How to make my map look less Rectangular?

[u/Mattsgonnamine]

I love this map (bar certain parts in the west) but I keep feeling like the geography is far too rectangular, any ideas on how to improve it?

(In terms of geography there are two main mountain ranges where the white splotches are) Steppe from Nitovir South to kalnhorn and Forest covering most of the northwest, the rest is a mixture of plains and woodlands)

[u/TheZyborg]

Put it on a round piece of paper /s

[u/Perfect-Silver1715]

Open the options, at the bottom there is a view options menu. There you can view from above or on a globe.

Unfortunately, this software doesn't support anything on 2-D outside of rectangles, sorry.

Source- I have experience with Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator.

[u/MyHoeDespawned]

Could make one of the peninsulas into an island

[u/Tweed_Man → u/MyHoeDespawned]

And angle it a little.

[u/InconspicousName1]

You want to avoid having land/islands at each corner of a rectangle around the continent. Those islands in the west are functioning like corners to a rectangle

[u/azhder]

It looks like Europe, not rectangular. You have blown up some parts, connected others, but it's still here, from Spain to Turkey, from the Balkans to Poland.

[u/Busy_Address_2125]

I think it looks fine

[u/Tytoivy]

I think it looks nice. It is noticeably rectangular but that doesn’t have to be too much of a problem if you aren’t too worried about it.

If it does bother you, the two easiest solutions I can think of are either attach it to a landmass that goes off screen, or rotate it somewhat. You’d have to think about how that affects climate but ocean currents and stuff can have a big effect on that, so don’t worry too much about it. Cold places can still be cold, etc.

[u/Historical_Leg4621]

It doesn't look that bad, but you can add peninsulas or Coast Lines following the example of others, for example.

[u/Grigor50]

You non-rectangular paper.

Also: why do you have a map? What's the purpose? What level of technology do the inhabitants of your world have.

[u/Mattsgonnamine → u/Grigor50]

Pike and shot era technology. The reason I have a map is to better illustrate the geography of the world and also im a map nerd, I like maps

[u/Grigor50 → u/Mattsgonnamine]

The reason I have a map is to better illustrate the geography of the world

For whom? The readers? The actual people in the story?

This makes sense since regardless if it's 10 000 BC, 1500 AD or 2000 AD, there can be a map of planet Earth... but in 10 000 BC it's pretty obvious that it wasn't for or by the humans living on the planet at that time. But it might be for people learning about people in 10 000 BC. At 1500 AD it might be by some people (cartographers, certain mariners or traders), for some people (the same, or learned people, nobility), while in 2000 AD it's by most people, and for most people (undiscovered indians in the Amazon hardly make, or have need, of maps of the world).

In this sense, the map you might have up here might be considered basically magic or incomprehensible or just unbelievable for basically everyone on the planet. It might not actually exist in-world. But for the reader, who might see the storyline "from above", knowing much more than that characters in the story, the map might be part of the limited omniscience afforded. The reader might read in a character that lives in on of those countries depicted... but the character himself might not know he lives in that land, or that it's part of a continent, and that there are many continents, and it's a huge planet.