Chapter Text
So, while I was working on the very long and very arduous task of ironing out the Naruto timeline, I started to have thoughts about geography as well. And like the timeline, there are a few wrinkles here and there, though thankfully not as many and not as complicated. I think. Since there are so many countries and places to go over, I'll be breaking this analysis down into chapters.
Maps That Will Be Used
Before discussing the countries, however, it would be prudent to have a grasp of the general facts, starting with maps.
First, take a look at the map of the Shinobi Continent. This is the map used on Narutopedia's Geography article, and is widely consulted by the fandom. Admittedly, this is a fan-made map, but the placement of the countries shown seems to line up with canon data, barring one exception, which will be covered in chapter 2.
But to be fair, the canon maps, on the rare occasions we get a glimpse of them, have not always been consistent, either. Observe the long island to the east of the mainland. It has a grayed out area in the middle. In the image's talk section, the map's creator, user ShounenSuki, explains this oddity by remarking how canon maps sometimes show it as one island, and sometimes as two, and the gray area is meant to reflect this.
Take this image here. The text was added in, but the map below is from Shippuden 369, when Hashirama talked about the formation of the other hidden villages. As you can see, there is an extra country to the northwest of the Land of Hot Water. There is also this map, taken from Boruto episode 27, at 23:53, which also shows an extra country sitting next to the Land of Hot Water.
I will also be using this fan-made map as a guide. It was created for a roleplaying site called NarutoData. The site also has its own wiki if you would like a larger version of the image. Juts look up “NarutoData wiki.” The site's creator (Michael-Madlock) made several extremely large and detailed maps of the Naruto world, with every known country and many original ones. It's not quite as useful for fanfic writing as one would hope, since it's set in the very far future. However, it hits on many excellent ideas about how the world's geography should be.
Speaking of countries, I've taken the liberty of putting them down in the lists below. In the proceeding chapters, I will talk about each of these nations, where they are from, what we know, what can be determined, and how they do and don't fit into the Naruto world.
Countries in the Naruto Series
Major Countries
- Earth (Chapter 30)
- Fire (Chapters 22-24)
- Iron (Chapter 8)
- Lightning (Chapter 25)
- Sky (Chapters 4, 6)
- Snow/Spring (Chapter 3)
- Sound/Rice Fields (Chapter 17)
- Temujin's Continent (Chapters 9-10)
- Water (Chapters 11, 21)
- Wind (Chapters 5, 21)
Minor Countries
- Ancestors (Chapter 16)
- Bamboo (Chapter 17)
- Bean Jam (Chapter 4)
- Bears (Chapter 14)
- Benisu Island (Chapter 2)
- Birds (Chapter 4)
- Calm Seas (Chapter 2)
- Canyons (Hidden Waterfall country) (Chapter 20)
- Claws (Chapter 7)
- Demons (Chapter 16)
- Fangs (Chapter 7)
- Flowers (Chapter 7)
- Forests Chapter 4)
- Frost (Chapter 3)
- Haze (Chapter 26)
- Honey (Chapter 4)
- Hot Water (Chapter 17)
- Keys (Chapter 7)
- Medicines (Chapter 8)
- Moon (Chapter 6)
- Mountain Streams (Chapter 7)
- Mountains (Chapter 14)
- Mushrooms (Hidden Grass country) (Chapter 19)
- Nadeshiko Village (Chapter 13)
- Nanakusa Island (Uninhabited) (Chapter 2)
- Neck (Chapter 4)
- Noodles (Chapter 4)
- Purple Moon Island (Chapter 12)
- Redaku (Chapter 29)
- Rivers (Chapter 14)
- Rōran, Kingdom of (Chapter 29)
- Sand (Chapter 7)
- Sea (Chapter 2)
- Silence (Chapter 27)
- Stairs (Chapter 17)
- Storms (Hidden Rain country) (Chapter 18)
- Stone (Chapter 7)
- Swamps (Chapter 16, 26)
- Tea (Chapter 6)
- That (Chapters 14, 16)
- This (Chapter 14)
- Valleys (Chapter 7)
- Vegetables (Chapter 8)
- Waves (Chapter 2)
- Whirlpools (Chapters 2, 15)
- Woods (Chapter 8)
It is also worth noting that many of these small countries only appear in anime filler or movies. The former are not considered official canon (or if you're a fan, they are canon optional), as are the majority of the latter. In truth, these places and the stories around them may very well need to be adapted to fit into canon, or vice versa, if you wanted to use them.
Miscellaneous Locations to Sort Out
This analysis will also be talking about various locations that have popped up in different media which don’t fit into the previous lists.
- The Lands of Toads/Snakes/Slugs/Sage Lands/Summoned Animal Lands (See discussion at the end of this chapter)
- Daidai Village (Chapter 22)
- Genjutsu Tree Village (Chapter 22)
- Hacho Village and Tonika Village (Chapter 27)
- Inaho Village (Chapter 22)
- Kisaragi Village (Chapter 22)
- Mount Katsuragi (Chapter 22)
- Valley of Lies/Shangri-la (Chapter 27)
- Tree Felling Village/Tree Revival Village (Chapter 22)
- Tsuchigumo Village (Chapter 22)
- Tsukigakure (Chapter 26)
- Yumegakure (Chapter 26)
Where is the Equator?
This is a simple, but vital question. Where is the equator? Its placement determines a lot of climate and weather, and when building a rich fantasy world, the location of the equator can be quite useful and telling. So...where is it?
For my Naruto world building, I will be placing the equator more or less where it is on the NarutoData map listed earlier. I know it may be hard to see, what with the watermark, but it's there, cutting through half of Wind Country and a small part of Fire Country.
This area seems the best place to put it, given data from the Land of Waves (discussed next chapter) or where the Land of the Moon is, or just Konoha itself. When Obito is training to become a chunin, we see snow at least once. If we also presume that the weather in Konoha is modeled on, say, Tokyo, that would make Konoha subtropical in climate (and thus, only a little snowfall each year).
If it is subtropical (or even temperate), then the equator should be a good distance away from it. Granted, I think Konoha might be placed bit further north on the NarutoData map than it usually is, but the point still stands. This seems like a good placement for the equator, and the one I'm going with.
Geography and Realism
This is a new section I am adding in pre-chapter 6, since this is something that's been on my mind. I know, back-editing. I don't like doing it, but I'd like this collection of thoughts to be complete and organized.
While doing research, I came across a website on fictional map creation that, while offering a crash course in some geographical features to help out those mapmakers, said to not let the details of the map keep you from telling a good story, that some people build for so long they never write. This is actually good advice.
The same source also pointed out how author J.R.R. Tolkien of The Lord of the Rings was apparently famous for ignoring certain geography rules. Rather ironic for a famous creator of intricate worlds, but I suppose he preferred linguistics to Earth science.
It's also true that not every fictional world needs or can even use all the principles of real geography. For example, take the series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There, the setting is a country called Equestria, which is set in a literally magical world where a large portion of the inhabitants are equines.
More importantly, the rules of geography, with regards to weather, would apply only in the loosest sense, if at all, because in Equestria, weather is manually made, not automatic. One could always argue that the weather service has to balance both weather (short term conditions) and climate (long term conditions), but you see the point.
When it comes to how I approach this little project, I can summarize it like this. I am not a fan of Nolanization, the trope where you take a fantastical world and strip off all the fantastical elements in favor of realism, and named after director Christopher Nolan. In fact, I rather dislike that trope.
For me, I'm more about blending reality and fantasy, using elements of the real world to not only flesh out fantastical places, but also to inspire new creative decisions, new aspects to these far away places that work consistently and make you feel like you're really there. Aspects that might inspire conflict and story, and also help work out already problematic elements in the setting.
I would also be lying if I said certain aspects of applying Earth science to a series that was not created with them in mind didn't give me a headache. For example, since there's an equator, determining the actual size of the tropical, subtropical, temperate, and polar zones. My attempt to try and compare the NarutoData map with real ones to get an idea did not go well. It could be a matter of scale, but the point is I can't do it.
So while I find the idea of being able to do it interesting, I go with only rough estimations. Generally speaking, the order of these climate zones should be the same, and they should be of equal size on both sides of the equator, but other than that, the details would get fudged a bit. Anyway, one could also argue that the actual proportions could be different on this fictional Earth.
As will be demonstrated in later chapters, there are other little issues that crop up that I hand wave, simply because, while I could try to get everything to work down to the smallest detail, some things are really too small to matter, and there are moments where even my brain gets so tangled in the rabbit hole of world building that I feel the need to pull myself out.
If you feel that way, you're probably in too deep, and you need to step back and re-evaluate. Of course, consistency in your fictional world is also something to keep in mind (See the issue with the Land of Birds in Chapter 4), and that's not an excuse to stick two totally different environments next to each other for no reason.
I don't want to discourage any mapmakers out there. I love the idea of intricate maps. But still, don't get so bogged down in it that it keeps you from telling the story you want.
The Secret Sage Locations (Or Other Summoned Animal Lands)
Yet another addition to this chapter. Really, I should have had a list of miscellaneous locations on here before and sorted them out as I went along. Now I’ve taken a look at that miscellaneous location list, realized it’s not that big, and that I don’t really need a final chapter to discuss them. Live and learn.
I am putting this discussion here because these places don’t fit anywhere else. What am I talking about? I’m talking about Mt. Myobuku, aka “The Mountain of Bewilderment,” or “The Land of Toads.” I am talking about Ryuchi Cave. I am talking about Shikkotsu Forest. I am talking about the mysterious locations attached to sage mode and the summoned animals of the toads, snakes, and slugs, respectively.
I don’t know if many people put these places on their fan maps, but honestly? You shouldn’t. I don’t think they’re on the normal map at all.
I discussed this in my timeline when I was trying to flesh out the Kaguya portion of things. Hagoromo spent time among the toads training to be a sage, right? Based on how much his brother Hamura’s hair grew out from before the training montage to after the montage, I estimated that the training took years of real world time.
More important, however, was that by the end of that training, Hagoromo looked years older than his twin brother. That suggests that the Land of Toads has some kind of Urashima effect going on. Time flows faster there than in the world outside of it. Add onto this the fact that you access the place via portals hidden in ponds, and the especially strange and large plant life of the area, leads me to conclude that the mountain is not a “place” so much as a magical otherworld like Narnia, or the literal Otherworld of Celtic mythology.
If that is true for the home of the toads, it could (and probably is) true for the other two locations as well. In fact, it would also not be a stretch to say that if there are any other hidden homes for summoned animal species, they would operate on the same principle.