Examples: Maps: Long Description Examples
This first map is from American War by Omar El Akkad. It is a science-fiction/dystopian future novel about the second civil war in America.
[Alt text]Two maps. The top map depicts The United States, circa 2075. The bottom map depicts a closer view of the Free Southern State, circa 2075. See the link below the image for an extended description.
[Long Description] The top map depicts The United States, circa 2075. The map shows the South Carolina Quarantine Zone (in modern day Florida) directly to the east of the larger Free Southern State (where Atlanta is). West of this is the Battles of East Texas area. The Mexican Protectorate lines the south western area of the map (including modern day California). The border between Canada and the U.S. remains pretty much the same as modern day.
The bottom map depicts a closer view of the Free Southern State, circa 2075, taking up the south east corner of modern day U.S. The map depicts the Chestnut family Home directly to the east coast of the state. Within the state, the capital is Atlanta in the central northeast, Camp Patience lines the border in the north west of the state. The Halfway Branch Forward Operating Base lines the northeast border. Slightly southwest of Atlanta is the Albert Gaines' Cabin; directly southwest is Lake Sinclair. East of this is August Docks, and north of this is Charity House 027. In the northeast, the South Carolina Quarantine Zone lies, and on an island to the south of the state is the Sugarloaf Detention Facility.
This next map is from Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin, a historical fiction novel about the polar exploration of Canada. A very detailed description is given because the exploration of this area is key to the story, so the reader may want to refer to this map as they read through the book.
[Alt text] Map showing West coast of Greenland, Ellesmere Island, Devon Island, and Baffin Island. Two routes are shown. One is labelled "Hall 1871" and "Route of Polaris" and head north along the coast of Greenland. The second route is labeled "200-day drift of party on the ice floe", and heads south from Ellesmere Island. See the link below the image for an extended description.
[Long Description] Map showing West coast of Greenland, Ellesmere Island, Devon Island, and Baffin Island. Two routes are shown. One is labelled "Hall 1871" and "Route of Polaris". This route heads north along the coast of Greenland, and shows stops at Godhavn and Upernavik. It continues North through Kane Basin, and passes Joe Island. Just north of Joe island, the route ends, and there is a note: "Hall's death, Nov. 1871". The second route is labeled "200-day drift of party on the ice floe", and heads south from Ellesmere Island. At the start there is a note: "Party abandons ship, October 12, 1872". The route passes Devon and Baffin Island, and ends at the Northern tip of Labrador, where there is another note: "Rescued, April 30, 1873".
The next example is from the book More Abandoned Manitoba: Rivers, Rails and Ruins by Gordon Goldsborough. This map has a clear title and legend. Start with the title and describe the legend, then describe the key parts to the map to help convey its meaning to the reader.
[Alt-Text] Map showing vehicle ownership in Southern Manitoba. The title of the map reads: Number of Cars Registered in 1912. See the link below the image for an extended description.
[Long Description] Map depicting vehicle ownership in Southern Manitoba. The title of the map reads: Number of Cars Registered in 1912. There is a legend that shows red circles of increasing size with a white car icon in the center of the circle. Each circle represents a number of cars. The smallest circle is 1-5, then next size up is 6-10, then 11-25, then 26-100, then 101-1000 then 1001-2025.
The map shows Manitoba with all the major cities and towns labelled with a variety of different sized red circles, mainly over the southern part of the province. The main areas are highlighted as follows: Winnipeg, represented by the circle for 1001-2025 cars, and Brandon, represented by the circle for 101-1000 cars, have the largest circles. Dauphin, Virden, Neepawa, Carberry, Portage La Prairie are represented by the circle for 26-100 cars. Russell, Minnedosa, Gladstone, Souris, Deloraine, Boissevain, Crystal City, Morden, and Winkler are represented by the circle for 6-10 cars.
The next 2 examples are from DAISY's webinars on Long Descriptions and where written by Huw Alexander from textBOX.
[Alt-Text] The map is color-coded to reflect the winning party in each state, with Blue representing the Democrats and Red representing the Republicans. See the link below the image for an extended description.
[Long Description]A horizontal bar chart, positioned above the map, illustrates the overall result with Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, receiving 306 votes, and incumbent Republican president, Donald Trump, receiving 232 votes. The results for each state are presented in the following table. The states, listed alphabetically, are presented in Column 1, the winning party is listed in Column 2, and the number of Electoral College votes for each state are presented in Column 3. Split Electoral College votes in Maine and Nebraska are represented by two rows for the respective votes. The data are as follows:
[Alt-text] A political map of Europe in 2012. Click the link below to navigate to Long Description.
[Long Description] The map includes each of the countries of Europe in 2012. The 4 quadrants of the map cover the following countries.
- Northwest: Iceland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the North Atlantic Ocean and the Norwegian Sea.
- Northeast: The Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland and the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
- Southeast: The Eastern European nations including Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Balkan countries including Croatia and Serbia. Greece and the Mediterranean Sea lies to the south.
- Southwest: The Western European nations including Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
The capital city of each country is marked by a star. Other major cities are referenced. Major rivers such as the Danube are illustrated.
The edge boundaries of the map are Greenland, northwest, Russian, northeast, Turkey, southeast, and Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, southwest. Each country is a shaded a different colour to help differentiation only. The scale ratio is 1 to 19.3 million. Scale measurement is 1 centimeter to 100 kilometers.
The following example is from the Princess Bride and was written for the Human Narration version of the book. Some detail was sacrificed to fit into the constraints of Human Narration. For EPUB you would want to add some more visual information.
Begin image description:
An illustrated map depicting the fictional city of Florin.
A compass indicates that the top is North and the bottom is South
Flowing through the middle of the map from North to South is a wide Channel. The north half is called Florin Channel, and the South half is called Channel of Guilder
To the west side of the channel is Florin. Starting in the north and moving south are the following marked locations:
- The Village
- The Farm
- The gated Florin City
A winding road starts at The Village and moves South past the Farm and to the gates of the City. It is called a Cart Track. Just outside the gates are two docks.
The Florin City is made up of muddy roads in a grid like pattern with different sized houses on every block. The marked buildings are as follows:
- In the northeast corner is the Zoo of Death
- A Wheelbarrow sits in the street before the zoo
- In the center of the city, close to the front gates and south of the zoo, is the castle.
- Directly south of the castle is an open area called the Great Square
- West of the Great Square is the Thieves Quarter that includes and Falkbridge’s Alehouse
- Southeast of the castle, close to the outer wall and behind a row of buildings, is Miracle Mans Hut
To the east side of the channel is Guilder. A gated city sits in the far north. South from the city, is a forest by the shore labelled Oak Tree. South of the Oak Tree is the tall Cliffs of Insanity that rise directly over the water. Four ships sail in the cove below. From the shore outwards they are as follows:
- The Kidnapper’s Ship, which is surrounded by sharks
- The Pursuit Ship, which is the same size and close behind
- The Armada, which is made up of two large tall ships that follow up behind the Pursuit Ship.
At the northern side of the cliffs hangs the Rope that leads up to the Duel area. East of this area is a hilly rocky place labelled Ambush. South of the Ambush, close to the edge of the cliffs is the Picnic. East of the Ambush and Picnic Area is a narrow and jagged ravine that goes south and includes the Snow Sand that lead into the Fire Swamps and opens up to a lower shoreline below the cliffs. At the mouth of the swamp is Bursts of Flame and two large rodents labelled R.O.U.S (Rodents of Unusual Size).
At end of the Southern shore is a small fishing village, and just behind the village is Fezzik’s Cave.
In the bay of the village is Giant Eel Bay. The tall ship The Revenge sails in the bay close to a giant swimming eel.
End of image description