Fantasy map

A fantasy map is a type of map design that visually presents an imaginary world or concept, or represents a real-world geography in a fantastic style; the Wikipedia article is titled Fantasy cartography. Tolkien is called the most influential fantasy cartographer: the Middle-earth maps prefacing The Lord of the Rings have been called the most influential example to date, one that encouraged other writers and their publishers to include cartographic images. Ekman's survey of 200 fantasy books found 34 percent carried at least one map, and per his framing, in modern fantasy, especially high fantasy, maps are considered "common enough to be almost obligatory".

For writers the map is worldbuilding made visible and a continuity contract: coastlines, borders and distances drawn once are canon for every later chapter. The drawing and tracking discipline is covered in the world maps for novelists guide, and the world a map orients readers in is a fictional universe.