It probably happens to everyone who likes to look at maps. You imagine land to be water and water to be land. Continents to be oceans and and oceans to be continents. Islands to be lakes and lakes to be islands.

I could not resist the temptation to make a detailed map of such a topsy-turvy world. But I am not the first to do so. A little bit of googling yields a nice collection of inverted maps. Vladislav Gerasimov, for example, made a lovely styled fantasy map. And Chris Wajan on his Panetocopia website extensively discusses climate, vegetation and culture of Inversia (and of another twenty or so possible worlds).

The Blue Marble

Still, I think my map adds something, especially because of the color scheme, for which I let myself be inspired by the famous Blue Marble maps by NASA. Those show the Earth as it looks from space. Of course my version is a little less blue and a little more green and especially more yellow, red and brown:

Inverted Relief

Not only the coast lines are reversed in this world. Also, the relief is consistently the opposite of reality. So the deepest parts of the oceans are in the Tibetan and Himalayan troughs in the southern part of the Asian Ocean. And the highest peaks, around eleven kilometer, are found in the Mariana Mountains in the west of the continent Pacifica.

If you zoom in very far, the inversion has to stop somewhere. At least it is difficult to imagine reversed rivers as dams stretching into the ocean for hundreds of kilometers. But that scale level is not relevant for this global map.

Deserts and jungles

It is an extraordinary planet, this inverted world. It has more than twice as much land available as our own Earth. Which does not mean, however, that twice as many people can live there, because only a small part of this surface is green. After all, the rain must come from somewhere.

Particularly Pacifica, almost completely surrounded by high mountain ranges, is one big desert. Great for the fans of desolate stony plains, and I count myself among them. But not very suitable for agriculture.

There are also regions that provoke an instantaneous view of lush green hills. The Mediterranean peninsula for instance, or the Big Islands in the Canadian ocean. Or the area around the Lakes of Indonesia, or otherwise Caribia, completely surrounded by seas and lakes.

A walk around the world

For maritime transport such an inverted world is not optimal. On foot you can get almost anywhere so a walk around the planet is possible. But simply sailing around the world is not an option. Perhaps a Bering Canal between the Alaska Sea and the Gulf of Chukotka can ease the pain a little, but watch out for icebergs!

Inversion of the names

The nomenclature is, in many places, pretty obvious. Northsea becomes Northland, Greenland becomes the Green Sea. Polynesia remains Polynesia, New Zealand turns into the New Landseas. And of course there is a Panama Straits, a Newfoundlake and a Gulf of Surinam.

But especially in the Southern Hemisphere, which in our world is mostly water, there are areas where names are scarce. Well, everything below the forty-fifth parallel is one globe-spanning Siberia anyway, very sparsely populated and therefore less densely dotted with names.

The shores of the European Sea

Let’s finally zoom into to a fascinating part of the map: the area around the European Sea:

A part of the world with spectacular coastlines. From the North Atlantic continent two oddly shaped peninsulas stretch far in the direction of the Asian Ocean: Eastland, which splits into Bothnia and Finland, and Mediterrania, which is further connected with Blackland through the narrow Bosphorus landbridge. Also the area around the British Lakes, with the Celtic lowlands that rise towards the North Atlantic heights, looks promising as a holiday destination. Not even mentioning more northerly regions like the shores of the Icelake and the Green Sea, or the Scandinavian archipelago.

In short, an ideal backdrop for a 48-part fantasy series with Carice van Houten as Queen of Biscay … Does anyone happen to know people at HBO or Netflix?

UPDATE 18 April 2016: As the Inverted World turns

A flat map is fun to look at, but it really captures the imagination if it’s projected on a sphere. So I’ve done exactly that. Here are three different globes: one on which the American Oceans get all the attention, a Eurocentric (also Afro-centric) variation, and a version that people in the Far East and down under will appreciate.

Also these three images have been added to the Space Art collection in my online gallery.

UPDATE 23 november 2017: Cartoon

While working on the impression of Alice and Goliath, I thought that it would be nice to make a few photo-realistic renderings of the Inverted World as well. Eventually that turned out into more cartoon-like images with a greatly exaggerated relief and a background of twinkling stars. That way they fit a lot better with the fantasy character of the project.

UPDATE: February 11, 2019: Nameless

I have done my very best to think of interesting names for the oceans and continents and other geographic phenomena on this inverted fantasy world. But perhaps in doing so, I am restraining the viewer’s imagination too much.

I therefore made a version of the map without names. Just the beauty of the landscapes and coastlines of this special planet. It is completely up to the spectator to discover this wonderful world, invent names and create stories!