Randland Map

[Master of the Blades]

There has been much speculation about distances bewteen locations and the size of certain places in Randland.

 

Here is the link to a large map of Randland.

 

http://www.fictionalworlds.com/FICWRLDS/WheelofTime/Maps/wotmap_large.htm

 

Randland is a name adopted by fans to refer to the imaginary world of The Wheel of Time fantasy book series by Robert Jordan, and is derived from the name of the central character Rand al'Thor.

More specifically, it often refers to The Westlands, the main area of Randland's main continent between the Aryth Ocean, which no character from the Westlands has been depicted crossing, and the Spine of the World; although forgotten places are mentioned in the east. Like many other writers, Robert Jordan never officially names his world, so in lieu of another name Randland has come into accepted common usage so fans have something to call it.

Although no scale appeared on the maps in the books themselves, a scale did appear on the world map on page 146 of the guidebook accompanying the series, "The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time". The scale on this map suggests that the distance from the edge of the continent on the west to The Spine of the World in the east is approximately 3,000 miles. This concurs broadly with the designers who worked on the Wheel of Time roleplaying game, who suggested a scale of 1"=400 miles on the colour endpaper maps in the hardback editions of the books. By their calculations Randland therefore measures roughly 3,500 miles from the west coast to the Spine of the World.

A reliable way of measuring the maps was produced in the novel New Spring, which gave the straight-line distance from Tar Valon to the sea south of Tear as 400 leagues (1,600 miles). The distance on this map is almost 8" which translates into 1" per 200 miles.

Anonymous found the following instances in LOC and ACoS that validate 4 miles to a league.

 

LoC - ch. 17 - Cairhien is more than 600 miles from Caemlyn.

 

ACoS - Ch. 7 - ...then stepped more than a hundred and fifty leagues to Caemlyn...

 

 

Using this as a basis for discussion we can estimate the distances between various cities and locations.

 

As an example some have speculated about the size of Tarwin's Gap. Using the map we can dtermine the Gap is nearly 100 hundred miles wide as it opens up into Shienar. In Malkier the pass would be approximately 25 miles across.

 

This gives everyone a common standard of 1" per 200 miles to measure distances.

[Narg]

i have a book and the westlands are smaller than shara and the waste and seanchan all are above the equator to the south there is only the isle of madmen roughly a little larger than the westlands and half of sheanchan. the wheel of time is based on the size of earth and if so randlandis about the size of the usa probably 10-15% smaller.

[Guest Anonymous!]

Actually Narg the greatest confusion comes from unit’s conversion (big surprise). While it’s true that Jordan tried to base the physical attributes of the world of Randland on Earth, we are uncertain of the conversion of the distances that we use to define the worlds. Does 1 RJ mile = 1 Real World mile? We don't know. We have tables showing how to convert distances within RJ units, but no where does it say 1 Randland Inch = 1 Real World inch or even 1 First Age inch.

 

Master of Blades, nice maps! There are two quotes stating the distance from Cairhein to Caemlyn is a little over 600 miles and should help with your scaling argument. Remember in RJ's world 1 league = 4 miles, unlike our 3 mile league.

 

LoC - ch. 17 - Cairhien is more than 600 miles from Caemlyn.

 

ACoS - Ch. 7 - ...then stepped more than a hundred and fifty leagues to Caemlyn...

[Master of the Blades]

Thanks Anomymous.

 

It might be interesting to try and determine the speed at which channelers travel from place to place and see if there is a difference in rate od speed between men and women. One problem in establishing speed is we have no idea about time zones.

 

For saidin we know Rand has traveled to and from from Cairhien to Caemlym several times. We could adduce a average speed if we knew departure and rival time. I as top skimming the best example would be Rand and Min traveling north to somewhere near Tar Valon.

 

As for saidar we have a well documented journey from Cairhien to Far Madding where Cadsuane and co. We can safely assume they traveled there since both Cadusaune and Verin bot would know where they were going.

 

For saidar the best examples of skimming I can think of is Egwene traveling form Cairhien to Salidar.

[icspots]

MoB, Egwene didn't skim from Cairhien to Salidar. She entered Tel'aran'rhiod in the flesh and rode cyber-bela there.

 

The only time I can remember Egwene skimming is when she skimmed Lan from...... Murandy?.... to a few days north of Ebou Dar.

[Narg]

ok think of it like this. use the fact that randland is roughly the size of the states. How far is the usa across? Thats roughly how raf randland is across. now use a usa map thats the same size as a randland map and use that scale. lets do with carhien to ceamlyn. thats probably ( i dont know american geography) edmonton to regina give or take 100 kilometers.