[WIP] The Northern Continent

[iansgkim]

WIP northern continent.jpg


Hi,

First time ever drawing a map, and felt more getting it hand-drawn rather than from a program.

It may be a bit blurred since it's drawn with a pencil (wouldn't wanna touch with a pen unless things are completely set)

and picture taken by my old smartphone. (I have no clue how to scan a paper this big :/)


So,

1. The biggest concern I have is about the river, Highlighted blue.

I tried following the rule of thumb, the river flows from higher to lower ground, but that's about it.

do you think these rivers are on the right spot, and flowing to the right direction?

should I have more/less rivers on the map?


2. on the upper-right hand corner is a swamp and a desert zone, divided by a mountain.

Is this geographically possible at all?


3. On the very left side are two lakes.

Can a river connect these two lakes?


4. Can a lake within a mountain range happen?



Any further suggestions/improvements on the map, please let me know!

Much appreciate your help guys

[Jean-Abdel]

1. Your rivers are ok, maybe the two on the bottom left should be less straight,like the third one that flows into the bottom ocean. The river flowing in the peninsula on the bottom right is a bit weird, you would need hills on both sides of the river. Is the big area in the middle an inner sea? If it's a river forming a circle it's not feasible at all. May be you should add more tributaries to the already existing rivers and other ones flowing into the northern and western coasts.

2. For the desert, it's likely if your prevailing winds are from the northwest, which is more likely in the southern hemisphere (30-60°S) or in the northern hemisphere (0-30°N) if your planet spins clockwise. Therefore you can expect the top left corner to be very humid. Could you provide a scale of your map?

3. Yes definitely, the Great Lakes are a good example.

4. Yes, look at lakes Leman Titicaca

[iansgkim]

1. Your rivers are ok, maybe the two on the bottom left should be less straight,like the third one that flows into the bottom ocean. The river flowing in the peninsula on the bottom right is a bit weird, you would need hills on both sides of the river. Is the big area in the middle an inner sea? If it's a river forming a circle it's not feasible at all. May be you should add more tributaries to the already existing rivers and other ones flowing into the northern and western coasts.

2. For the desert, it's likely if your prevailing winds are from the northwest, which is more likely in the southern hemisphere (30-60°S) or in the northern hemisphere (0-30°N) if your planet spins clockwise. Therefore you can expect the top left corner to be very humid. Could you provide a scale of your map?

3. Yes definitely, the Great Lakes are a good example.

4. Yes, look at lakes Leman Titicaca

Thanks! I do will come back after I add&change some on the map.

I did feel like I've drawn the center lake too big, and it will not matter if we call it an inner sea.
What restrictions will it have in that case?

Honestly, I have no idea how to assume my map's scale. I expect the size of the map be close to a....Europe?

Still a long way to go D:

[Jean-Abdel]

If it's the size of europe, the middle lake is not too big at all, and the difference between and inner sea and a lake is that the first is salty.

[iansgkim]

WIP Northern Continent 2.jpg


Alright, I'm back!


Added bunch of hills and rivers, and tried to have them connect to each other like so.

I referred to lots of maps found here, but still not sure if I'm doing this right.


Just like last time, I highlighted all the rivers & lakes in blue, and numbered them so you can point out easier >.>

Any lakes you see that looks out of place / not making sense?

for number 12 & 13, I wanted it to be a fort surrounded by hills & rivers. Would like to see if that one's geographically viable.


It looks a bit blur, but if you find anything I should fix besides river, please let me know!

[Gallien]

Rivers number 4, 5, 10, 11 are great.
The main problem is the interconnected "river net" - numbers 6 - 9 and 12 - 16. Rivers usually have 1 estuary and I've counted about 4. I'd make 3 separate rivers instead of this "net".
Finally, the river number 17. It has a blue dot, connected to it, and at first I thought that this river feeds into a lake. But then I noticed that this lake is in the mountains. Rivers usually flow from high-ground to low-ground. Same problem with river system number 1-3.

[iansgkim]

Rivers number 4, 5, 10, 11 are great.
The main problem is the interconnected "river net" - numbers 6 - 9 and 12 - 16. Rivers usually have 1 estuary and I've counted about 4. I'd make 3 separate rivers instead of this "net".
Finally, the river number 17. It has a blue dot, connected to it, and at first I thought that this river feeds into a lake. But then I noticed that this lake is in the mountains. Rivers usually flow from high-ground to low-ground. Same problem with river system number 1-3.

WIP 3.jpg

Thanks!

I made some adjustments following your advice, blue hightlights are ones I wanna keep, red I'm thinking I should remove.

1, 2, and 17 I actually did intend them to flow from mountain to lower grounds.

I hear the lake can exist up on the mountain, but I'm really not sure if river can flow down from THAT lake down to another lake. (especially 2) Do you think that's viable?


Let me know if this looks ok, or if I should keep any of those red rivers.

Much appreciate your help

[JonathanCR]

Yes, of course a river can flow from one lake into another.

The general rules are: A river flows in a particular direction, always downhill. So rivers will never form loops. You can have any number of rivers flowing into a lake, but generally only one river flows out of that lake. That river can then flow into another lake (not the same lake!) if you want it to, and a river from *that* lake can flow into another, and so on any number of times. One river can flow into another river, making a single bigger river. But a river cannot usually split up into two or more smaller rivers (apart from in deltas).

Most of these rules are sometimes broken in real life, but most of the time if you stick to them you should be OK.

If you remove all the red rivers around the big lake in the middle, it will have no outflow. That's OK and sometimes happens in real life, but such a lake will usually be very salty (think of the Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake). If you want it to be a freshwater lake rather than an inland sea, keep the river marked 6-1 to allow it to flow into river 6. That loop in river 6 looks odd though!

Similarly with the big lake on the left - it seems to have no outflow. If you remove river 3-1 then the lake that river 3 flows into will have no outflow either.

[Jean-Abdel]

Having your big sea in the middle is not a bad idea but what Jonathan said is ok too (I don't think that it's a loop but a lake), however the big lake on the west that close to the sea without mountains in between will probably find it's way to the ocean so you should keep 3-1 and all the water flows into the triangular lake and then the ocean. 2-1 and 2-2 are also fine.4 and 9 shouldn't split that early, I've never seen a delta that big and if there is a delta it splits dozens of times. Where is 17 flowing? It can't really evaporate into nowhere like the Okavango in any biome other than desert. Otherwise, it's fine.

[iansgkim]

WIP 4.jpg


Alright, drew some arrows so it you should see clearer where I want these rivers going.


For three lakes (A), (B), and (C), I'm thinking two different options.

First one is only connecting Lake (A) and (B) and make outlet at (3-B), and leaving (C) alone.

The other will be connecting all three and have them flow out to (3-C) (or both 3B and 3C).
Still, (3-2) doesn't quite seem right to me.

Which one do you think will make more sense in this case?


For big middle lake/inner sea, I felt more like going with lake option, so made an outlet through (6).

The circle on 6 was indeed a lake not a loop, but I'm not sure if I can have it there.


I honestly don't know what (17) is doing on the map. That side just seemed a bit empty and I got the idea somewhere that river stopping nowhere and evaporating.

And that's really a thing with my rivers; they all look too uniform and predictable compared to other maps & rivers I found here. Should I add more rivers?


If ( starts at the hill and flows into center lake (instead of flowing outside like one above) will that be awkward?



Still lot to learn, but I love how my work is actually starting to look like a map.

Thanks a bunch guys