Where in the "world" is Stardew Valley?

[SgtPickles]

Spoiler: TL;DR

Dumb geographical nerd stuff that doesn't seem to add up.

There was a debate recently, in a discord channel full of nerds with orange ranked titles regarding the world that Stardew Valley resides in, and the "world map" that we get a glimpse of.

In the game, an image of the world exists:

The known locations, as stated in the Wiki are: Stardew Valley, Gem Sea, Fern Island, Castle Village, Zuzu City, and Grampleton. In addition there are two nations: Ferngill Republic and Gotoro Empire.

(Source: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Setting#Geography)

Dr Harvey reveals the latitude / longitude coordinates of Stardew Valley: 52.0 North, 43.5 East. Drawing out the Equator and the Prime Meridian of the world, and giving a rough estimate of the "pin drop", would put Stardew Valley at the yellow dot.

(Actually, it *should* be a bit more north, explained below).

With a latitude / longitude system, the latitude shows how north/south something is, and can be some number between -90 to +90, A longitude handles west/east, but the number can be between -180 and +180. Divvying up the world map with this and using the pixel squares to divide evenly results in:

However, it is stated that Stardew Valley and Pelican Town are butt up against the Gem Sea, which is located to the south of them. But there couldn't be anything regarding a body of water equivalent to a sea, unless the map is poorly detailed and doesn't show water cutting into the land. Perhaps I am missing some detail here, but it seems there maybe conflicting details here. Is there anything y'all can think of?

P.S. No pun intended with the title.

 

[Magically Clueless]

It's possible the "southern coast of Pelican Town" just means southern in the game's positioning, and maybe the world map is turned around? There's instances everywhere of weird/changes world maps to better match where they live, so this could be the case where the Gem Sea is actually to the west but from our perspective appears to be in the south. I don't fully believe this myself and just think the map would be different instead, but it's still cool to think about!

I think in CA's next game that's going to take place in the world of Stardew Valley, we might get a better map or another piece in the puzzle of this world. It'd be really cool to see more areas and their type of geography too

 

[aquova]

 

[kitkat]

poking holes in the lore i see

 

[SgtPickles]

*image snipped*

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[DotMatrixHero]

Geographically, I'd assume it was in the Northern Hemisphere, in a similar distance from the equator and northern pole as North America or Canada? It's not wet enough to be any further North imo

 

[SouL Prisoner]

In my heart :)

 

[metalax]

However, it is stated that Stardew Valley and Pelican Town are butt up against the Gem Sea, which is located to the south of them. But there couldn't be anything regarding a body of water equivalent to a sea, unless the map is poorly detailed and doesn't show water cutting into the land. Perhaps I am missing some detail here, but it seems there maybe conflicting details here. Is there anything y'all can think of?

You are making an assumption that the Prime Meridian is at the centre of the map. This may well not be the case. If you instead assume that it is at the left edge, that would put Stardew Valley on the south coast of the smaller landmass on the left of the map. That also puts it conveniently near a border, as the travelling merchant comments on regularly smuggling goods over the border.

 

[Dwc2790]

From a lore perspective, what's up with the merchant being so obscenely overpriced? Asking a thousand gold for forageables picked up just steps away from where she's set up shop, is it really that fruits and veggies grown in the Gotoro Empire are at least 3x as valuable, sold across international black markets for as much as 20-30x the Stardew Valley base value...?

 

[quirmzi]

From a lore perspective, what's up with the merchant being so obscenely overpriced? Asking a thousand gold for forageables picked up just steps away from where she's set up shop, is it really that fruits and veggies grown in the Gotoro Empire are at least 3x as valuable, sold across international black markets for as much as 20-30x the Stardew Valley base value...?

My guess is that because the Gotoro Empire and the Ferngill Republic are so are odds with each other, getting anything across the border sucessfully would still be a challange. Plus, the villagers don't farm, fish, mine, or forage. I'm assuming that they just don't have the ability to identify it, kind of like how poisonous fruits can look like other types of healthy fruit to the regular person. Just because we can clearly see that there's a leek lying on the ground doesn't mean that everyone can. As for farming, fishing, or mining, those skills take time to build, and most people just can't be bothered to and would rather pay more.