The vast majority of the action in the Witcher books and their adaptations are set in the Continent. It is a large landmass with a western shore in which the Northern Kingdoms and the Empire of Nilfgaard are located. Its name isn’t a placeholder, either: characters do call it the “Continent” in-universe too.

No definitive map exists of the Continent: Andrzej Sapkowksi never shared his own map, but has for a while used a map made for the Czech translation of his books, before outgrowing it. He has further endorsed the map made by CD Projekt RED (CDPR) for their games, so we know with some certainty what the western part of the Continent looks like. I wholeheartedly recommend this blog post by Werthead that tries to make sense of all of this, as well as this gallery of maps that shows all the different maps made for the books and officially licensed TV, videogames, and roleplaying campaigns.

But that is not what this post is all about. In here, we will look at what lies beyond the western shore of the Continent. The books and their adaptations give us plenty of information regarding the relative locations of the lands beyond the Northern Kingdoms and Nilfgaard, and I will try to create a world map that places these locations in their presumed places.

Now, I have to say I am not a big fan of fanmade maps that just make up all sorts of nonsense to fill in the blanks. I do not feel comfortable adding my own worldbuilding to a preexisting setting, and creating vague landscapes based on textual descriptions is as far as I will take this. I am doing what I like to call “responsible speculation”, and even this is not meant to be taken as anything more than a fun exercise. I am also drawing from many different sources from across both books and adaptations, so the canonicity of all of this is up for debate; certainly different adaptations will have different versions of the Witcher world, as we’ve seen that, for instance, the Netflix TV show has significant geographical differences to the world of CDPR’s videogames (more specifically, the Continent curves inland in CDPR’s continuity, while it curves seaward in Netflix’s). In other words, it is nothing more than a thought experiment.. but one not entirely useless, as it also helps us summarize most, if not all, of what we know about the lands of the Witcher world.

Looking at all the available sources, I have assembled an (incomplete) list of geographical descriptors that will allow us to create our map:

Main book series:

• The world has 90% of its landmass concentrated on the Northern Hemisphere;
• There is a western continent besides the main Continent, which was discovered by Fabio Sachs. Humans also came from a western land beyond the sea, but it is not explicitly confirmed this is the same land as the western continent;
• Ofir and Zangwebar are near each other, and beyond the seas;
• Haakland invades the Northern Kingdoms in 1350;

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

• Ofir and Zangwebar have reportedly been raided by pirates from Skellige;

Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni:

• The Korath desert only goes up until Etolia, being replaced by the Great Eastern Steppe further south, when it borders Vicovaro;
• South of Ymlac, and the Nilfgaardian Empire in general, there is a Southern Desert;
• The Southern lands are theorized to be connected to the Continent through an isthmus filled with deserts and steppes;
• Zerrikania has tried to control the Korath Desert;

The Witcher Roleplaying Game:

• Nilfgaard fought wars with Barsa, to the south, and annexed some of their territory;

The World of the Witcher:

• Hannu, Ofir, Zangwebar and Barsa lie to the south of Nilfgaard;
• People from Barsa, the Barsamen, were absorbed by Nilfgaard;

Tales from the World of the Witcher:

• In the western continent, colonization happened in its Eastern Shore, with settlers from the Northern Kingdoms, Nilfgaard and Zangwebar;
• The colony of Fabiola has a cap called Fabio’s Cape;
• The tropical Silk Islands are mentioned as being in the region.

The Map

So here it is, our main event. I tried to incorporate every single one of the geographical descriptors listed above. I decided to follow the “isthmus theory” for connecting the southern lands to the Continent, because I thought it fit in well with the southern desert, and with the Basra lands in general. I am not entirely happy with the placement of Hannu, but I didn’t want to put it too far away from Ofir and Zangwebar - two nations that are certainly close to each other, as they are often referred to together. Their location in here also makes them easy to be raided by Skellige, as well as to conduct trade with Novigrad and Gors Velen, as seen in both the novels and in The Witcher 3.

While both Ofir and Zangwebar are clearly equatorial (Zangwebar pehraps a bit more than Ofir), I still wanted them to have a significant presence in the northern hemisphere, as I didn’t want to go above the 10% of land allowed to be on the southern hemisphere. I think this compromise works, but I would pehraps move the Equator a bit further down just to be sure. Another option to balance this ratio would be to just increase the size of the Western continent, which I took the liberty of assuming was located entirely in the northern hemisphere. The Silk Islands, however, are said to be tropical, so I tried to put them as close to the Equator as possible, without actually going south of it.

As for the eastern lands, we do not have much to go on. We know Zerrikania is past the Korath, and that both it and Nilfgaard try to assert some dominance over it, with no success. We also know it is possible to reach Zerrikania by land, by going past the Elskerdeg Pass, as Dijkstra, Filavandrel and Boreas Mun did in the books. As for Haakland, that fits nicely in its appointed location northeast of Zerrikania, but it also leaves the space between Haakland and the Northern Kingdoms completely empty. I don’t think there is too much harm in that, as existing maps did depict that area as a big mountainous waste of nothing, but I still wonder if a better location, or landmass shape, could be arranged.

Finally, the only thing I created was the “Southern Sea”, as it is mentioned that Ofir and Zangwebar are two oceans away (with one of them being the Great Ocean). Furthermore, the fairly large polar ice caps do not seem like a stretch, considering the weather patterns of this world and the looming Ice Age that will hit in 3000 years or so. As for the shape of the landmasses, I tried to be fairly conservative and not create anything too ridiculous, like a boot-shaped peninsula. I think the end result looks a bit like Faerûn from the Forgotten Realms, but it wasn’t intentional. I think all of this is in the spirit of the responsible speculation mantra I followed here.

Click here for the full version of the world map (warning: very large size!)

And that’s it. This was a fun experiment. As I said, I do not like fan-made maps filled with fanfiction and wild speculation, so this was a fine line to straddle. I hope this is useful for anyone trying to better understand the world of the Witcher… and I also hope that we eventually see an official world map someday, be it from Sapkowski himself (unlikely, to say the least), or maybe CDPR, in one of their many upcoming Witcher games. Expect more Witcher content in this blog soon…