About SFMC
This project, the Sorted Fantasy Map Compendium, was put together to research trends in fantasy maps appearing on the internet. The site began with 56 maps pulled from random sources, but I add a new map every day.
Currently the data set is too small to show many interesting trends, but there are already some results showing up.
The pie chart to the left shows what sort of colors appear in fantasy maps from novels. As you can see, likely due to the price of color ink, nearly all fantasy maps distrubuted through novels choose black and white coloration.
What the chart doesn't show is that all black and white maps on this site originate from novels, indicating that cartographers have a strong preference for color whenever possible.
Other trends observed so far include a tendency for topwards and leftwords alignment of landmasses, an emphasis on terrain features at the expense of political ones, and for cartographical features to be based on the preferences of the msap maker. That os to say, authors tend to be consistent about whether or not they put compasses or scales on thier maps.
Head over to the map gallery and start your own study today, and feel free to contact us with your findings.