Geography - Blog Posts
something I don’t see people bring up a lot when talking about worldbuilding, especially when you’re creating cities, is wind. prevailing winds in many places in the northern hemisphere blow from west -> east, and because industrial production tended to take place in the centre of cities, workers would live downwind of factories while the wealthier classes would live on the other side, away from air pollutants, which is why a lot of cities have a poor east-end and a rich west-end, a spatial configuration that persists in many places that are now post-industrial
and in general the built environment has a durability to it that persists far past the historical moments that produce those configurations. this means that the stated aims of a city via a vis city planning are frequently at odds with the physical layout of the city itself. so if you want to create a city that feels like it has a long history to it, working through its earlier stages of production can help with decisions you make about its layout, and also allow for weird spatial contradictions in a city that has to constantly fight against its own physical history
Whenever I look at brazil on a world map I cannot unsee it as a fart pillow with uruguay being the opening.
Source
Another weirdly amazing piece of nature: the llareta shrubs in the Atacama Desert
why are star wars planets more boring than earth and our solar system like sure we’ve seen desert, snow, diff types of forest, beach, lava, rain, but like…
rainbow mountains (peru)
red soil (canada/PEI)
rings (saturn’s if they were on earth)
bioluminescent waves
northern lights (canada)
salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)
and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens
BASICALLY like???? come on star wars you had one (1) job where are the cool alien species
just had a flashback to me in 3rd grade absolutely blissed out just staring at this pic
do earthquakes exist in middle earth. do they have tectonic plates
Western WA things from a long term resident:
Cause eastern wa is basically a different state
… note that while I have lived here for over a decade I’m just talking my experience
——————
> people who live in the more rural areas find it real strange when there’s continuous smog. Like fog happens all the time but usually that brown haze obscuring the mountains doesn’t last long bc the rain deletes it.
> some people love Seattle and some people hate what Seattle currently is and will rant about it
> The sand is typically relatively coarse and greyish. I went somewhere with kids-picture-tan sand recently and was surprised that that actually exists. Softer sand is usually only in the actual water in areas with more clay.
> We really don’t use umbrellas often, and it’s not so much stubbornness as it is that hoodies exist and no one really walks long distances unless they’re in a city center. There aren’t sidewalks, so you only have to deal with the rain between your transport and the door of your destination.
> if you plant mint, berries, bamboo, or blow dandelions, you are dedicating yourself to having it for life
> ppl are often very careful about food crumbs or they have ants. Sometimes both.
> there are rabbits, deer, raccoons, coyotes, and opossums. You’re gonna see or hear a lot of them, some more alive than others
> people say bag like flag/had/amp. It’s strange and unusual to hear someone say “bayg” but some people do.
> older adults and some of their kids will add an unnecessary “s” to the names of places and I don’t know why (Haggens, safeways, bartells)
> some of those same adults say “worshington” and the rest of us consider them instant enemies.
> during like 2/3 of the year there are bees everywhere. There is gonna be a dumb black jack in your house. It seems like a hive lives in every coffee stand. Wasps have taken up residence by your shed.
> speaking of coffee stands it’s unbelievable leaving Washington and not having coffee stands/shops/bars everywhere. Also where is the lotus?
> Every group of adults u join are gonna have some constant plaid wearers. That’s just the way it is.
> snow plows don’t go everywhere. This isn’t Chicago. We do not prepare. The plows get the arterials and highways and that’s about it unless ur somewhere real fancy.
> you can find clay like… everywhere if you know what it looks like.
> trying to look something up in your state and the results bringing up wa dc is infuriating
> people can get very excited when it’s clear enough to see rainier. For real though you can see rainier, the Olympics, and the cascades from the highway in many places
GAMES PROVIDED FALSE DATA VIA COMMUNICATION OR DATA INJECTION ATTACKS THAT SUGGESTS SOMEONE WAS ALREADY ON THEM OR JUST JOINED OR JUST LEFT
![Map Of The Humongous Fungus: The Largest Living Organism On Earth [1936x1310][OC] CLICK HERE FOR MORE](https://64.media.tumblr.com/db929150f86f0c503804f329c0244a28/tumblr_nyulclrmRz1s6c1p2o1_500.jpg)
Meet the architect who wants to return Mexico City to its ancient lakes
“The pre-Hispanic civilizations built a system of dams, in order to control the salt water and to bring clean water. But then the Spaniards, in order to conquer the city, broke the dams … They started to follow a European scheme, which didn’t match the geography. And we have followed that inherited inertia for the last 500 years.” || Read more in The Guardian
just to get a little heads-up
Would anybody be interested in a geography study group??
estimated percentage of earth covered by water: ~%79.31
commonly accepted percentage: ~%71 (we HAVE to have more decimals on this thang. fellas.)
percent error: ~%11.7
standard deviation: ~%1.55
this data set IS an outlier! (range of normalcy: 67.9, 74.1)
go to this random coordinates generator and say in the tags how you would fare if you were dropped where it generates without warning. i’ll go first i’d be dropped in the middle of the fucking south atlantic ocean and perish
studies for some worldbuilding i'm working on! :D
I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!
(save the images to zoom in on the pics)