Elevator Megacity of Akar

[Jason Stevenson]

Akar is a massive sprawling megacity build around a space elevator anchored to the island of Sumatra. Due to the catastrophic results of the climate crisis and the Gestalt War the coastline of Sumatra has somewhat changed. Massive roadways were constructed and the process of land reclamation begun within the central bays. The city has sophisticated infrastructure and mostly organised roadways, however travel around the city can be difficult for the masses due to various socio-political reasons. The Elevator City is one of three that exist along Earth's equator, the others residing in Kenya and what was the Amazon Rainforest. Of these three, Akar has the greatest access to water and much of its commerce it done via a vast network of shipping routes. Also on this map can be seen the surviving city state of Singapore - once almost completely flooded, the city built upwards becoming a modern-day Venice of the South China Sea, its roads replaced by canal systems. Akar is the capital of the People's Republic of Asia (PRA) which maintains a strong presence both on Earth and in the Rings.

I made this map as a gift for my friend who is making a tabletop RPG called 'Rings of Earth', for which I've previously made a world map. The setting is a mostly hard-sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk world where much of the Earth's populous have fled into orbital structures called The Rings. Akar, like the other Elevator Megacities, was built around the base of an anchor point for these Rings and serves a vital refuge and trade post between space and the surface.

I started by using a flood map simulator (floodmap.net) to increase sea level by 60 meters to get the shape of a coastline which I then drew out by hand in Clip Studio Paint. I edited areas that had been reclaimed or built over and then began the laborious process of sketching the roads. Starting from the elevator platform on the equator I built outwards, at first structured and then a bit more natural, following the contours of the landscape and trying to integrate already existing settlements. For many of the central road networks I used real-world city road maps as a base and expanded out. First came the core motorways (large yellow), then the sub-motorways (smaller yellow), then the A-roads (small pale orange), and finally main roads (white). There are certainly more smaller roads below this level but they are impossible to show on a map of this scale. I used a Google maps style colour and font scheme, naming districts and suburbs after real-life locations that exist in or near those locations. I also added a wide-view map to show the city's location within the PRA, using the coastline I made previously for the world map I added terrain features using Google maps as a guide.

This is the first city map I've ever made and I'm pretty happy with it.

[Ilanthar]

Very clean and legible modern style map! I also kinda like the idea.