# Ark Map Size **URL:** \ **Category:** Community & Industry Discussion\ **Tags:** unreal-engine\ **Created:** [August 25, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714 "2015-08-25T19:49:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/1 "2015-08-25T19:49:33Z")
Hello, I just took a look at an image of Ark’s map for the first time but I feel something is not right regarding the scale. ://imgh.us/1\_2394.jpg There is a grid of 8x8 squares on the map and the map is meant to be 48km x 48km right? meaning each square would be around 6km x 6km since the grid isn’t perfectly accurate. Now let’s do a full zoom on one of the grids only. ://imgh.us/222\_24.jpg It’s the side of a mountain and a bunch of individual trees towards bottom. It’s not ~ 6km x 6km. One can simply have a lot of large mountains and flat lands in a 4km x 4km area. Maybe I’m just hallucinating for having a terrible sleeping habit lately.What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![JmDevTx](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@JmDevTx](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/JmDevTx)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/2 "2015-08-25T23:17:46Z")
I highly doubt that ARK is 48x48 KM, that is ~2300 sq km. I’ve heard that you can fly from one side of the map to another in 5 minutes, meaning you can fly ~600 km/hr. I’ve heard a lot of figures as to how large the map is, but every answer seems to be very different from the next, so I am really not sure. ---
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 10:02am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/3 "2015-08-26T10:02:22Z")
Hmmmm… It’s seriously so small I can easily see the trees one by one. So the 48km was a marketing… thing? how anyone believed its that huge? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![zeOrb](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@zeOrb](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/zeOrb)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/4 "2015-08-26T11:15:10Z")
> [@Maximum-Dev;364713](#): > > Hmmmm… > It’s seriously so small I can easily see the trees one by one. So the 48km was a marketing… thing? how anyone believed its that huge? 😃 It never was a part of marketing, are you just made up this stats so you could bash them? 😛 Even in first twitch devs said that map is not big, yet feature-rich and has diverse landscape, not just flat fields with vistas in between. Quote from official FAQ: > [@](#): > > Regarding the size of the ARK, it’s currently approximately 36 square kilometers of walk-able land mass. There’s also about 12 square kilometers of ocean, and of course that’s just 2 dimensional measurement. There are very tall mountains that rise above the cloud layer, and oceans are quite deep with major underwater reefs, and there’s a massive underground cave system that adds about 50% more traversable area to the ARK. The caves themselves are akin to dungeons in many ways, so while they can be inhabited by players, they are not easy places to survive long-term… ---
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/5 "2015-08-26T13:31:53Z")
> [@;364736](#): > > It never was a part of marketing, are you just made up this stats so you could bash them? 😛 > Even in first twitch devs said that map is not big, yet feature-rich and has diverse landscape, not just flat fields with vistas in between. > Quote from official FAQ: No bashing. As you have made a quote from the official FAQ, it’s stating there is 36km walk-able land mass. But it’s less than a 4km map size. why? ---
**Author:** ![anonymous\_user\_923c79df](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@anonymous\_user\_923c79df](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/anonymous_user_923c79df)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/6 "2015-08-26T15:04:51Z")
> [@Maximum-Dev;364839](#): > > No bashing. As you have made a quote from the official FAQ, it’s stating there is 36km walk-able land mass. But it’s less than a 4km map size. why? The caves are a big part of the 36km walk-able land mass 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/7 "2015-08-26T15:13:26Z")
> [@;364927](#): > > The caves are a big part of the 36km walk-able land mass 🙂 But that doesn’t add like 45 km to the 2.5 km terrain. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![anonymous\_user\_923c79df](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@anonymous\_user\_923c79df](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/anonymous_user_923c79df)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/8 "2015-08-26T15:43:28Z")
> [@Maximum-Dev;364939](#): > > But that doesn’t add like 45 km to the 2.5 km terrain. :eek: Very unlikely that it is like that, but it depends on how they design the caves (how “deep” they are) 🙂 Btw, is the upper picture from the original ark map, because the one that I played in the game looks a little bit different 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/9 "2015-08-26T16:21:05Z")
> [@;364982](#): > > Very unlikely that it is like that, but it depends on how they design the caves (how “deep” they are) 🙂 > Btw, is the upper picture from the original ark map, because the one that I played in the game looks a little bit different 😕 Yeah it’s the original map: ://hydra-media.cursecdn/ark.gamepedia/7/7e/Small\_Map.jpg ---
**Author:** ![Vollgaser](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Vollgaser](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Vollgaser)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/10 "2015-08-27T07:46:47Z")
It’s a trade off between realistic look and gameplay requirements. If you build a very realistic map with its large distances and looking very natural e.g. in world machine, then you have the problem that the distances are just too big and the environment pretty boring due to matter that in nature you have e.g. big empty plaines see the exmple of the mountain area above. For a good gameplay on the other hand you dont want to have to wander over large, boring areas, you instead prefer to discover, and come over interesting environments like clearings, caves, ponds, rock-formations, swamps…and so on… quicker, which means they have to be closer together than in real nature. Think of the difference like wandering 5 km thru the grand canyon vs. wandering 5 km on new zealand from sea-level thru jungle up to a mountain. ---
**Author:** ![Maximum-Dev](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Maximum-Dev](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Maximum-Dev)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/11 "2015-08-27T14:31:12Z")
Yeah I totally understand that. The question is however, why they say it’s 36km of walk-able landmass while it’s like lower thank 4km with all the underground caves and and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![indygoof](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@indygoof](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/indygoof)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 12:09pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/12 "2015-08-28T12:09:48Z")
Could it be that you are confusing square-km with km? So they say they have 36 skm of walkable land mass. That makes that map-size 6km\*6km in size which sounds reasonable for the shown map. If you actually meant 4skm map size, now that would be really small and i doubt that the whole map is just 2km\*2km. Cheers, ---
**Author:** ![janpec](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@janpec](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/janpec)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:04pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/13 "2016-04-13T14:04:56Z")
> [@Vollgaser;365632](#): > > It’s a trade off between realistic look and gameplay requirements. > If you build a very realistic map with its large distances and looking very natural e.g. in world machine, then you have the problem that the distances are just too big and the environment pretty boring due to matter that in nature you have e.g. big empty plaines see the exmple of the mountain area above. > For a good gameplay on the other hand you dont want to have to wander over large, boring areas, you instead prefer to discover, and come over interesting environments like clearings, caves, ponds, rock-formations, swamps…and so on… quicker, which means they have to be closer together than in real nature. > Think of the difference like wandering 5 km thru the grand canyon vs. wandering 5 km on new zealand from sea-level thru jungle up to a mountain. Hah New Zeland was perfect example you pulled out there:D ---
**Author:** ![EvanX](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/evanx/32/482168_2.png) [@EvanX](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/EvanX)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 7:05am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/14 "2016-04-14T07:05:04Z")
That picture isn’t showing all of the sea. ---
**Author:** ![TK-Master](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@TK-Master](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/TK-Master)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/15 "2016-04-14T16:49:30Z")
Okay let’s break this down a little bit (or a lot) 😛 First of all… single floating point precision starts to become significantly imprecise at about 7 digits so that means the “usable” space in UE4 is up to about -+ xyz 1000000 cm (1048527 is the default map size limit) so unless in Ark they are using a custom coordinate system to support larger maps in multiplayer then I doubt it can be much larger than that, at least it didn’t feel like it to me when I played the game. 1000000 cm = 10 km but since we have positive and negative coordinates that means the map size is effectively 20km across. Now here comes the part that I think gets confusing : The terms “square kilometer” and “squared kilometer” are technically not the same thing! even though they are commonly used as if they are (imo wrongly so but then English is not my first language). A square kilometer (symbol **km[SUP]2[/SUP]**) is a unit of measurement for surface area so in this case we would say that the UE4 map size is 20km[SUP]2[/SUP]. Now the square of number (as you hopefully know) is the result of a number multiplied by itself, to “reverse” the process you find the square root. So when we say 20 squar **ed** it usually means that it’s the square root of the number (so √20)… NOT 20[SUP]2[/SUP] which would be 400 (20[SUP]2[/SUP] = 20 \* 20 = 400). So when they are saying 36 km squared they probably mean 6 km across which sounds just about right to me 😛 **EDIT:** A better explanation might be written like this: (20 km)[SUP]2[/SUP] = 400 (km[SUP]2[/SUP]) That can be read as: 20 kilometers squared = 400 square kilometers. But the pronunciation is not exactly standard which is probably why you wanna use symbols when it comes to math as much as possible to avoid such confusions 😛 So… 36 (km[SUP]2[/SUP]) = (6 km)[SUP]2[/SUP] ---
**Author:** ![Winterstone](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Winterstone](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Winterstone)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2016, 11:24am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/16 "2016-04-15T11:24:26Z")
> [@TK-Master;512761](#): > > Okay let’s break this down a little bit (or a lot) 😛 > > First of all… single floating point precision starts to become significantly imprecise at about 7 digits so that means the “usable” space in UE4 is up to about -+ xyz 1000000 cm (1048527 is the default map size limit) so unless in Ark they are using a custom coordinate system to support larger maps in multiplayer then I doubt it can be much larger than that, at least it didn’t feel like it to me when I played the game. > > 1000000 cm = 10 km but since we have positive and negative coordinates that means the map size is effectively 20km across. > > Now here comes the part that I think gets confusing : > > The terms “square kilometer” and “squared kilometer” are technically not the same thing! even though they are commonly used as if they are (imo wrongly so but then English is not my first language). > > A square kilometer (symbol **km[SUP]2[/SUP]**) is a unit of measurement for surface area so in this case we would say that the UE4 map size is 20km[SUP]2[/SUP]. > Now the square of number (as you hopefully know) is the result of a number multiplied by itself, to “reverse” the process you find the square root. > > So when we say 20 squar **ed** it usually means that it’s the square root of the number (so √20)… NOT 20[SUP]2[/SUP] which would be 400 (20[SUP]2[/SUP] = 20 \* 20 = 400). > > So when they are saying 36 km squared they probably mean 6 km across which sounds just about right to me 😛 > > **EDIT:** > A better explanation might be written like this: > (20 km)[SUP]2[/SUP] = 400 (km[SUP]2[/SUP]) > That can be read as: 20 kilometers squared = 400 square kilometers. > But the pronunciation is not exactly standard which is probably why you wanna use symbols when it comes to math as much as possible to avoid such confusions 😛 > > So… > 36 (km[SUP]2[/SUP]) = (6 km)[SUP]2[/SUP] This is indeed how I have always viewed it. Great explanation. ---
**Author:** ![anonymous\_user\_4c696285](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@anonymous\_user\_4c696285](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/anonymous_user_4c696285)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/ark-map-size/39714/17 "2016-10-11T13:25:45Z")
> [@TK-Master;512761](#): > > So when they are saying 36 km squared they probably mean 6 km across which sounds just about right to me 😛 I’m pretty sure they said and wrote 36KM square not squared. So yeah the map is 6KM x 6KM