{"id":2832,"date":"2016-09-15T17:21:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T21:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=2832"},"modified":"2016-09-15T17:36:31","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T21:36:31","slug":"mapping-star-trek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/09\/mapping-star-trek\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping Star Trek"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month marks\u00a0Star Trek<\/em>\u2019s 50th anniversary, so I thought it might be worth it to put together a little post about maps in\u00a0Star Trek<\/em>.\u00a0This proved to be more fraught\u00a0a subject than I expected. There are a lot of maps of the\u00a0Star Trek<\/em> universe out there by divers hands, some more official than others, and\u00a0they don’t always agree on all points,\u00a0as Sufficient Velocity forum member WhiteDragon25 griped in 2014<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Despite so many planets, stars, systems, and other locations that were mentioned and referenced to throughout the entire franchise’s run, we’ve never got an official and fully accurate map of the Trek universe. […]\u00a0Hell, for all of the Star Wars EU’s faults, at least it managed to generate a\u00a0universally accepted map!<\/i>\u00a0Star Trek on the other hand, despite being\u00a0just<\/i>\u00a0as popular as Star Wars, cannot even figure out the sizes and positions of the Feds, the Romulans, and the Klingons in relation to one another!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WhiteDragon25 might be\u00a0overstating things a bit: most of the maps have the\u00a0Star Trek<\/em> major powers in the same relative position (other empires like the Tholians are another matter). But the\u00a0point remains. While original series canon assigned aliens to known nearby stars, and the shows occasionally used real locations (e.g. Wolf 359<\/a>), episode writers did not start with a map and\u00a0generally did not\u00a0take\u00a0spatial relationships into consideration, which no doubt has made the belated mapping process a bit more challenging.<\/p>\n

\"star-trek-map-books\"<\/p>\n

In print form, the earliest map I’m aware of is\u00a0Star Trek Maps<\/em><\/a> (1980), which according to Memory Alpha<\/a> was a pair of double-sided map posters accompanied by a fairly mathy booklet; of course, the Star Trek<\/em> universe was a lot smaller then.\u00a0Star Trek: Star Charts<\/a><\/em> came out in 2002 and\u00a0seems to be considered the most canonical of the maps in existence; it’s out of print now, though.\u00a0Star Trek: Stellar Cartography<\/em><\/a> (2013), a collection of\u00a0ten 24\u2033\u00d736\u2033\u00a0folded maps.\u00a0(Note that I haven’t seen any of these maps.)<\/p>\n

\"star-trek-stellar-cartography\"<\/p>\n

Online,\u00a0Star Trek Dimension’s Cartography section<\/a> has maps from the series <\/a>as well as Christian R\u00fchl’s Galactic Atlas<\/a>.\u00a0StarTrekMap.com<\/a>, a fan site that appears to be based on Star Trek: Star Charts<\/em>, uses an in-universe interface that functions well (scroll wheel zooming!) but is awfully small on large screens. Neither has been updated in years. The Star Trek Online<\/em> game also has, as you might expect, a map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Christian <\/a>
Christian R\u00fchl, The Galactic Atlas: Local Space. Star Trek Dimension. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Map <\/a>
Map from StarTrekMap.com (detail) <\/div> <\/div>
\"In-Game <\/a>
In-Game Galaxy Map, Season 10. Star Trek Online. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month marks\u00a0Star Trek\u2019s 50th anniversary, so I thought it might be worth it to put together a little post about maps in\u00a0Star Trek.\u00a0This proved to be more fraught\u00a0a subject than I expected. There are… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[619],"tags":[644,645,643],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-and-television","tag-science-fiction","tag-science-fiction-maps","tag-star-trek"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1786118,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/08\/new-edition-of-star-trek-stellar-cartography\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":0},"title":"New Edition of Star Trek: Stellar Cartography","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 August 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"A new edition of Star Trek: Stellar Cartography is coming out in October, TrekCore reports. Like The Lands of Ice and Fire, it's a collection of folded maps\u201410 of them, 24\u2033\u00d736\u2033 in size\u2014rather than a bound atlas. The new edition, authored by Larry Nemecek, corrects errors and typos and adds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Movies and Television"","block_context":{"text":"Movies and Television","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/movies-and-television\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cover of Star Trek: Stellar Cartography","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/star-trek-stellar-cartography-2ed-120x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1787577,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/08\/mapping-deep-space-nines-bajor\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":1},"title":"Mapping Deep Space Nine’s Bajor","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 August 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Fantasy worlds have established maps. Science fictional worlds not so much: what maps exist of imaginary planets are often fan imaginings rather than \u201cofficial\u201d work. One exception is the planet Bajor, a key location in the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Its map was created by DS9 writer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bajor-whitehead-1024x651.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bajor-whitehead-1024x651.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bajor-whitehead-1024x651.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/bajor-whitehead-1024x651.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1787769,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/09\/mapping-star-wars\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":2},"title":"Mapping Star Wars","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 September 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"From a certain point of view, The Force Awakens is the story of how a rare and valuable map was kept out of the hands of an unscrupulous and extremely motivated collector. While a map served as the MacGuffin of Episode 7, maps of the Star Wars universe have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Star Wars: The Force Awakens (screenshot)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/the-force-awakens-map-1024x547.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/the-force-awakens-map-1024x547.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/the-force-awakens-map-1024x547.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/the-force-awakens-map-1024x547.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4310,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/04\/the-only-star-chart-youll-ever-need\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":3},"title":"The Only Star Chart You’ll Ever Need","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"18 April 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"The successor to\u00a0the Only Fantasy Map You'll Ever Need\u00a0is the Only Star Map You'll Need, a riff on maps of galactic empires and space-opera tropes\u00a0that\u00a0emerged from the discussion in this thread. It's a few years old, but Boing Boing spotted it yesterday. Previously:\u00a0Mapping Star Trek.","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/only-star-map-947x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/only-star-map-947x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/only-star-map-947x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/only-star-map-947x1024.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1812811,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/02\/an-sf-fantasy-map-roundup\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":4},"title":"An SF\/Fantasy Map Roundup","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"21 February 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"In December Tor.com revealed the map for Martha Wells\u2019s upcoming fantasy novel, Witch King, which comes out in May. The post includes both Rhys Davies\u2019s map and Wells\u2019s initial sketch: compare and contrast. Amazon (Canada\/UK) | Bookshop How often do Star Trek tie-in novels come with maps? John Jackson Miller\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1107434,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/01\/the-great-map-of-movieland\/","url_meta":{"origin":2832,"position":5},"title":"The Great Map of Movieland","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 January 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"The Great Map of Movieland is a whimsical map that plots 1,800 movie titles on an imaginary terrain. Film genres appear as regions (Adventure Plains, Coming of Age Peninsula) and the films themselves appear as towns, with town size correlating to a film's importance. (It's a bit odd to see\u00a0Star\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/movieland-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/movieland-1024x683.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/movieland-1024x683.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/movieland-1024x683.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2844,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions\/2844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}