Cartographic Notes
The World
In ages past, when the tribes of hunters that would form the great nation of Licentia were wandering across the world, it was believed that the world was flat. With the great advances in learning that came with civilisation, it was then discovered to be a sphere. Some very clever folks then discovered that the world was not a true globe, but a shape called a spheroid. And they were smug. Frankly, everyone else had a bit of a laugh when further discoveries showed that the true shape of the world was not a spheroid after all, but a sidoid - very like a sphere but with some strange properties.
Due to insight from Dutchfire, we have been able to determine where the equator is: one square south of New Port City and Toot Uncommon. Using the grid reference, it is -15N. Since the trade for the Calendar technology, our wise folks have been finally able to determine our overall position on the globe. Our continent is in the western hemisphere.
Mapping the world
The process of creating a two dimensional map from a three dimensional surface is called a projection. Due to the unusual properties of a sidoid, only a sirianal projection is suitable for mapping our world. A sirianal projection maintains equal area, but distorts distances. In particular, distances in the directions that are 45 degrees from the 4 cardinal points (i.e. N, S, E and W), appear on the maps to be approximately 1.41 times as far as they are on the ground (the exact relationship is square root of 2).
Some of the small-scale regional maps (e.g. the cultural maps) produced by the Cartography Office are a conventional orthogonal sirian projection, but many of the larger-scale maps are shown with a perspective view which distorts distances towards the top of the map.
Map grid
Most of the maps produced by the Cartography Office have a grid to help locating features. The origin of the grid is our capital, the glorious city of Boaring Wallow (0E0N). Grid squares east and north of Boaring Wallow have positive numbers and those to the south and west have negative numbers (for example, Micalian's Gate has a grid reference of 0E4N and Abydos' reference is -4E-10N).
The reference numbers actually refer to the south-west corner of the grid square and if more precision is required then tenths of a square may be estimated (e.g. our Noble Leader's Palace front door is approximately 0.7E0.4N).