So, your world has no structure? That's not too big a problem. Geography can be one of the easiest tasks to perform when building a world. These directions are for a country. Instructions for planetary development are lower on the page.

First, you need to get yourself a clean sheet of paper and a pencil. Decide if your country has a coastline on an ocean or not. This is an important feature to recognize. If there is a coast (if it borders an ocean), draw a rough coastline, with coves, bays, etc. If there is no coastline, skip to the next step. After drawing the coastline, decide which side is land, and which is water.

Next, designate a corner for the map legend, or get out another scrap of paper for the legend. Determine what symbols you'll use on your map to represent physical features. If you feel ambitious, use colors as well. Here's a general list of the features you'll need to make symbols for:

• mountains
• hills
• cliffs
• plains
• pine forests
• deciduous (sheds leaves) forests
• deserts
• oases (plural of oasis)
• swamps
• rivers
• lakes
• beaches
• glaciers
• tundra
• inland seas

Now that you have your legend, decide the basic layout of your world. Is this country in the northern hemisphere of the planet, or the southern? Is the north cold and the south hot, the other way around, or is it all cold or all hot? Where do mountains go? Rivers? Deserts? Tundra? You can refer to an atlas for basic tips in placing your different physical features. Also, try to keep in mind plausibility. Don't make this world impossible by putting desert right next to glaciers, unless it is a cold desert.

You need to determine what the scale for the map is as well. Usually, this just means, "If my character had to walk for a whole day at a steady pace, how far would he get on the map?" This will help determine how large certain physical features of the map will need to be, such as the forests, mountain ranges, and inland seas. It can also affect how you draw your towns and cities later. Also, the scale can affect the size of your various countries and regions.

The last step in this topic is dividing the land. Decide how many countries you are fitting onto this map, what their boundaries are, and how large each is. Maybe divide the land among vassals (minor lords) aligned under one king or lord. Usually, borders and boundaries fall along natural divisions, such as mountain ranges, rivers, seas, etc. Keep this in mind as you divy up your land.

Planets don't differ much, except that the scale is smaller, and there are more countries (or unexplored land). Use your imagination to develop planets the way you do countries. Just keep in mind that a planet-wide geography range is only really necessary in stories that cover the entire planet. Otherwise, limiting yourself to a country or a few is perfectly fine and works well.

Also, if you don't like drawing out your world on a map, you could try other things, such as laying it out on the floor with household objects or toys (if it's a close-scale map, like a city), or you could use map editing programs (like the one that comes with RPGMaker2000). If you can get an idea of your world with something, use it.