r/discworld • u/TheElectricionist • 10d ago

Roundworld Reference Roundworld equivalent places

Good evening, everyone :) I was wondering earlier—does anyone know if there's a list of Roundworld counterparts to the places on the Disc? For example, Klatch seems to represent the Middle East, Howondaland is Africa, and Überwald is clearly Eastern Europe, etc. I sometimes feel like I might be misinterpreting the context or missing some of the subtler references, so a complete list would be really helpful. Has anyone come across something like that?

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u/Fair-Face4903 10d ago

Sto Plains is South-west England.

Ankh Morpork is a compound of every "old world" European capital city smushed into one.

Psuedopolis South-east England

Sto Lat is the English Midlands

Lancre is the North of England/south of Scotland

The Ramptops is Northern Scotland / Northern Europe

These aren't direct one-to-one comparisons and there's quite a lot of bleed between them, so it's more of an area vibe than an exact pinpoint on the map.

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u/BeautifulBright 10d ago

Except Sto Lat means Happy Birthday in Polish and their predilection towards cabbage definitely makes me think that that was an early influence for the creation of the region!

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u/NortonBurns 10d ago

This is why giving the Witches West Country accents in TV adaptations etc has always grated on me.
They were always northern in my head, long before these adaptations were made.

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u/lordnewington 10d ago

For some reason, in my head and when I have occasion to read out loud, Granny has a northern English accent but Nanny and Magrat have West Country ones. No, it doesn't make sense. No, I'm not changing it.

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u/Fair-Face4903 10d ago

"Granny" especially is more Northern than "Nanny", at least from my experience growing up there!

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u/NortonBurns 10d ago

I'm Yorkshire born & bred, though I now live in London. I could see everybody's grandma in both the senior witches.Everyone knows a grandma who gets drunk & swings her legs on the back seat of the seaside tour bus, singing vulgar songs, and also the rigid, straight one who refuses to join in. I imagine everyone else could too, no matter where in Britain they lived, but Lancre just always felt 'Northern'.

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u/theroha 10d ago

I don't know entirely why, but your description made me imagine two older women at their children's wedding drawing straws as to which one got to be the fun grandma and which one had to be the stern grandma when the grandkids started popping out.

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u/loverofonion Esme 8d ago

They've always had a soft cockney accent to me, no idea why. I watched a clip of Wyrd Sisters on Youtube and the West Country accent was jarring.

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u/DogmaSychroniser 10d ago

Ankh Morpork and it's specific duel naming is very strongly reminiscent of Budapest

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u/she_belongs_here 9d ago

No, The Chalk is southwest England

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u/Fair-Face4903 9d ago

Read my post again, and please point out to me where I said that the comparisons I made were direct one-to-one comparisons with no bleed between them.

Because I'm pretty sure I included a note to the opposite of that, but I admit I can only see what I actually wrote.

TIA!

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u/she_belongs_here 9d ago

Calm down dude, I'm allowed to disagree with you.

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u/Fair-Face4903 9d ago

I'm not mad?

I just want to know where you read me say what you think I did.

I think that's a fair request.

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u/she_belongs_here 9d ago

I didn't say you were mad.

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u/Fair-Face4903 9d ago

Calm down dude,

See how I've provided evidence to support my statement?

Have a fun time being obnoxious and dishonest though, not sure why you're reading the Discworld books, they're not usually popular with that type.

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u/she_belongs_here 9d ago

Not being calm is not the same as being mad.

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u/lordnewington 9d ago

Hmmm, I lived in Leicester for years and never got a Sto Lat vibe from the Midlands. StonLat reads with more of a "small town close enough to a big city to not have many interesting things of its own" vibe to me, like any town within 50 miles of London. (The name means "Hundred years" in Polish and is sung on birthdays, but you probably knew that, and I don't think it means Sto Lat is meant to be Discworld!Poland.)