How big is Eorzea?

[Tregarde]

I know there is no official word on this, but I'm curious what people think. If one was to measure Eorzea from coast to coast - how big would it be?

 

We'd obviously have to use the world map for this, as the zone maps do not snap together nicely (something I find rather annoying). Not to mention that most things in the zones are scaled down so that they are playable in a game - it really wouldn't be practical to make a 1:1 scale model of a huge city like Ul'dah, for example. Or the miles and miles of untamed forests of The Shroud. No game ever depicts accurately how much land is dedicated to farming just so people can eat. And so on...

 

Figuring out a reasonable estimate is tricky. We know there are several city-state capitols (Gridania, Ul'dah, Limsa, Ishgard, Ala Mihgo), and dozens of towns scattered across the lands (and probably many tiny villages we simply do not see in the game). Places would have to be close enough so travel between them is practical - going from one town to the next would commonly take no more than a day on foot, at least along the more traveled routes 'near civilization'

 

But Eorzea is considered a continent, so it can't be too small.

 

So what do you think? Something around the size of England? Europe? Somewhere in between?

[Sounsyy]

Okay, we might actually be able to very roughly science the shit out of this. This is obviously entirely hypothetical but why not. 

 

-First, let's assume Hydaelyn is roughly the same size as Earth.

-Degrees of latitude are roughly 69 miles (111km) apart.

 

Based on Eorzean climate lore we know that the Three Great Continents are in the northern hemisphere, and that Meracydia, the southern continent is on/near the Equator. The Southern Isles, the island chain between the Cieldalaes and Meracydia is tropical and desert. The Cieldalaes are also semi-tropical. We can infer from this that the Cieldalaes sit somewhere on or near the Tropic of Cancer, 23°N. But the southern-most tip of Aldenard dips below this point, maybe to the 20°N mark for simplicity.

 

Based on lore on regions with colder climates, particularly Ilsabard, we can infer Ilsabard's central mountain range is likely close to the Artic Circle, 66°N. Eorzea doesn't quite reach this far north, so maybe the Farreach sits at about 50°N?

 

Using these rough guesstimates:

50° - 20° = 30° × 69mi = 2070 miles (3328 km) from Cape Deadwind to the Farreach, roughly.

 

Calculating longitudinal distance is a little trickier, especially using a phone, but Eorzea's widest point (from Sharlayan's coast on the Indigo Deep to the Gyr Abanian coast on the Sea of Jade) appears to be about a tenth of Eorzea's total length N-to-S wider. I'll round to 2300 miles across as my hypothesis. 

 

Now to try the actual math. At 40°N latitude (where I'm guestimating Eorzea's widest coast to coast point sits, give or take a few degrees north), the distance between longitude lines is 53 miles (85 km). Problem: I don't know exactly how many degrees of longitude Eorzea stretches. Well, fortunately,  the Great Continents map has very faint lines running north to south that could be longitude lines. In any case, I'm going to use them as such. For our purposes, I'm going to assume that each depicted "longitude line" on this map represents 10°. 

 

I count 4 verticle lines between western-most Dravania to eastern-most Gyr Abania, so roughly 40° at Eorzea's widest point. 

40° × 53 mi = 2120 miles (3412 km).

 

To put these numbers into some RL perspective, Eorzea is roughly 25% smaller than the continent of Australia. Though given how Eorzea is shaped similarly to Africa, with its southern half drastically narrower than its northern half, the square mileage/kilometers would be significantly smaller than Australia.

 

Hope this helps! 

 

 

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EDIT:

<Full Sized>

 

So if you stare very closely at the Great Continents map, these lines are actually all drawn in already. I took the lines which, based on climate lore research above seemed to most likely fit with what we know of how latitude typically affects climate. 

 

Areas between the Tropics of Cancer (23°N) and Capricorn (23°S) are usually Tropical Wet, Tropical Wet and Dry, or Arid - with Tropical Wet (rainforests) usually falling directly on the Equator. This seems to corroborate Meracydia's position on/near the Equator, as it is said to have a thick, lush jungle region, as well as arid wasteland. This also explains desert regions, such as Thanalan/Sagolii, parts of Thavnair, and the Dalmascan Desert all falling on/near the Tropic of Cancer.

 

At the 30°N latitude (not noted on my map but should be right through Vylbrand), we see what's called Humid Subtropical and Mediterranean climates, which is close to what we see on Vylbrand and Thavnair. 

 

Between 30°N and 60°N we have Temperate and Subartic the closer you get to the Artic Circle. 66°N marks the Artic Circle, where we start seeing Tundras, Taigas, and Ice Caps. Much of Ilsabard north of the central mountain range falls into this category, including Garlemald. Now, Garlemald was once described as having forests, so possibly Taiga? We don't know for sure yet.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Sounsyy

[Tregarde]

2 hours ago, Sounsyy said:

Okay, we might actually be able to very roughly science the shit out of this.

 

You're the best. You know that, right?

 

[Sounsyy]

Updated original post with map!

[Valence]

Awesome work. To muse a bit on it, if Eorzea is smaller than Australia, it means that it's like 2 times Australia away from Othard. We know we need approximately 2 moons (months) to do the trip to Kugane from Vylbrand, and half that time to Raz-ad-Han/western Othard. 

 

Australia is around 4300 km long (Perth to Brisbane). The distance from Oriens to Kugane being roughly 2 Australias long, that would be a bit above 8000 km. The distance from West Vylbrand to Kugane would therefore be around 12-13k km. For comparison, the flying distance between Tokyo and the Canaries is 12300 km. To me it seems to match more or less with IRL.

 

As for travel times, it's a bit more complicated and actually makes me think that travel times can be bent quite A LOT for roleplay purpose without even breaking the lore too much.

 

For comparison, Columbus took around one month to get from the Canaries to the Bahamas in 1492. Columbus also took one month and a half to get back to Portugal, so a bit longer. The distance is around 6500 km, so half the trip to Kugane. This also seems to match.

 

Another example with Magellan, who took almost 4 months to sail from west Australia to south Africa, with a distance of around 9500 km. So 2 months to do 4500 km. This takes 50% more time per kilometer than for Columbus. 

 

This really reminds me that the times to sail were prone to heavy changes affected by weather and wind and overall sailing conditions like water currents and whatnot. I would expect Eorzean sailing ships to face the same issues, unless they cheat with ceruleum engines like some. 

 

As a sidenote, eorzean ships, at least the ones seen used by Lominsans, are absolutely gigantic. This in itself doesn't mean they are faster than IRL sailing caravels of the Renaissance, but by physics alone their max speed is probably way, way higher. The longer your ship is, the higher the max speed is. They could technically be faster than IRL old sailing ships. At least when powered by secret magitek engines.

 

In any case, since the lore seems to give similar results than with IRL old sailing boats... I would expect those ships to have but similar speed abilities, just a higher potential is all.

 

Edited June 22, 2018 by Valence

[Hollow]

Also, there may be special obstacles when sailing in open ocean unique to Hydaelyn - for example, actual sea monsters, areas of dense aether, magical maelstroms, and so forth, which could affect travel time when sailing.