How to Create an Imaginary Map

It can be marvelous fun to design and draw a map of a place that doesn't exist. Many great works of fantasy literature contain maps of make-believe kingdoms, including L. Frank Baum's Oz books and J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Your own map could be an island hiding pirate treasure, a secret path to a superhero's hidden lair or a magical country that exists only in your imagination. The only limits are what you choose to include.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Drawing paper
• Pencils
• Black ink pens
• Crayons, colored pencils or colored paint

1. Draw a rough sketch of your map on a clean sheet of paper. Use a pencil with an eraser so you can make changes as you go. Draw the contours of your country, including spots for mountains, lakes, rivers and forests. Include spots for cities or specific buildings if you're drawing a city map. Draw slightly big, using more space than you initially need. This gives you more room to experiment. You can shrink the map in later drafts if you need to.

2. Give your drawing a sense of geographic logic so that it appears to be a real place. Mountains generally form in chains, and rivers flow from the mountains to the seas. Cities usually lie along bodies of water: either the coastline or along a river in the interior. If they don't, they're probably smaller than cities in those places. Deserts should be found in locales without water--away from rivers and lakes--while forests need plenty of water to thrive. Move and shift components around until they start to take on the contours of realism.

3. Mark particularly important locations on you map: lost caves, ruined castles and the location of buried treasure. Include political boundaries, such as the borders to other countries, if appropriate. Add a scale at the bottom of the map translating how large the area is and a compass showing the direction of north.

4. Use a single symbol to portray each of your geographic features. If you draw one set of mountains using inverted "V"s, draw all of them that way. Forests should all use the same drawings of trees if that's how you want to depict them (although you can differentiate between different types of trees, such as pine trees for alpine forests and tropical plants for rainforests). Cities should contain a uniform design (as should buildings and landmarks if you're drawing a city in and of itself). Any colors you use should be similarly uniform. Plains should be the same shade of green as other plains, for example, and mountains should be the same shade of brown.

5. Revise your map until you're happy with it. Then make a second copy on another sheet of paper. Make it as close to the first copy as you can, but continue to use pencil in case you make any mistakes.

6. Ink the pencil marks in with a permanent pen once you're satisfied with the final version. Add colors and topographical symbols to taste.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to give an imaginary map a stamp of authenticity, use tan parchment-style paper instead of white drawing paper for your final map. You can even artificially age it by crumpling and uncrumpling it, or creating small tears around its edges.