How big is Tamriel, really?

GLP323b14_ESO · January 2019

Obviously ESO has a highly compressed Tamriel. Far too compressed sadly.

But I'm wondering, in the lore of the game, how big is Tamriel? Which game best represented its actual size. Arena? Daggerfall? Morrowind? Oblivion? Skyrim?

Korah_Eaglecry · January 2019

Take this with a grain of salt as I could be misremembering or even mistaken about what I read. This isnt from any particular lore you can find in an Elder Scrolls game. But according to some lorebeards on reddit, this is something quite old at this point and Im not sure about the math involved. They had done the math using in game texts describing the terrain and particular characters travelling the country. According to them, it was a little over 100 miles between Winterhold and Whiterun and would take someone, travelling 25 miles a day, 5 days to make the trip. I believe from High Rock to Morrowind it was something well over 1000 miles. Tamriel isnt massive in the sense of anything like North America or Europe/Asia. But its big enough that travelling without flying or driving would be a pain.

Theryl · January 2019

As big as it needs to be. Bethesda has carefully refrained from giving Tamriel a definite size but there are a number of estimates floating around out there. In general, most of them have Tamriel ranging from the size of Europe to the size of Asia.

More indepth discussions can be found on r/TESlore:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/8k7jrg/how_big_is_tamriel/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/3icdtv/size_of_tamriel_your_opinion/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2ha3o8/so_what_is_the_official_size_of_tamriel_then/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/19y118/the_lorecorrect_size_of_tamriel_20_pictures_inside/

emilyhyoyeon · January 2019

I pasted these two maps together to get an idea. I don't take credit for making either of these maps

I'm assuming/like to assume that Nirn is about as big as Earth, and that Nirn's equator would run through southern Tamriel. I'm also assuming Nirn has the same ''geological laws'' or whatever you want to call them (for example that Nirn's equator would dictate the tropical parts of the planet). I'm also visualizing Tamriel in Nirn's northern hemisphere. Ultimately it doesn't really matter which hemisphere, but if it were in the southern it would just be flipped.

I think visualizing the size of Tamriel like this is appropriate, but I'm not sure if I'm missing key canon things. This Tamriel takes up the area of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, but there's still reasonable area for Yokuda, Akavir, etc.

I feel like this is kind of big, but I've never taken the Tamriel provinces as ''countries'' (which would reasonably be way smaller) but rather regions.

GLP323b14_ESO · January 2019

Great. Thanks for the inputs.

So Tamriel is pretty big, despite the severe compression of it in the later games.

I can't imagine it being as big as Asia though. But perhaps, given the varying climate from one end to the other and there being enough distance for these very distinct races to develop different cultures (and evolutions) without too much influence from one another.

It would be nice if the Lore Master(s) of Bethesda would nail down its exact size one of these days.

It's a shame that in a game like ESO, when you expect a place like Daggerfall to be a large bustling medieval city, it's little more than a small village. Actually the little village of my home town in NY State is bigger than ESO's Daggerfall. Heh.

CyberSkooma · January 2019

ESO's version of Tamriel is obviously the "Pocket-sized" version, which is why while I appreciate ZOS giving us a dive into all of these zones, it really feels like "Just a taste", and would never actually be close to the true size of even a single province.

One good in-game example of this effect is Hel Ra Citadel. Before entering the Citadel, you can look off the side and see an absolutely huge background of mountains with signal fire towers that have been built through the valley. It's a great show of the scale that the game is missing, but they want to display anyway. It's not ZOS's fault though, it's just a video game.

JaZ2091 · January 2019

CyberSkooma wrote: »

ESO's version of Tamriel is obviously the "Pocket-sized" version, which is why while I appreciate ZOS giving us a dive into all of these zones, it really feels like "Just a taste", and would never actually be close to the true size of even a single province.

One good in-game example of this effect is Hel Ra Citadel. Before entering the Citadel, you can look off the side and see an absolutely huge background of mountains with signal fire towers that have been built through the valley. It's a great show of the scale that the game is missing, but they want to display anyway. It's not ZOS's fault though, it's just a video game.

Could easily dump 10s of thousand of hours into Tamriel if it was made whole.

CyberSkooma · January 2019

JaZ2091 wrote: »

CyberSkooma wrote: »

ESO's version of Tamriel is obviously the "Pocket-sized" version, which is why while I appreciate ZOS giving us a dive into all of these zones, it really feels like "Just a taste", and would never actually be close to the true size of even a single province.

One good in-game example of this effect is Hel Ra Citadel. Before entering the Citadel, you can look off the side and see an absolutely huge background of mountains with signal fire towers that have been built through the valley. It's a great show of the scale that the game is missing, but they want to display anyway. It's not ZOS's fault though, it's just a video game.

Could easily dump 10s of thousand of hours into Tamriel if it was made whole.

Of course. I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle the landscape of TES VI. I would really like to see an actual city-sized city for once. The Witcher 3 did it extremely well, they could learn a bit from that game.

GLP323b14_ESO · January 2019

CyberSkooma wrote: »

ESO's version of Tamriel is obviously the "Pocket-sized" version, which is why while I appreciate ZOS giving us a dive into all of these zones, it really feels like "Just a taste", and would never actually be close to the true size of even a single province.

One good in-game example of this effect is Hel Ra Citadel. Before entering the Citadel, you can look off the side and see an absolutely huge background of mountains with signal fire towers that have been built through the valley. It's a great show of the scale that the game is missing, but they want to display anyway. It's not ZOS's fault though, it's just a video game.

Yes, I got the same impression when approaching Daggerfall for the first time after getting off the boat from Behtnik. From that approach on the outside, with the large imposing city walls and the long stairway up to the very impressive looking southern gate (the sun filtering through the trees to the east), you imagine this incredible bustling city full of shops and homes and activity, with a large impressive complex many roomed castle, etc. You can see that possibility from the approach into Daggerfall and when you first walk through those gates.

And then... you get about exploring the 'city'. Not only is it very small, BUT it's far smaller than you imagined it would be given the expected size reduction to make a game with ESO quality graphics. * sigh * It was quite a let down from my initial first view impression.

But then for those like myself, who wouldn't mind seeing a Tamriel literally as big as a continent, one that you could actually get lost in a forest, or desert, or mountains, and would take real world months to traverse on foot in our tireless running mode, ESO feels incredibly compact. Even with a million users online at once, you could be in some remote place and not see any of them for weeks on end. (Of course I'd want fast travel to be VERY abundant. )

Now I realize that would not only be impossible with current technology, without massive storage and some advanced A.I. generating landscape and content, but also a bit impractical. Nevertheless, I think the game realized world of Tamriel could be significantly larger than it currently is. I have plenty of harddrive space to at least quadruple its size.

Korah_Eaglecry · January 2019

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

Great. Thanks for the inputs.

So Tamriel is pretty big, despite the severe compression of it in the later games.

I can't imagine it being as big as Asia though. But perhaps, given the varying climate from one end to the other and there being enough distance for these very distinct races to develop different cultures (and evolutions) without too much influence from one another.

It would be nice if the Lore Master(s) of Bethesda would nail down its exact size one of these days.

It's a shame that in a game like ESO, when you expect a place like Daggerfall to be a large bustling medieval city, it's little more than a small village. Actually the little village of my home town in NY State is bigger than ESO's Daggerfall. Heh.

Just look to the United States or numerous South American countries to see how diverse a region can be. In the US you can go from warm climates in California to deserts and large mountains just a few states over, farther east and youll hit the plains which can shift drastically in climate depending on the time of year. Easily reaching the 90s in the summer and then plummeting into the negatives in the winter. Farther east youll hit another set of mountains and then coast line that can go from warmer climates in the south to colder in the north. Some areas of the US see snowfall well into the summer months while others never see snow. Youve got rainforests in the north west and swamps in the south east. And if you include Alaska the diversity in climate and terrain gets even crazier with lush valleys and iced over tundra.

starkerealm · January 2019

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

Obviously ESO has a highly compressed Tamriel. Far too compressed sadly.

But I'm wondering, in the lore of the game, how big is Tamriel? Which game best represented its actual size. Arena? Daggerfall? Morrowind? Oblivion? Skyrim?

The original Daggerfall map in TES2 was not compressed. So, you can use that to generate the size of the entire continent. It's not really that big, in that context.

GLP323b14_ESO · January 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

Obviously ESO has a highly compressed Tamriel. Far too compressed sadly.

But I'm wondering, in the lore of the game, how big is Tamriel? Which game best represented its actual size. Arena? Daggerfall? Morrowind? Oblivion? Skyrim?

The original Daggerfall map in TES2 was not compressed. So, you can use that to generate the size of the entire continent. It's not really that big, in that context.

Wasn't the land area available in TES2, High Rock and the northern part of Hammerfell (around the Illiac Bay) said to be larger than the U.K. ?

That would make Tamriel rather large in total.

Shadow_Akula · January 2019

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

Obviously ESO has a highly compressed Tamriel. Far too compressed sadly.

But I'm wondering, in the lore of the game, how big is Tamriel? Which game best represented its actual size. Arena? Daggerfall? Morrowind? Oblivion? Skyrim?

The original Daggerfall map in TES2 was not compressed. So, you can use that to generate the size of the entire continent. It's not really that big, in that context.

Wasn't the land area available in TES2, High Rock and the northern part of Hammerfell (around the Illiac Bay) said to be larger than the U.K. ?

That would make Tamriel rather large in total.

Smaller and how big do you think the U.K. is? U.K. is only around 94 thousand* square miles, can barely spot us on a map.
Daggerfall map claimed to be 88 thousand* square miles but the actual map size is in the 62-64 thousand* square mile region

* just numbers I found on google after typing in the size of both the U.K. and Daggerfall maps in square miles quickly into the search bar

ArchMikem · February 2019

Theryl wrote: »

As big as it needs to be. Bethesda has carefully refrained from giving Tamriel a definite size but there are a number of estimates floating around out there. In general, most of them have Tamriel ranging from the size of Europe to the size of Asia.

More indepth discussions can be found on r/TESlore:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/19y118/the_lorecorrect_size_of_tamriel_20_pictures_inside/

That's actually really depressing. Knowing that I could visit another Province of Tamriel the same as just driving over the State Border.

Shadow_Akula · February 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

Theryl wrote: »

As big as it needs to be. Bethesda has carefully refrained from giving Tamriel a definite size but there are a number of estimates floating around out there. In general, most of them have Tamriel ranging from the size of Europe to the size of Asia.

More indepth discussions can be found on r/TESlore:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/19y118/the_lorecorrect_size_of_tamriel_20_pictures_inside/

That's actually really depressing. Knowing that I could visit another Province of Tamriel the same as just driving over the State Border.

Looking at that image there, Tamriel looks closer to the size of Europe, also it may be the same as driving over a state border, but each state is equivalent of another country. Also remember there are more continents we have yet to visit on Nirn (Akavir, Thras, Frozen lands of Atmora, what’s left of Yokuda etc..) perhaps one of which may be as big as you’d hoped? But that is for another day as we likely won’t see another continent for quite a while...

GLP323b14_ESO · February 2019

In the days of walking (not running continuously like we can) or riding a horse (that can't run continuously either), that size map is quite large.

Excluding of course the fast travel options we have in ESO.

In Europe that produced rather distinct cultures back in the day.

GLP323b14_ESO · February 2019

The only issue I have with that particular map size is the rather different climates over a seemingly too small distance to have that degree of variation.

Korah_Eaglecry · February 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

Theryl wrote: »

As big as it needs to be. Bethesda has carefully refrained from giving Tamriel a definite size but there are a number of estimates floating around out there. In general, most of them have Tamriel ranging from the size of Europe to the size of Asia.

More indepth discussions can be found on r/TESlore:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/19y118/the_lorecorrect_size_of_tamriel_20_pictures_inside/

That's actually really depressing. Knowing that I could visit another Province of Tamriel the same as just driving over the State Border.

You wouldnt be able to just drive. Using that measurement between Red Mountain and what looks to be Deshaan. 250 miles in a car is substantially different from on foot or on horseback. And you wont be able to ride your horse hard for too long before needing to switch out horses. A trip of 250 miles that could take a few hours in a modern car would take you at minimum 10 days and something like 5-6 if you were on horseback, pushing the horse at a gallop and switching horses out every day. This isnt even considering terrain, weather and possible threats/risks along the way which would definitely slow you down further. The only thing that would benefit your travel would be established Imperial roads that might cut the travel time down by a few days.