World Map

thumb|220x220px|A World Map of Oikouménē
A World Map is a map of most or all of the surface of Oikouménē — the "Role-Play World." World maps form a distinctive category of maps due to the problem of projection. Maps by projection distort the presentation of Oikouménē's surface. These distortions reach extremes in a world map. The many ways of projecting Oikouménē reflect diverse technical and aesthetic goals for world maps.
World maps are also distinct for the global knowledge required to construct them. A meaningful map of the world could not be constructed before the Siècle des Lumières (2012–2013) because less than half of Oikouménē's coastlines, let alone its interior regions, were known to any culture. New knowledge of Oikouménē's surface has been accumulating ever since and continues to this day.
Maps of the world generally focus either on political features or on physical features. Political maps emphasize territorial boundaries and human settlement. Physical maps show geographic features such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.