My Lion King Forum

Earlier this week, I began working on a project to create an accurate map of the Pridelands. I started with the opening scene, using the sun's position relative to Priderock, to determine direction. At sunrise, the sun is due East, and at sunset, due West.

Since the first scene is a sunrise, and the sun is shown to the left from the typical view (see image below), that would mean that the typical view of Priderock is from the North, looking South.


So, now, let's fast forward a little bit to the elephant graveyard scene. Using the same information, we now know that the elephant graveyard is South, maybe a bit Southeast, of Priderock.


Yes, that's right, South. Which means, yes, Mufasa did show Simba the Northern border. The Elephant graveyard would be behind Priderock, from this view. So, what did Scar mean when he said the Elephant graveyard was behind the hills of the Northern border?


And now, moving on past the IJCWTBK scene, we have this. But this time, it's a sunset, so their shadows mark East, which just happens to be the same direction they're walking. We can conclude from this that the waterhole must have been South or Southwest of Priderock, and then they moved East to get to the graveyard.


But, go back up to the second picture. The elephant graveyard is surrounded by water. This is the second of many "what the fudge" moments.

And here's where the headache comes in: the stampede scene. Look at all this flat grassland. Since it is midday and there are no landmarks, you can't tell where this is, relative to everything else. And, where are all the wildebeest? Since Africa is mostly in the Southern hemisphere, I'm going to assume that the shadow of that tree means that we're probably looking North here. However, I could be wrong on this.


My whole orientation here is kinda screwed up, and it seems the shadows are different for each part. I'm just going to skip trying to find the direction of the stampede, because, honestly, that's a lost cause. But in doing that, I found one flaw. Take a good look at this.


And now this. Mufasa and the branch should be facing the other way here. Since this is from the other side, it should be a mirror image, but it isn't.


And here's the big part. Remember all that grassy savannah above the gorge? What happened? Simba sees the hyenas, and climbs up the rocky walls. Then he runs for a little bit, and finds himself at a cliff. Alright, what the heck? What sort of geological anomaly is this?


The only thing I'm going to point out here is that Simba is running West. Therefore, the desert, and jungle, must be West of Priderock.

And now, we're back at Priderock, years later. Simba runs through the desert, and ends up here, north of Priderock. What happened? Where did that trench come from? Go back up to the third picture, and you won't see it.


And since when was this little canyon here?


I'm not even going to try to map out the areas from the two sequels. I think I've already proved that unlike some other fictional works, such as Lord of the Rings, there is no map to go by for the Lion King. It's safe to say the just about every scene was drawn with symbolism in mind, rather than being accurate.

Excellent work Regulus. I really enjoyed reading it. I imagine that this probably took a long time to do. I had also wondered what a map of the Pridelands would look like. You would think the directors would have had a scale model in the studio somewhere. lol. I also never thought about how Simba came down a cliff (to where Mufasa was), but then goes down another cliff. Cliffception?

You can always use the argument that many things don't line up because they are not the same place. Even within the gorge itself, it is fairly long, and might have several entrances/exits for the movie to use.

But really, when they made the Lion King, they didn't draw a map of the Pridelands and say "this scene goes here..." They simply drew the scenes to get the most out of the visuals.

While TLK geography is remorselessly baffling, I *can* contribute my observation that I think the trench in the Simba Returning picture corresponds to the river off to the right in the third picture. In the third picture Mufasa & Simba are looking at Pride Rock more head-on, while in the other picture Simba & Nala are much more to the side of it.

So that one actually makes sense to me.

lol

Nice job spotting that out!

Very well done observation Regulus, when I was younger, I too tried to make a map, but I remember strugiling very much. I'm only guessing that the little "canyon" is a river or some sorts, as seen in the second image, that flows mostly south (or north, not good with coordinates) and the animals seen in the begining came to Pride Rock from the southern area. Bah, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Yes, I always wonder about the geography of the Pride Lands since I was a child. Like where was the Outlands in the first movie? As for an official map, I believe we can take the scene from TLK1½ when the camera is scrolling from Pride Rock to Timon's meerkat burrows as the most official.

As for the position of the sun and Pride Rock, this is certainly a goof so, you're not alone on figuring this out. I say it's a goof because more thought was put into the story and characters, and not into the geography of the Pride Lands, and even IMDB.com and moviemistakes.com report on this goof.

[quote="Movie Mistakes.com"]"When Mufasa is showing Simba the kingdom from Pride Rock they are facing the sun, yet Pride Rock's shadow is visible below them. Also in the same position, you see that they have shadows behind them. Then a few seconds later when Simba sees the shadow area the shadows are in front of them while you can see part of the sun to their left side. They would be facing south when the sun is east. How are their shadows in front of them?"[/quote]

[quote="IMDb.com"]"When Simba and Mufasa view the sunrise, they refer to the "shadowy place" as being on their right. As they were facing the sunrise (east) that would mean that anything on the right side would be south. And yet, Scar refers to it later as the place "beyond the northern border."[/quote]

As for the gorge, it is a pretty long trench, and possibly extends for miles so there are lots of multiple openings scattered throughout the region.

Finally, I always wondered where was the canyon where Scar, Mufasa, and Zazu were in the beginning of the movie after Simba's presentation as illustrated in the picture below:



It is later revealed that it is next door to Pride Rock, and judging by the size of it, it is not hard to miss when you see a widescreen shot of the Pride Lands:



However, when we see a widescreen shot of the Pride Lands, this canyon is not seen again...or at least in my eyes:



Also, the same with Scar's "lair" or whatever you call it:



Where in the world are they?

^ I assumed Scar's lair was around Priderock. The problem is the inconsistencies, within just about every scene.

I have found one possibility for the gorge. If it runs East to West, then it could be possible that Simba ran into a dead end going North, climbed up that, and then found himself facing the cliff to the desert, as shown here.

I believe the trench when Simba returns is supposed to be a dried up riverbed. It's difficult to tell if it is positioned exactly the same place as the river visible in other shots however, because the angles are different.

The inconsistent position of the Elephant Graveyard is something I remember being brought up from a long time ago, and I don't think anyone ever reached a consensus about its "true" location.

As for the Elephant graveyard being surrounded by water, remember those scenes of Simba and Nala frolicking through shallow water during IJCWTBK? As abstract as that whole sequence was, those parts made it seem like like they did cross a body of water of some kind.

I also agree that the trench in the scene of Simba's return is the dried-up riverbed -- in this screenshot, you can see the river in roughly the same position relative to Pride Rock. (Whoops -- never mind, looks like CGW beat me to it!)