D&D 5E Very cool source for wilderness maps

I've been looking for good maps at the 1 mile-per-hex "province" scale, but they're difficult to find.

Mike Schley's maps are nice but too simplistic to take advantage of the smaller scale. The contour maps in old TSR modules had the right idea but they're ugly and difficult to use. Amateur maps are usually terrible all-around.

Luckily I stumbled upon www.maphill.com, which makes pretty topographic maps of real-world regions. Just search for a county/district/prefecture from somewhere around the world and you have a province-scale map.

Here are some of my favourites:
http://www.maphill.com/switzerland/tessin/ticino/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/norway/hedmark/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/united-kingdom/wales/wales/powys/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/new-zealand/nelson/tasman/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/japan/kyushu/kumamoto/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/bhutan/wangdiphodrang/maps/satellite-map/
http://www.maphill.com/greece/ipiros/ioannina/3d-maps/satellite-map/

The labels would have to be edited...unless you want to use them as-is. Since my players and I are unfamiliar with the towns/villages of New Zealand, I actually wouldn't mind using them for a fantasy map. (If you're from New Zealand I imagine you could do the same with a Canadian map.)

I live in New Zealand, and I'd happily use the NZ maps. If I were to flip 'em upside down or sideways, my players probably wouldn't notice.

I was thinking of turning my local city into a D&D map and see how long it takes the PCs to realize its the topographical map of the city we live in, also in New Zealand.

https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-45.8857166,170.5484669,11.01z/data=!5m1!1e4

The poster above me also lives in this unholy place known as Auckland New Zealand. Its an old volcano so one could ramp that up into a Dragon lair. Feel free to blow it up (ducks).

When one is born in RL Rohan you can get away with this.

Thanks for that great link. Gonna try that out.

This is cool, but it seems difficult to remove the labels. I'd be most interested in this as something to print out and then scribble my own labels onto; a quick way to make a 'here is what you see when you Scry the coast that your ship has landed on' map.

Zardnaar said:

The poster above me also lives in this unholy place known as Auckland New Zealand.

Click to expand...

Many years ago, I was in a game using the New Zealand map. Auckland was, of course, where all the Orcs lived.

Greenstone.Walker said:

Many years ago, I was in a game using the New Zealand map. Auckland was, of course, where all the Orcs lived.

Click to expand...

More barbarians these days (ducks).

That is just pretty. Very cool.

On my phone right now but I wonder if you could zoom tight enough to make battle maps.

Cool find though.

Hussar said:

That is just pretty. Very cool.

On my phone right now but I wonder if you could zoom tight enough to make battle maps.

Cool find though.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately no, they're not fully zoomable like Google maps. I like the style much better though.

Entsuropi said:

This is cool, but it seems difficult to remove the labels. I'd be most interested in this as something to print out and then scribble my own labels onto; a quick way to make a 'here is what you see when you Scry the coast that your ship has landed on' map.

Click to expand...

It's pretty easy with photoshop or GIMP. Here are a few with labels removed:

In case this is useful for anyone else, I found out how to remove labels from Google terrain maps:

Go here:
http://gmaps-samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/wizard/index.html

Go to Map in the upper left and check Terrain.

Under Element type, select Label.

Under Stylers, check Visibility and select Off.

You can then click Static Map on the right to create a map.