Geographic Overview

Jutting deep into the Arctic Circle, the Arcadian Peninsula is surrounded on two sides by the circumpolar Boreal Ocean, and connects to the Rethorian continent in the South. Large proportions of the peninsula are covered by the Arcadian Ice Sheet, with an average thickness of 2.3 kilometers. The total terrigenous area of the Arcadian Empire is approximately 321,690km², although there is a small degree of uncertainty to this value due to the unknown extents of some marine terminating ice structures. It’s coastline is approximately 83,000km, and as of 2014 was formed of the four coastal types: 38% of the coast is floating ice in the form of an ice shelf, 20% is consists of ice walls that rest on rock and 42% consists of exposed rock (primarily in the south).

Contravening popular beliefs, Arcadia has many, many lakes. Most of these lie at the base of the icesheet, mainly in the Acasq Dry Valley. Lake Maatmalik is the largest known subglacial lake, and possibly one of the largest lakes in the world. Arcadia has both saline and freshwater lakes.

Arcadia is on average the coldest, driest and windiest of the nations of Artoria, and thanks to the Alti Mountains in the south of the nation, has one of the highest average elevations. It is formed of predominantly polar desert and alpine tundra environments, with annual precipitation of up to 166mm around the northern coastlines. Further south, precipitation levels increase up to 290mm in the Iskfjord region. Arcadia holds up to 10% of Artoria’s freshwater reserves in its ice sheet, which if melted would raise the global sea level by 6m. Arcadia holds the record for the lowest measured continental temperature on Artoria, -85C - measured in the cold depths of the Gap. Coastal regions in the South can reach summer highs of 12C.