on showing it with some tool which needs levels of detail in some fixed manner like google maps then you have some technical reason why you may need certain levels.

Yep... that is more or like it... What I'm doing is programming a "Game" or more correct, as script to account for details in a game.
For instance, that players can be in a city, in a region in a world. or in a location in a forest in an area in a region on a continent in a world... of cause, there could also be a continent that is just that, one big flat continent without other details.. thats why i need as many "levels" of details and descriptions as possible... in as much of a "correct" order as possible... :S

[codechino]

There's a problem with this sort of hierarchical approach. While it's fine in most scenarios, it doesn't adequately handle areas/regions that don't fit neatly into a single parent area. Biomes or bioregions, for instance, likely don't correspond in any way to political borders. This edge case might not matter to you, though.

As someone who has developed MUDs for fifteen years, I'd recommend not automatically labeling an entity based on its position within the spatial hierarchy. I'd suggest this be something that is configured. Instead of having world->continent->region->forest->something, I'd abstract this into a simple container schema. Use naming to capture what the container is. It's entirely possible, for instance, to have a forest within a large city, but also to have a large city within a forest. You could then just use "area" to describe pretty much anything (because it's a nebulous spatial term). You could also include some explicit spatial information, if you want.

Area: World
Contains: Continent1, Continent2, Ocean 1, Biosphere 1, City 1
Container: None


Area: Continent1
Contains: City 2, Lake 1
Container: World


etc etc. You can add spatially explicit information to this as well.

[Raptori]

There's a problem with this sort of hierarchical approach. While it's fine in most scenarios, it doesn't adequately handle areas/regions that don't fit neatly into a single parent area. Biomes or bioregions, for instance, likely don't correspond in any way to political borders. This edge case might not matter to you, though.

As someone who has developed MUDs for fifteen years, I'd recommend not automatically labeling an entity based on its position within the spatial hierarchy. I'd suggest this be something that is configured. Instead of having world->continent->region->forest->something, I'd abstract this into a simple container schema. Use naming to capture what the container is. It's entirely possible, for instance, to have a forest within a large city, but also to have a large city within a forest. You could then just use "area" to describe pretty much anything (because it's a nebulous spatial term). You could also include some explicit spatial information, if you want.

Area: World
Contains: Continent1, Continent2, Ocean 1, Biosphere 1, City 1
Container: None


Area: Continent1
Contains: City 2, Lake 1
Container: World


etc etc. You can add spatially explicit information to this as well.

Codechino's approach would probably work best for most situations, as it reflects how we really mean those words. If the hierarchy is necessary for some behind the scenes stuff though, you could consider a grid like the one posted by Azelor, with multiple different levels to it, and have that separate from the other naming system. It all depends on what you need it for really.