Help with Scale

[Brombur]

I have found some success recently building encounter scale maps and previously I always sort of winged it for large scale ones used for kingdoms, continents and such. While this works out ok for flavor I actually want to make my maps accurate to scale and that is where I have hit a snag.

Is there any tips, tricks or math that people use to get the scale of objects in relation to boundaries?

In particular

What scale of map shows rivers and at what scale are they shown? ie. If I draw my river as a single pen fine tip pen line then how big should the map represent from side to side for the river to be proper scale?

How much coastline detail is there at a given range as well.

I know that I can set my range ahead of time and math this down a bit but it keep coming out wonky looking.

[Azélor]

You need help indeed. Cartographers use the opposite definitions.

world map: small scale
encounter: large scale (the objects are larger)

About the proper question: it depends if you want the map to be realistic. Elements don't need to be scaled properly if it's not what you want. Sometimes it's just not possible to display them correctly and at the right scale (mapping the Solar system).

[LordEntrails]

I think there's quite a bit of confusion on what types of maps you are trying to draw.

Are you looking for an encounter/combat map to be used in a table top RPG with miniatures? If so, they are usually 5ft/in (5 feet of object for 1 inch of printed paper/map) and everything is drawn at their scale size, so a river that is 20 feet wide is drawn 4 paper inches wide.TT (like Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 etc) those are usually at a scale of 10 pixels per foot, though they can be pretty much any scale).

Are you looking for a regional or world map? In those, object sizes are not drawn to scale (though relative distances are to scale). For instance, the size of a town or city is not to scale, but the distances between the towns is to scale. The reason for this is these maps are showing the key points of interest (cities, towns, rivers, borders) and many of those might not show up well if drawn at actual "scaled" size".

So, let us know more about what you are trying to do and we can give you more precise help.

[WaterRat]

I use Google Maps a LOT for questions like this. Look up e.g. Chesapeake Bay and zoom in and out (I've even sketched out the coastline by hand at various scales) to see the level of coastline detail, river width, etc. Or think of a real river that's the size of the one you want to put in your map, find it on Google, and zoom out until it's a fine penstroke.

And then remember you can throw those results out the window. Do the scale variations look less wonky if you tell yourself it's intentional? (Always helps me.)