Natural geography of Cabralia, fictional South Atlantic continent
- Thread starter Hamersley Macdonnell II
- Start date
When did the indigenous inhabitants arrive? What were the populations? Was there any recurring contact between the indigents and their homelands? Did they have agriculture? Was there a mass extinction of megafauna concurrent with human arrival.
Well, the presence or absence of indigenous people would potentially have a huge impact on the development of European settlement. If there are no indigenous populations, then you've essentially got a Virgin Soil territory, like Iceland. Quite rich, but possibly with reduced potential for development.
On the other hand, an indigenous population might well drive the economy of the early colonies, and settlement prospects. Everything from fur trade, to trade in valuables and resources, slavery and blackbirding, and warfare. I'd note that places like the US and Canada, and Australia, where native populations collapsed and were almost completely displaced are the exceptions to the rule. In much of Latin America, substantial native populations survived as an underclass, or even dominant population. In Africa, native populations weren't even dented.
An Agricultural native society might have significant impacts and effects. At the very least - a native agriculture means an exponentially larger and more complex native population, which creates complications.
While it's an interesting subject to discuss, you're the only person that can make decisions. It's your continent.
Also, based on your location, I would expect the southern half/third of the Continent to be glaciated. Quite possibly a large section of the interior is glaciated. There's no way to avoid it. Your continent's southern shore sits astride the Antarctic circumpolar current. It's going to be very very cold.
Depending on geography - there are a lot of variables at play. You might have something like the Canadian Archipelago - a frozen desert, where water loss through wind and sublimation exceeds water accumulation. I'm thinking glacier evolution, like Greenland or Iceland. At best, you'll get a northern Siberia analogue. I would expect a large Tundra/Permafrost/Muskeg zone.
On the other hand, a lot will depend on the inclination of the continent and which way the rivers will run. Assuming that the rivers run north and feed into the Atlantic, you may have fairly well watered and rich lands. Assuming they run south towards the pole... trickier.
Depending on geography - there are a lot of variables at play. You might have something like the Canadian Archipelago - a frozen desert, where water loss through wind and sublimation exceeds water accumulation. I'm thinking glacier evolution, like Greenland or Iceland. At best, you'll get a northern Siberia analogue. I would expect a large Tundra/Permafrost/Muskeg zone.
On the other hand, a lot will depend on the inclination of the continent and which way the rivers will run. Assuming that the rivers run north and feed into the Atlantic, you may have fairly well watered and rich lands. Assuming they run south towards the pole... trickier.
Geography is destiny. Natural geography shapes civilisations. Where are your mountains, your highlands, your lowlands. Where are the rivers. What's the drainage. It's worth studying up on a bit. Look around at examples in OTL.
Looking at your map and eyeballing, your northernmost point seems to be roughly on a latitude with Uruguay, and about half your continent seems to be at the latitudes of Argentina, roughly 40 to 54 degrees south. Half of it seems to be latitudes below Tierra del Fuego, 54 degrees south. The entire continent seems appreciably south of Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, at 34 degrees south. In Argentina, Patagonia is some harsh country and Tierra del Fuego is harsher still. The northern half may have climate ranging between European, or Siberian or Labrador. Possibly it has a great deal of variation.
As to pre-European settlement - there were a number of Land masses that were never discovered or settled prior to the Norse/Euro/Polynesian era of the last 1000 to 1300 years ago - Iceland, Azores, Madeiras. Bermuda, Mauritious, Reunion, Hawaii, New Zealand, etc. Getting to your continent will require an advanced seafaring culture, one with reason to venture deep into the South Indian or South Atlantic. Not easy.
Anyway, working day for me.
Good luck, have fun.
Looking at your map and eyeballing, your northernmost point seems to be roughly on a latitude with Uruguay, and about half your continent seems to be at the latitudes of Argentina, roughly 40 to 54 degrees south. Half of it seems to be latitudes below Tierra del Fuego, 54 degrees south. The entire continent seems appreciably south of Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, at 34 degrees south. In Argentina, Patagonia is some harsh country and Tierra del Fuego is harsher still. The northern half may have climate ranging between European, or Siberian or Labrador. Possibly it has a great deal of variation.
As to pre-European settlement - there were a number of Land masses that were never discovered or settled prior to the Norse/Euro/Polynesian era of the last 1000 to 1300 years ago - Iceland, Azores, Madeiras. Bermuda, Mauritious, Reunion, Hawaii, New Zealand, etc. Getting to your continent will require an advanced seafaring culture, one with reason to venture deep into the South Indian or South Atlantic. Not easy.
Anyway, working day for me.
Good luck, have fun.
Just guessing out loud here, based on location, but you have a couple of options.
Geologically, the southern coastline seems to parallel the Antarctic coast - it's like South America and Africa, they almost fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. What this means is that they were joined and have split apart. What that means is that Magellanica is moving north, and probably pretty recently - in the last twenty or thirty million years or so.
Why is this important? Because that means that the mountains are going to be in the direction of movement - ie, the Mountains are going to be on the northern shores. It looks like there are two northern shores - an east and a west, both of which rise to meet in the center.
So it may only be one of the Northern shores which is mountain ranges. Possibly both, but perhaps only one. The overall slope is going to be southwards - ie, the highest average elevations will be northern, the lower elevations will be southern.
Mountain ranges are important - they get in the way of things. They block rainfall and wind carrying warm or cold air. They glaciate, and the glaciers either feed rivers, or crawl down and become ice caps.
If these are young mountains - 15 or 20 years old or less, then they'll be tall. Which means pretty fierce, and glaciated. They'll block warm winds coming off the tropic or temperate regions of the Atlantic or Indian. Which means that the land on the other side of those mountain ranges will be comparatively colder. They'll be warmed by the sun, but they won't have a gulf stream effect which makes Europe so hospitable. Coastal air will feed the glaciers, which will crawl down and slowly move south. And the southern reaches will be overall colder, with likely snowfalls heavy from the circumpolar. Which means the whole thing turns deep freeze.
You might have a southern version of Greenland there. That would suck.
But assuming you only have one of the northern coasts mountainous, that might change the equation. You'd have to check the southern wind and currents. And then have your continent drifting the opposite direction. You want the warm winds and the warm currents from the tropics coming to the coast that isn't mountainous. In that case, you'd have a good shot at a fairly warm coast, and a non-glaciated interior. You'd still get mountains with glacier caps on the other northern coast, but with a warmer interior, you'd get a lot of river systems being fed.
Geologically, the southern coastline seems to parallel the Antarctic coast - it's like South America and Africa, they almost fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. What this means is that they were joined and have split apart. What that means is that Magellanica is moving north, and probably pretty recently - in the last twenty or thirty million years or so.
Why is this important? Because that means that the mountains are going to be in the direction of movement - ie, the Mountains are going to be on the northern shores. It looks like there are two northern shores - an east and a west, both of which rise to meet in the center.
So it may only be one of the Northern shores which is mountain ranges. Possibly both, but perhaps only one. The overall slope is going to be southwards - ie, the highest average elevations will be northern, the lower elevations will be southern.
Mountain ranges are important - they get in the way of things. They block rainfall and wind carrying warm or cold air. They glaciate, and the glaciers either feed rivers, or crawl down and become ice caps.
If these are young mountains - 15 or 20 years old or less, then they'll be tall. Which means pretty fierce, and glaciated. They'll block warm winds coming off the tropic or temperate regions of the Atlantic or Indian. Which means that the land on the other side of those mountain ranges will be comparatively colder. They'll be warmed by the sun, but they won't have a gulf stream effect which makes Europe so hospitable. Coastal air will feed the glaciers, which will crawl down and slowly move south. And the southern reaches will be overall colder, with likely snowfalls heavy from the circumpolar. Which means the whole thing turns deep freeze.
You might have a southern version of Greenland there. That would suck.
But assuming you only have one of the northern coasts mountainous, that might change the equation. You'd have to check the southern wind and currents. And then have your continent drifting the opposite direction. You want the warm winds and the warm currents from the tropics coming to the coast that isn't mountainous. In that case, you'd have a good shot at a fairly warm coast, and a non-glaciated interior. You'd still get mountains with glacier caps on the other northern coast, but with a warmer interior, you'd get a lot of river systems being fed.
So for the actual Balkan country of Albania, may I suggest then the names "Arberia" (from antiquated Albanian Arbëria) or "Sciperia" (from modern Albanian Shqipëria)?
I mean, yeah, they're propping up a white-supremacist regime in Katanga and supported apartheid in South Africa, that seems pretty indisputably racist to me.
Don Quijote
Banned
I thought that map looked familiar... you're welcome to use/edit it, it's nice to see something I'd completely forgotten about appear again. (Original post here)
Don Quijote
Banned
-I honestly didn't put very much effort into it, it was just a generic 'Southern Continent' of the sort that Europeans used to think had to exist, so the world wouldn't be unbalanced.Sorry, I forgot to check wo made it, I'll update it was you.
I have a few questions about the map:
-Did you have Terra Australis/Magellanica fictional continent in mind, when you designed this continent? You called it the 'southern continent'
-If yes, did you modeled its northern coastline, lake and rivers after portion of Terra Australis in some 16th century map? The coastline looks similar to some old maps where TA appears
-Can you estimate size of the continent in sq km? It seems to be roughly twice the size of Australia
P.s.
I designed -on paper, I've never tried to do virtual maps, although I plan to try to do one soon- a fictional Terra Australis/Magellanica located in the southeast Pacific. What made you to locate it in South Atlantic instead of the Pacific or Indian Ocean? Is there more room or something?
-I might have had one of those maps in the back of my mind when designing it, but I definitely didn't copy it in detail.
-The area can't be far off that of South America - if you look at the map sideways it's a bit easier to see that. Call it about 16 million sq km.
-I did it in the Atlantic to avoid splitting the continent, I wanted it to be roughly in the centre. I suppose I could get hold of a Pacific-centred map and move it.
If you look closely at the south coast, you can see ice sheets at a couple of points. I didn't want to overdo it, as I wasn't really sure about how large the ice sheets would be at that latitude - there isn't really any other land to compare the south coast with, apart from the Antarctic Peninsula. I had a rough idea that there was an east-west mountain range running across most of the continent, with two major rivers flowing north. To the south, I expect it would be pretty barren, but the northern half would be habitable. The lake was just decoration, feel free to move it or remove it.