Geography
The Disc itself is roughly 10,000 miles (16,000 km) wide, giving it a surface area two fifths that of the Earth. Its principal geographic feature – other than its flatness – is the Cori Celesti: a 10-mile-high (16 km) spire of rock that lies at the centre of the Disc and is the location of Dunmanifestin, the home of the Discworld's many gods. The central area of the Disc including the Cori Celesti is known as The Hub, a land of high, icebound mountains that serves as an analogue both to the Himalayas and to Earth's polar regions (since, although the Disc has no poles as such, it is as far as possible from the Disc's edge and thus the sun). The areas closer to the Rim are warmer and tropical, since the Disc's sun passes closer to them in its orbit. At the Rim, a great, encircling waterfall (the Rimfall) sends the Disc's oceans cascading into space. The Last Hero hints that the rocks jutting out from the Rimfall could be home to their own, as yet undiscovered cultures.
Cardinal directions within the Discworld are not given as North, South, East and West, but rather as directions relating to the disc itself: Hubward (towards the centre), Rimward (away from the centre) and to a lesser extent, turnwise (direction of the disc's rotation) and widdershins (against the direction of the disc's rotation). The disc rotates clockwise as seen from above.
Read more about this topic: Discworld Geography
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)