Estate Continent

> ***Important:** Estate Continent no longer exists. What remains of Estate Continent has moved to a different location, and information on the new location can be found in the Azure Islands article. This page, however, is kept for historical purposes.*
>
>

   Estate Continent is the result of some private estates' growing. They grow in the last years until they united into a large group of sims. The sea nearby is the Estate Sea. It is located in coordinates 977-989/959-966.

SLGI team gave this continent the transitory name **C017**.

## History

Estate Continent was shown on older maps dating from 2010. At that time, it was far smaller. However, the Geographs who created early maps did not list Estate as a continent. SLGI team listed it as a distinct continent in April 2013. At that time, it was made of 140 sims and had a different shape. Also, there was a gap in continental structure that blocked access between East and West. Many subcontinents that existed in 2014, in 2015 vanished or were strongly modified.

The continent kept shrinking until around May 2023, the whole continent is owned only by one land corporation, ACS. Then in June 2023, the whole continent moved into a different location. Because of this, SLGI Team decided to register the new(ly moved) continent as a separate entity, Azure Islands. This article is kept for historical purpose only.

## Geography

The continent is placed between Sansara and Jeogeot, close to the grid center.

The various sims are full region and homestead. The geographic features vary form oceanic plains and islands to hills and small mountains. They are usually connected by a large network of roads. The cosmic sims have the only highway in Second Life. Also, there are many internal seas, channels and other navigable routes. Almost all the sims work on *Second Life Server* channel. Also, an interesting thing is that not all sims share the same day time and the same sky. There are a few sims in East, where you can find midnight in a sim and full day in another one. This feature also exists in Caledon - Winterfel.

Estate Continent is closely linked to a Sim Cluster, showed on the map as *Continental Sea*, see Estate Sim Cluster.

### Geographical Regions

From strict Geographic reasons, the continent can be divided into 4 different regions: Landmass, Urban Land, Tropical Land and North Estate.

**The Landmass** included 2 large islands separated by a channel. In 2015, a single island (in West) existed, while the Eastern island almost vanished. The landmass is elevated and looks like hills. Many roads provide easy access to each parcel. This part looks close to some mainland continents, with the difference of high accessibility. Land is highly used, but it is not difficult to find land for sale.

**The Urban Land** changed its shape. In past, there were two urban areas. The small one in South vanished and the larger one in North completed its shape as a rectangle. It is the dominant, central part of the continent and can be easy identified by the highway, the only highway in Second Life. There are many roads and navigable channels that provide easy access to every parcel. Altitude is low, this part of the continent looks like a large plain, somehow similar to the plain of Bay City in Sansara. A high number of buildings can be found everywhere. Land for sale can be found.

**The Residential Land** is found in North-West and partially in other areas. Parcels are separated by small channels of water. There is no infrastructure. Land is usually flat and ground texture resembles sand. Even if there are water channels, they are not made for sailing. So, this is a place with more privacy.

**East Beach** is an extension to East of the urban land. It continues the highway along a sandy peninsula.

**Islands** are good residential places, connected by large waterways. They surround the central urban land.

### Altitude

Estate Continent is, in the largest part, by Altitude, a large oceanic plain. For the largest part of the continent, altitude is low (not much above sea level). The vast majority of parcels are covered with plain. Vegetation and buildings are what makes them look different. Altitude map found values close to those of Bay City plains, with many waterways, but also residential sims with constant altitude, very similar with parcels on Shopping Continent.

A big surprise is the presence of some high elevations in the Landmass. In the West landmass, there are mountains, with an interesting design and high altitudes. The highest point was found to be in Archernar sim, 94 meters. Also, the landmass sims have different elevations. This might be the highest peak of all private-owned continents.

### Transportation

Estate continent has a large and complex road system, that includes the only highway in Second Life. These roads don't have automated transportation, but you can drive with your own vehicle. Also, a large part of the sims are accesibe by water and many places are themed so Large bridges allw road access over protected waterways. Flying is possible (even if there is no airport). Our survey have detected ban lines and entity orb teleporters, but since there are a lot of protected ways, access was not a problem.

#### Infrastructure efficiency

For more information, please take a look at List Of Roads.

```
Highways:                3.60 km
Roads:                  33.05 km
Water access:             yes
Unconnected road pieces:    1
Continent surface:       9.63 square km

```

* Road efficiency index: 4.198
* Waterway efficiency index: 13.660
* Total efficiency index: 17.858, one of the highest found on the grid

## Statistic Data

Main continent:

* Size in sims: 129 sims (North-South 13, East-West 18)
* Size in km: 8.45 square km (3.32/4.61 km)
* Sea sims (complete flooded): 0
* Coast sims (water access): 104
* Land sims (no water): 25
* Sims with road access: 76
* Sims without direct access: 0
* Sims connected by their corners: 47
* Continent + connected islands: 129+47=176 sims = 11.53 square km
* Population density: med-high

## Subdivisions

Some of the sims are grouped and share a common name: **Miriam** (North-West), **Lorena** (North-Midwest), **Surreal** (North). The sims in South are owned by **AzureIslands** and share a cosmic names: *Alpha Centauri*, *Triangulum* or *Titania*. Central sims are united in a compact large island. Eastern sims are composed of islands (many of them are homestads), while the sims in South-East are dryland.

There are a lot of islands in south, linked to the continent only on diagonal. From a geographic point of view, they are not part of the continent, but their economy is usually linked to that of the continent. Together, these islands form Estate Sim Cluster.

## Coordinates

The Coordinates are in sims, the same way they can be obtained from Gridsurvey [1] for every sim. The coordinates are made to read this way: longitude (min - max) / latitude (min - max).

Overall coordinates: 974-1009/944-975

1. Continent: 974-997/957-975
	1. Miriam: 974-977/962-966
	2. Surreal: 977-981/964-968
	3. Cosmic Sims (on the highway): 981-990/963-965
	4. Cosmic Sims (South-West): 978-982/959-963
	5. South-Est Sims: 985-992/957-962
	6. Cosmic Sims (South-East group): 990-994/963-964
	7. East Homesteads: 991-997/965-968
	8. Central Land: 984-991/966-970
	9. Lorena: 984-988/971-975
2. Connected islands:980-1009/944-964
	1. Cosmic Sims: 995-1003/957-962
	2. South Islands: 980-989/948-958
	3. South-East Islands: 990-1004/944-956
	4. Staging sims (no access): 1006-1009/960-964

Grid Sector I9

## Economy

There is a vast diversity of places. Roads and waters are protected land, while on land there are both residential parcels and shops.

The Estate Continent is developing fast. The number of sims has grown since 2010 and is still growing. A new sim was added from July 1st to July 30th, 2013. In November 2013, the expansion seems to have stopped. The continent lost 3 sims.

## Sim Examples

* Surreal West
* Friedman
* Azure 11
* Achernar
* Volans
* Surreal Pink
* Antares
* Epsilon Orionis

## Status update

In February 2023, Estate Continent was found to consist of 69 sims. In June 2023, Estate Continent moved to a new location, and grew slightly to become Azure Islands.

## See also

* List Of Continents
* Second Life Geography
* Estate Sim Cluster