Galia

[Nathan]

Ok.
Finaly here is my first complete submission to the cartographer's guild.
This is the administrative map of Galia, a country i'm creating for ten years now.
When I was a young teenager, I was fascinated by Northern America and especially Canada and it's bilingual status. I then created this country which is inspired by France, United States and Canada mostly.
Like everybody here I think, my country was kind of a refuge where I could hide and travel through imagination and now, my goal is to create a realistic look-a-like map that I could print and put on the wall of my home.
I studied geography at the university and a teacher learned me to use illustrator to do maps. Then I realized I could use it to digitalise (is this the correct english word?) it.

I started in 2005.


So, first, lets talk about the name.
Galia comes from Gallia, the latin name for France, I never found anything better. The first name of the map was "New France", choosen by lack of imagination at the time. Since then, I got used to it but eventualy change it to Galia.
This country is divided into 46 numbered provinces, these provinces are divided in about 175 eliopees (chief towns are located on the maps) and in about 5000 canopees (not shown on this map / WIP).
It's mostly a bilingual country (french & english) but there are 4 official languages (the two others beeing pinish and borealish, fictitious ones).

Here is the map :
(click to view in full-size)



For each province, i'm doing a topographic map with all towns, urban areas, highways, canopees, rivers etc. But it's still WIP.
You can have a quick look of what it looks like in this thread where I was asking for help :
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...on-Illustrator
(Beltane, the southernmost province is shown here)

[Sapiento]

The colours could be more muted for my taste, but the rest looks good.

[Steel General]

I'm with Sapiento regarding toning the colors down just a bit.

[rdanhenry]

I like the bright colors. What I'd change is the line spacing; where a label is two lines long, the top of the second line is crowded right up against the upper line. Just a little more of a gap would like much nicer.

[Nathan]

Thanks for the advices, i'll give it a try

[Avengeil]

I really respect those who undertake such gigantic project's as the one you have now.Good luck with it.

[mearrin69]

Well, I'll second the coloration suggestion...but it's a great map. Nice work!
M

[tilt]

looking really good, and what a work you have in front of you ... I also agree about toning down the colors, however I'd like to see the non-colored lands toned up also to make more contrast between the land and water

[Nathan]

Here is the WIP thread of my country :
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...pographic-maps