(WIP) World Map of Domun

[Cmpkittykat]

Just a draft of where I want things. Hoping to workover mountains with more custom work.

[Cmpkittykat]

Adding rivers & textures... changed the style of the forest a bit, and struggling with how much geographical detail I want to issue on this map, especially since ultimately locations & land/water routes are yet to come and are more important in many ways. Still havent decided how to legend it.

[Rwexler]

I like the shape of your continent! But one thing bothers me much - the river flow. I marked with red colour on the document below where the river flow is going and some other issues like the thickness of rivers which seems to change a few times.
With the riverflow you actually have now you'd have to get an enormous end-river in the west ging into the sea, but it is as slimm as all the others. I also marked some places where I think that the rivers should go into the sea. Right now they all unite into one gigantic stream that would flood the lands over and over. Take a look into the document and you will see.

[Cmpkittykat]

This is unbelievably helpful. Rivers have been bothering me a lot. I understand generally that they flow from high level land & mts to low, that lakes have one exit, etc. But I have been looking at the map for a long time and couldn't pin point the issues. The southern region especially was giving me a tough time--I was thinking to have mountains just below that bottom river, which would clarify land slope further for me. I agree with river thicknesses adn your terminations you suggested. I had that river running down through that middle continent because I was thinking of trade. But your suggestion will actually let me make a stronger case for my city placement (under revision).

I'm going to rework the rivers tonight again. I'd love your input again if possible!

[Gidde]

Take a look at the How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place sticky in the Tutorials forum. All you ever needed/wanted to know about rivers in one tidy package

[Rwexler]

I'll take alook on the next version when you have it uploaded and I've got the time for that, I'm looking forward..

[Cmpkittykat]

So here is my next pass at fixing up rivers... I could really use some input. Lowest part of the land is in the middle continent. I read the awesome river primers on this site but still am struggling with some unusual situations.

Questions for those who are very river savy:
1. Lake 1 -- Should it be bigger? Obviously Lake 2 is huge, but the reasoning originally was that you had two ranges worth of water feeding it and it was the primary catchbasin for the lower continent.
2. Zones of orange have no rivers running through them--but is that unrealistic, especially since the orange zone in the centre continent is supposed to be very heavily dominated by agriculture? maybe I need a shift in economy?
3. Canal in Center continent -- How does one indicate this via drawing? The canal, of course, comes at a much later stage of my world history, but at some point when I do map that up I am not sure how to indicate the difference between it and regular rivers.
4. The Splitting of rivers between the southern and center continent (at that very tiny landbridge area) is concerning me. (As well as the one on top between the center and the north). Can I have a river feed into two separate seas like that? I didn't think seas/oceans could be connected like that due mostly to change in elevations? (Re: Panama canal)

[gilgamec]

I'm not a member of the River Police or anything, but here's my take. First, you have an awful lot of rivers which take pretty improbably paths. The worst is, as you suggest, the one that passes through the isthmus, but nearly as bad is the one that flows from Lake 3 through a mountain pass (!) to the ocean. The river that flows from the northern part of the continent into Lake 3, and the southeasternmost river flowing into Lake 1 also pass very close to the sea. The only way that these rivers will work is if there is higher land between them and the sea; this might work on the southeastern coast of the southern landmass, or on the southern coast of the middle landmass, but I think it would be very contrived on the narrow bits of land between the northern and middle landmasses, or the middle and southern landmasses.

All of your rivers also start from mountain ranges. Depending on what your criteria are for "mountainous", this might be justified, but rivers can start in hills or high plains too.

You also have a lot of very large lakes. It's quite possible for many of these river systems to exist without any large lakes on the path of the rivers. If you want lakes, of course, that's fine, but there do seem to be an awful lot of them.

1. Lake 1 -- Should it be bigger? Obviously Lake 2 is huge, but the reasoning originally was that you had two ranges worth of water feeding it and it was the primary catchbasin for the lower continent.

Lake 1 is somewhat problematic, not so much because of its size as its position; the fact that the rivers meet there, so close to the southern range, means that there's upland through much of the southern landmass. Perhaps the outflow from Lake 1 runs through a gorge? If you want a lake on the flank of the southern range, it might be in a rift area, with lots of canyons and the like.

2. Zones of orange have no rivers running through them--but is that unrealistic, especially since the orange zone in the centre continent is supposed to be very heavily dominated by agriculture? maybe I need a shift in economy?

Just because no major rivers flow through it doesn't mean it's dry; are there small rivers that flow out of it into the sea or the bounding rivers? I especially find it unlikely that the orange area in the northern landmass is arid, though the southern one is surrounded by mountains and might get some kind of Sahara climate.

4. The Splitting of rivers between the southern and center continent (at that very tiny landbridge area) is concerning me. (As well as the one on top between the center and the north). Can I have a river feed into two separate seas like that? I didn't think seas/oceans could be connected like that due mostly to change in elevations? (Re: Panama canal)

That river will not flow into both sides of the isthmus and north into the city. You could bridge the isthmus with a canal, but even then, the river flowing through the isthmus is improbable in the extreme.