Continents of Ilethes

Traditionally, the Five Continents of Ilethes are, from north to south, Canthres, Istheusia, Eresphria, Marcasia and Arophania. Unlike the continents of Earth, the Iletheride continents are visually "centred" around and lie rather close to Marcasia, leaving more than a third of the planet's surface covered by the As am Iraph or Eastern Ocean.

Cartography

Gathenic depiction

The Gathenic depiction is the most common and usual way of arranging the five continents on a map. With Marcasia approximately in the centre of the map, Arophania at the bottom, Istheusia to the right and Canthres and Eresphria near the top-left corner, the depiction splits the As am Iraph between the left and right extremes of the map, much as the Pacific Ocean is on most maps of the Earth.

The Gathenic is the most favoured cartographic arrangement, as it conveniently represents as well the anthropological divisions of Ilethes: not only the east-west division between the Old and New Worlds, but also the sometimes overlapping separation of the world into Arithic, Nospheric, Carabaeic and Dethritic blocs of cultural influence.

Sopharic depiction

The Sopharic depiction centres the map approximately in the Denurean Sea. The depiction minimises the splitting of geographically and politically contiguous areas by clustering all the continents to the left of the map, and depicting the As am Iraph as a large open body of water on the right.

Arophanic depiction

The Arophanic depiction, so named by historians, was most commonly used in the classical era, and centred the map around Arophania, which, along with the Thorfu, was shown disproportionately larger than either Marcasia or Istheusia, which were squashed in the top and right areas of the map. In early maps, neither Canthres nor Eresphria was shown, while in later productions their depiction gradually progressed from incomplete land masses trailing off the edge of the map, to full standalone continents, albeit still inaccurately drawn.

Old & New Worlds

Ilethes is commonly divided into the Old and New worlds, a geographical division east-west that spans the culturally- and historically-based division into the Eastern world and the Western world.

The terms are intriguingly accurate from a prehistorical point-of-view: the Old World includes the long-inhabited continents of Istheusia, Marcasia and Arophania (which have shown traces of human presence dating back hundreds of thousands of years), while the New World continents, Eresphria and Canthres, were only inhabited by humans less than 40,000 years ago, as far as archaeological evidence has shown.