How big is Azeroth?

[ThePallyRanger]

I saw this on a WoW forum, and it got me thinking. Do we know how big Azeroth is relative to the Earth?

[Stormspark]

Azeroth is about the same size as Earth. The in-game representation is (and has to be) dramatically scaled down, simply because it's impossible to make an MMO where the world is a realistic size. Noone wants to spend a month on a boat (that's how long it takes to get from Lordaeron to Northrend). And noone wants to spend 2 weeks on horseback to get from Undercity to Tarren Mill (again, that's how long it takes in lore). This trope HEAVILY applies: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...aceCompression

In actuality, Eastern Kingdoms is about the same size as North + Central + South America. Same with Kalimdor. Obviously shapes are drastically different but sizes are about the same. Another note: In lore, Goldshire has a population of about 7000.

[Vampyr78]

First of all Azeroth in game is much smaller than it is in the lore to make travel times much more managable. No one would like to spend hours or even days going from one quest hub to another. So this picture is not very representative.

[Mirishka]

Azeroth is about the same size as Earth. The in-game representation is (and has to be) dramatically scaled down, simply because it's impossible to make an MMO where the world is a realistic size. Noone wants to spend a month on a boat (that's how long it takes to get from Lordaeron to Northrend). And noone wants to spend 2 weeks on horseback to get from Undercity to Tarren Mill (again, that's how long it takes in lore). This trope HEAVILY applies: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...aceCompression

In actuality, Eastern Kingdoms is about the same size as North + Central + South America. Same with Kalimdor. Obviously shapes are drastically different but sizes are about the same. Another note: In lore, Goldshire has a population of about 7000.

Yeah, pretty much this. MMOs where the world was 'proper' size might be fun on paper but they'd suck sooooo hard in actual gameplay. People bitch about navigating Argus now? Imagine if it was an area the size of like, Utah?

"OMG WTF BLIZZ I HAD TO RIDE 37 MILES 2 REACH WORLD QUEST"

[Ryon21]

Lore-wise it depends. At first it is the same size as our Earth, but we have not seen all of Azeroth. From what the Red-Shirt Guy said in one of the Blizzcons and the answer he got, probably the equator passes right through Pandaria as it is more like a tropical place. Also we have jungles and deserts in the southern tips of the Eastern K. and Kalimdor, meaning that what we see in Azeroth is just the northern half of the planet. Hopefully this is the final answer.

But then you have the globes in Ulduar, though they seem not to be fully canon from what they've said in some Blizzcons. You also have the planet view from Argus and the cinematic but you can't properly see the length of the continents.

It is stated lore-wise that Ancient Kalimdor (before it broke into the four main continents) was the largest landmass, meaning there are at least a few other smaller continents somewhere. But since they are always changing the world, we won't know for sure until they show it. Luckily what we have is just half of the planet and there's much more to the south, and of course east and west.

[Techno-Druid]

The size of the continents in-game aren't representative of how large they are in lore. For reference, it apparently takes several months to get from one side of the Barrens to the other.

[Kallisto]

Azeroth is clearly much bigger in lore than what is shown in game (I think someone calculated that in game EK is about the size of the island of Manhatten.). The Barrens is a 3 week forced march to cross for one.

Real size game worlds are not fun, could you imagine if the world was the size of Daggerfall without the ability to teleport between settlements. The game wouldn't last long (Daggerfall the game is about the size of Britain.)

[Chickat]

In game wise still smaller than New york city. WoW is around 200 square miles currently give or take 30. So somewhere between the size of Las Vegas and Chicago.

[mickybrighteyes]

Azeroth is clearly much bigger in lore than what is shown in game (I think someone calculated that in game EK is about the size of the island of Manhatten.). The Barrens is a 3 week forced march to cross for one.

Real size game worlds are not fun, could you imagine if the world was the size of Daggerfall without the ability to teleport between settlements. The game wouldn't last long (Daggerfall the game is about the size of Britain.)

eh, depends on how it's built up. With the expected quest/tasks we see in games (go to x, collect y, proceed to z, ect...) would be crazy. More freeform style things concerning exploration or building up areas would be a different story.

World compression in games gets a tad wonky for a lot of reasons. You see an area like Stormwind, Elwynn Forest and Westfall or hell toss in Duskwood and that span of land could be similar in scale to pandaria? yet you can toss that previously mentioned EK region clump inside of a single pandaria zone.

[Dastreus]

The size of the continents in-game aren't representative of how large they are in lore. For reference, it apparently takes several months to get from one side of the Barrens to the other.

SEVERAL MONTHS? Holy fuck. Like... east to west?

[Golden Yak]

One of my favorite pieces of WoW fan-work is the Travels through Azeroth and Outland blog. In it the author describes Zangarmarsh as taking about a month to traverse from Swamp Rat Post to Zabra'jin. I like to think that's about right, for a zone of that size. I know it's Outland, but I would use that as a benchmark for how large Warcraft zones generally are.

[Techno-Druid]

SEVERAL MONTHS? Holy fuck. Like... east to west?

Iirc, it might just be one month though. I'm having trouble remembering where it was described.

[Kallisto]

Iirc, it might just be one month though. I'm having trouble remembering where it was described.

Same, but I do remember it was said as being 3 weeks forced march to get from one end to another so a month normal pace sounds about right. Certainly wasn't multiple months though.

[Stormspark]

SEVERAL MONTHS? Holy fuck. Like... east to west?

I think they meant several weeks. But on foot? Yes. Btw, Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord are over 500 miles apart. Obviously scaled down in game.

[Deleted]

About [-------------------------------------------] this big

[goof]

I did some "research" about this a while ago, using a lore mention as my reference, you can find the original post: here.

I'll copy-paste it over here as well, although in a spoiler since there's quite a lot of text.

Spoiler: 

In World of Warcraft: Traveler it is said that a rough hike through the southern forest of Feralas takes about 14 days or more.
Well... I decided to do some math because I was bored, this is what I came up with:

Major note: this is in no way accurate, just an extremely rough estimation/measurement I did for fun.

In-game walking speed: ~2.66 yards per second

• Hike time:
  20m, 8 sec
  1,208 seconds
• Hike length:
  1,208 * 2.66 = 3,213.28 yards
  3,213.28 yards = 2.938 kilometres
• Lore hike time:
  ~14 days
  14 * 24 * 60 * 60 = 1,209,600 seconds
  1,209,600 / 1,208 = 1,001.324
  2.938 * 1,001.324 = 2,941.8899 kilometres

Feralas' southern forest "in lore" is roughly 2,941.8899 kilometres long, give or take.
Notes

• In-game walking speed is a tad bit faster than real life average, though this varies from person to person
• Lore Feralas has a different layout than in-game, thus my path is not very accurate
• I did not have the most optimal path
• I did not have any clear starting or end point, thus I went from the edge of the Ruins of Isildien (as if having camped there) to the middle of New Thalanaar.
• I do not know of any stops they made in the book that would make it take longer, etc. This was just a direct hike through with no stops.

Based on this, the length I walked was roughly 45% the width of that part of Kalimdor, thus:

• 2,941.8899 /.45 = 6,537.533 kilometres

I decided to take it even further from then on.. to find out how long Kalimdor is and, with the help of Photoshop for one, I found out Kalimdor is:

• ~4.8914 times longer than it is wide (at the area I measured).

So, the overall length of Kalimdor added up to:

• 14,390.12 kilometres.

To put this into perspective, Africa in real life is ~8,000 kilometres long, making Kalimdor almost twice that.
Looking at a world map, Kalimdor and Africa are roughly the same size so from then on... 14,390.12 / 8,000 ~1.798
Can with that assume Azeroth is... very roughly 1.798 times larger than Earth.

Again, this is an extremely rough estimation that I did because I was bored and I had been talking about it with some people beforehand.
p.s. I love math

TL;DR: Azeroth may be extremely roughly ~1.798 times larger than Earth

xd

[shoc]

Roughly 52 gigabytes.

[WurstKaeseSzenario]

At least 3840x1600 pixels. Might be more, can't see over the edge of the world.

[Zyky]

Azeroth is about the same size as Earth. The in-game representation is (and has to be) dramatically scaled down, simply because it's impossible to make an MMO where the world is a realistic size. Noone wants to spend a month on a boat (that's how long it takes to get from Lordaeron to Northrend). And noone wants to spend 2 weeks on horseback to get from Undercity to Tarren Mill (again, that's how long it takes in lore). This trope HEAVILY applies: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...aceCompression

In actuality, Eastern Kingdoms is about the same size as North + Central + South America. Same with Kalimdor. Obviously shapes are drastically different but sizes are about the same. Another note: In lore, Goldshire has a population of about 7000.

Well...I mean Azeroth is way bigger than we think, this is shown by watching Azeroth in the sky while on Argus. It clearly shows Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor fairly close together and then there's a huge rotation of black, Blizzard doesn't just do things like that without a reason, it's going to be a future expansion for sure.

[SirBeef]

The size of the continents in-game aren't representative of how large they are in lore. For reference, it apparently takes several months to get from one side of the Barrens to the other.

Can't remember which novel, but it said Org to Crossroads by mount was a two day trip.