How to develop political map
Answers
1
Determine the scope of your map. Before you start drawing, you need to decide just how large of a map you’re going to create. Do you plan on showing an entire planet (perhaps even Earth) stretched out, a hemisphere, a single continent, a country, or just a state or city? This goes for both true-to-life maps and fantasy maps that you create from your imagination.
2
Decide on the ratio of land to water for your map. With very few exceptions, you will need to create a map (unless it’s an extreme close up) that includes both water and land. However, you’ll need to decide exactly how much of each you’re showing. For larger scale maps, you should be showing oceans, rivers, and lakes. Smaller scale maps may only show portions of an ocean, rivers, or a few lakes and ponds. If your map has only a few landmasses in an archipelago-type setting, you’ll likely have a page that is mostly water with a few islands.
3
Consider what you’ll include on your map. What style of map are you creating - geographical/physical, political, a road map, or something else? The type of map you make may change the way you outline or draw it, so determine this prior to starting your project. You can certainly create a map that is a combination of all three, but you’ll have to reduce the amount of detail you include in order to avoid overwhelming the viewer.
You can create maps based on other characteristics as well, such as trade routes, major population points, or different languages.
4
Determine how detailed your map will be. This goes hand in hand with determining what you’ll include/the scale of your map, but is important to note. Do you plan on only marking off the largest or most important places on your map? Or, are you interested in showing even the smallest aspects of the are you’re portraying? The detail you intend to include may have a big impact on how big you physically draw the map (on a very large piece of paper/file, or a small file size or piece of paper).
5
Think about weather patterns. Although this applies mainly to those creating their own fantasy maps, thinking about weather patterns is important to designating certain physical aspects on your map. Where will there be lots of rain or desert areas? Will these areas match up with the locations of seas/oceans, mountain ranges, and the location on the planet (as they do in real life)? You might consider the climate/environment and weather patterns of certain areas before sketching them out, to make a more detailed and realistic map).
6
Choose how you’re going to create your map. Do you plan on hand-drawing your map, using a computer program to draw it, or creating your map using an online interactive map creator? Each of these will require different preparations, particularly if you intend on hand-drawing it. There are dozens of online map-making programs as well, if you’re not interested in doing so much work or aren’t certain of your artistic capabilities.