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McQ
2011-08-14, 02:23 AM
So, not entirely sure where else to go to ask for help on this, I'll just give it a shot here.

Trying to make a geographically defined map of Southern China. The map is comprised of the provinces Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, and possibly Guangdong in their respective places. Doing all of China is a bit much, so I'm just including some of my favorite provinces based on their geographical topography.

What I really need help with is a grasp of what physical features exist. I've taken a look on GoogleEarth and it's far too detailed, and what I've found on Wikipedia gives me descriptive text but I'm the sorta guy that needs colors and pictures to solidify an understanding.

I figured out Yunnan has really tall mountains in the Northwest, and in the Southwest it's more like hills with rice paddy terraces and towns with squeezed together houses on the steepest parts of the hills. There's another part of Yunnan that turns into nothing but rock peaks that have many large underground rivers flowing through caves.

I'm looking for a map of the provinces put together with some kind of basic mapping key or color scheme to show where certain terrain lays. Much of these provinces have mountains (hence I'm naming it the Isle of Stone), there are really high mountains, karst columns with caves under, and the really steep hills with the valley floor being a large river.

If someone has an understanding or decent map of this portion of china I'd really appreciate the help.

Melayl
2011-08-14, 09:23 AM
Check at the Cartographer's Guild (www.cartographersguild.com). There are some very talented and helpful folks there that can answer pretty much any mapmaking question you have. You might even be able to find someone to make one for you.

McQ
2011-08-14, 09:41 AM
I realize this is a tough undertaking, and I'm questioning whether I'm getting too precision oriented in recreating this portion of China. It just seems so fitting to what I was thinking of the island I was making. Large mountains, but a strong connection to naval life.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/226/7/7/isle_of_stone_by_klorel88-d46hz9b.png

I did this map with rough boundaries of the provinces. And I've got pretty much only the video of Wild China (on Netflix) and Wikipedia to help with information.

So, take a look and maybe add some input? I know Shanghai is a major port, so that'll be awesome to recreate. And I think the Himalayas are beside the Yunnan province. But there's so much rock in these provinces, major cave systems, the karst pinnacles, and all those awesome rice paddies.