Why is the Warhammer Fantasy world so similar to Earth?

Old Ones made Earth and the Warhammer World. Probably just last copy/pasta job.

It's not entirely similar. They moved Greenland from northeast of Canada to southwest of Japan.

OOOOHHHHHH ITS LIKE EARTH NOW I GET IT

It *is* earth.
Distortions of the map are the Empire's poor cartography.
Also, Atlantis hasn't sunken yet.

I know, right?

Ooh. dint know the reason the world was like earth but different-shaped is because the empire cant map

Why not just use the actual world map though? This always bothered me

Why didn´t they use some of the archaic names of Japan instead? Maybe Wa? Or Wakuni? (like Land of harmony-Wa no kuni) or Fuso, Fusang? Becasuse that was a mysterious land in the East with a tree io life(which might´ve bben a mullberry, pic related) in Chinese tradition
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_(Japan)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusang

Short version is that at the time of Nippon's creation they likely had no idea those names existed and didn't have access to anything like Wikipedia to go research it, and thus getting it right would require a trip to the library to HOPEFULLY find an accurate book on the subject matter of ancient names of easy Asian counties, all so they could accurately name a location they weren't even going to ever use anyway.

Because it's not the real world and Canada was never ruled by Dark Elves.
And because the full world map was only slowly developed over a long period of time, at which point there were already lots of inconsistencies with real-world geography.

It's not entirely the same, they entirely deleted Scotland and Ireland right off the map.

Albion is basically the most southern part of the British isles.

I knew that it ´d be annoying to actually do historical research around the 80, but I was just poking fun at how lazy the name is. Kara-Tur actually has a Japan-themed country called Wa which has an Emperor (who actually has a bow with arrows that banish evil, nice touch.) a shogun and shapeshifter sprits and all that nice stuff. I would´ve liked it more if they ´d riffed on the Orochi myth instead, but that might´ ve been a little overplayed. Or was it, back when Kara-Tur was released? I don´t know actually.

>Arabian peninsula nonexistant
>calling West Africa "Araby"

what were those cartographers smoking

Japan also had Zipangu as it's name.

What an odd word,Shanghai folk sure talk funny.
>Shanghainese, like other Wu variants, is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese outside of the Wu region such as Mandarin, sharing just 29% lexical similarity with the Mandarin heard in Beijing.[1]
>mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese.
I didn´t know, I was just poking fun at them.

Why not? It's s good as any.
If only they explored it more...

nobody cared enough

They're nothing alike. Earth hasn't been blown up yet.

>Earth hasn't been blown up yet.
it blew up twice already, get with the times

Oh look, user didn't get the joke and now he's upset that someone is pointing this fact out.

everyone's familiar with it st first glance and can assume the general climates/roles of the factions.

it's an easy way to have suggestive locations without spelling out every detail, you immediately know that Norscans are fantasy Scandinavia, you immediately recognize Ulthuan as fantasy Atlantis, and you immediately recognize the Badlands as the stinking wastleand shithole that is the Balkans.

Other Settings do that too, but Warhammer is bold enough to be blunt about it and not cloud it under some pretenses of artistic integrity.

Oh look, user didn't realize I was only pretending to be retarded.

Fucking trolled m8 :))))

If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

I fucking love this pic.

Pretty much this I imagine.

I like the way Tolkien only fleshed out a tiny part of Middle-Earth (less than a continent) and everyone praises his world building but because GW didn't detail the entirety of the globe they were lazy. They concentrated on one area so they would have half a chance of doing it in some detail.

Plus they were all history graduates, so they weren't idiots but what's the point of that much effort for a throwaway line?

Nippon is actually the Dutch mispronounciation of the Japanese name "Nihon".