# Resource Roundup - Cartography <cite>Intended for use as a blog series for [[Worldbuilding Magazine]]</cite> As a throwback to [V2I5: Cartography & Navigation](https://www.worldbuildingmagazine.com/2018/10/cartography-and-navigation/), let's talk about mapmaking. In the V2I5 interview, Dylan Shad mentions using a world generator to create his map, although he did add: > ...worldbuilding through generative programs feels like I'm not creating, but rather trying to visit someplace that I already know exists. I have to get all of the logic and the variables right in order for it to work and create what I want. I can't just throw any old thing together and exclaim "EUREKA! _Cartography & Navigation_ was published in late 2018, which is basically forever in programming terms. Back in 2018, the map-making landscape was pretty sparse. There were some nice tools that would let you draw or paint a map that looked nice, but everything had to be done manually — which could get unwieldy if you were trying to create a large world. If you wanted the world to be realistic, with the ramifications of mountain ranges and islands considered for the climate? If you wanted to layer biome data over top of a political map? Prepare to do a *ton* of research followed by a lot of manual artistic work, which is great if you're into that kind of thing and kind of horrible if you're trying to create a working tool to help you as a storyteller. The generative tools would save you some work, but then you were stuck with whatever the program spit out. You could try map seed after map seed hoping you'd get something close to what you envisioned, but you basically had the opposite problem as doing everything by hand. ## What Fantasy Map Generation Looks Like Today Enter [Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator](https://github.com/Azgaar/Fantasy-Map-Generator/wiki), which left beta in late 2019. It's a free tool which produces procedurally generated and highly customizable fantasy maps. You can use auto-generated maps or create your own world from scratch. Want to have climate data, political boundaries, biomes, trade routes, population density, and elevation all stored in the same map file? Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator will do that for you! Want to differentiate between governments that share a culture or track the spread of a particular religion? This tool will not only do that for you — it'll make assumptions based on the cultures, religions, populations, city locations, and geography you input... and if the results aren't quite right for what you're trying to do, you can tweak that too. You can even rate how expansionist different groups are, to help with generation of their influence map. Struggle to figure out the most logical places for roads across your world? This map generator will account for rivers, landmass elevation, and let you label ports and capitals before indicating the most logical trade routes, making it easy to tell who is more likely to trade with who based on all of the factors you indicate. The only real weakness I've found is that, while you can tweak a procedurally generated map to get it closer to what you want, Agzaar's map generator has limits to how fine-grain you can get. If you want to have *really* incredible detail, you'll need to export it into another program. Conveniently, that's easy. This [youtube tutorial series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGZSXw2IYds) covers how to use the features of a map to enhance worldbuilding and storytelling. It starts with a map generated from Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator and then imports it into Wonderdraft, which is paid map customization software. The video covers how these compare to map creation software like Inkarnate. ## Related Reading - [Examples of Cultural Diffusion](https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-cultural-diffusion.html) — When creating a map, consider how cultural touchstones, like religion and language, spread and blend despite political boundaries drawn on a map. Trade is hard to stop, and taking it into account can make for a significantly richer world. - [Biomes Are Just Labels](https://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/biomes) — Biomes are a convenient shorthand used by scientists. They're labels, not truisms, — so you can afford to be flexible with your maps. Set them up however works for you. - [Different Kinds of Cities](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/urbanization-and-the-development-of-cities/) — When designing a series of cities, remember that cities come to be for a variety of reasons, be it trade, religion, mutual defense or something else. This can impact the makeup of the city, how it's organized, and the problems they will likely face.