Imaginary Places

These images are more than just imaginary futures or another dimension. They include actual places that can conjure up fascinating visions in the imagination. (Clockwise from upper left: Machu Picchu, Peru, Alicia Graham © 2005; Middle Earth from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; Yangshuo, China, H Graem © 2007; The Moon Pandora from the movie Avatar)

Map of Tenoctitlan (Capital of the Aztec Empire) in the 1500s,
before it was destroyed by the Spanish

Herein can be visions that do not fit easily into the categories on this website. They are ideas or places that caught my fancy. They range from the fanciful to the practical. They may arise whole cloth from the imagination or be the ignored ideas of past visionaries that have fallen into history's dustbin. Some were actual places of which only the words or drawings of a lone chronicler remain. 

These visions have no relationship to current trends. The likelihood that they would become reality is slim, but the possibility is interesting. Given the sameness that can permeate our lives, imaginary places can transport one to a another realm for a while. Such visions may even stimulate enterprising souls to create future places that may actually transform at least a part of the world for the better.

Orion's Arm - A collective hard science fiction world building endeavor called Orion's Arm focuses on imaginary places, technologies and societies encompassing vast star systems and a timescale of 10,000+ years. Despite this seemingly unbounded character, the website is constrained by hard science, plausible technology and the requirement of realism in a number of realms.