October 24th, 2016 - The Mighty Peace Country by legitprivilege

The Mighty Peace Country by legitprivilege

Full Map

The Mighty Peace County was the title Reddit user /u/legitprivilege gave to this beautiful post-apocalyptic map when he posted it on DeviantArt. It shows a Canada in exile in the north, damaged by some event that destroyed the southern cities. Supposedly taking place a while after some vague all-out nuclear war, by 2150 the Canadian capital of Grande Prairie has reached 2.5 million in population, as indicated by legitprivilege's "prequel" to this map here. He doesn't give much information on what lead to the map you see above, and here it seems to be a result of the mapmaker working towards a predetermined goal while filling in the backstory later on. In his comments about the map, he also hasn't mentioned much about the rest of the world, stating that except for a bustling federated African Union, most of the world is arid and largely defunct. He mentions that there are loose governments in Nunavut and Alaska that are loosely associated with Canada, but for the most part they're alone in their continent. Even though it's such an amazing map, in my opinion it could be even better with a little bit of extra backstory.

Legitprivilege mentioned that he focused a lot on the economy and exports of every area of Canada in this universe. If you look at the full version, you can see each little area and the things they produce. The economics all work out because, according to him, "To have extensive northern farming, you just need an extensive local population". If you need any more context for this, take a look at his huge post on the factors that go into farming in the north. Overall, it's an amazing map, and the scenario is great if a little lore-light.

Honorable mentions this week go to "Breathing in that Emerald Air" by Dain-Siegfried and "Island of Doggerland" by /u/Camstonisland.

If you have any more map suggestions for next week, send them to me at upvoteanthology@gmail.com!

WIP Wednesday #1 - K. of Frisia, Divided Japan, and Cascadia

Hello and welcome to the first ever WIP Wednesday! Since I don't just want to be posting on this blog once a week, WIP Wednesday is where I post my own upcoming maps, along with the work-in-progress posts of anyone who wants to submit. Since this is the first one, I'll just be uploading the few that I've been working on, and I'll let people vote on which one they think I should continue with. Next week, I'll hopefully have the submissions of some other mapmakers, giving a bit more insider knowledge on maps you might see around the community in the coming weeks. I'll also have some writeups, or at least summaries, of what the maps are supposed to be. Enjoy!

Vote on which WIP you think I should continue first!

WIP #1 - Fryske Keninkryk - Full Map Here

WIP #2 - Divided Japan - Full Map Here

WIP #3 - Cascadia Ecoregion - Full Map Here

October 10th, 2016 - The British Empire by Zek Sora

The British Empire by Zek Sora

Original Post

The British Empire by Zek Sora tells the story of a massively wanked UK, apparently strengthening its hold on the Americas. This map was part of his world-building project known as The Century, and was originally submitted to the Map of the Fortnight 145 contest. His maps for the project had been entered into MotF before, but this was the first large-scale map for the TL. One of the maps, the echos of which could be seen if you click on the full version of this one, focuses just on the Kingdoms in the Americas. According to his writeup for that, the British Empire in The Century is divided up into three types of provinces. Firstly, there are the Kingdoms, autonomous regions appointed with their own king, and allowed to expand in their own directions. There are also the Provinces, who had some form of autonomous government but not much. They're allowed to elect their own mayors and in some cases their own rulers, but are still under the rule of Great Britain. Finally, Colonies are either ruled directly by the crown or by companies appointed by the crown, much in the same way they had been ruled IOTL. These changes came due to apparent rebellions against the Empire (such as the Cape Wars, which Zek Sora also made a map of here), and the fact that it had begun to overextend itself.

The map is extremely good, although it doesn't explore a style new to Zek Sora. His style has become a staple of the past few months, and that's probably why so many people love the cartographer he's become. I hope we continue to see more maps for this project, and more maps from the amazing upcoming mapmaker himself.

Honorable mentions this week go to "Uzbeki-Kyrgyzstani War of 2010" by zalezsky, "Czech Silesia" by Aven, and "Vandalic Wars" by WotanArgead.

If you have any more map suggestions for next week, send them to me at upvoteanthology@gmail.com!

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Hello, welcome to the beginning of my new blog! If you're scrolling backwards from the future, you've reached the start! This blog was formed out of my love for maps, and the fact that the previous staple alternate history blog is closing. Map Mondays had always been some of my favorite posts of his, and I enjoyed getting a description of every map he decided to feature. So, when he decided to close up shop, I talked to him about starting my own spinoff. Now, on a Monday, here's the first entry! In the future, I hope for posts to be longer, and possibly even feature multiple maps instead of just having an "Honorable Mentions" bar on the bottom. I might also end up going off-script a little, posting links to maps or a "Map Rundown" at times during the week. Either way, I hope this is enjoyable for everyone, and I hope I can keep it active!

- Rebecca Stirling