The alternate universe where Roland Deschain lives is called All-World and consists of In-World, Mid-World and End-World. However, everyone, including Roland, thinks of it as Mid-World.
There may have been a time when it was possible to map out the geography of Mid-World. However, because the Dark Tower is failing, all the physical constants that normally apply to reality no longer do so here. Time speeds up, slows down and skips. The points of the compass drift, so that something that lies to the south one day may be southeast the next. When Roland heads north along the Western Sea, the ocean is to his right instead of the left.
Distances are affected, too. Mid-World is getting bigger. Gilead was once only a thousand miles from the Western Sea, but it took Roland many years to go from one to the other.
Since all of the parallel universes began from a common starting point, it’s tempting to try to map Mid-World onto Earth. Though it is possible to draw some analogies, the process breaks down. The Western Sea, beyond the Mohaine (Mojave) Desert, is akin to the Pacific Ocean. Mejis is either Mexico or Texas. The Clean Sea resembles the Gulf of Mexico. The Desatoya Mountains near Eluria also exist in Nevada. Blaine the Mono travels from Lud to Topeka. Lud is linked geographically to St. Louis but physically resembles Manhattan. Both the Send River and the River Whye could be analogs of the Mississippi. Discordia, according to Roland, corresponds to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
According to legends, Mid-World (or All-World, if you please) resembles a flat disc with the Dark Tower at the middle, in End-World. The disc rests on the back of a turtle (of enormous girth). Around the perimeter of this disc, arranged like the hours on the face of a clock, are twelve portals. These portals are the origin points for twelve Beams that lead inward to the Dark Tower, supporting it. A Guardian of the Beam, an enormous robot shaped like an animal, protects each portal. These portals are also doorways to other universes.
The Beams have been flowing so long that they’ve worn grooves in reality. Everything around them indicates their presence, from the cloud formations in the sky to the herringbone patterns in vegetation on the ground. People traveling along one of the Great Roads that follow the Beams specify their location by naming the Beam they are on and the one toward which they are headed. If someone heads toward the Tower from the Turtle portal, they are said to be on the Beam of the Turtle (Maturin), Way of the Bear (also known as Shardik), whereas someone starting from the opposite side would be on the Beam of the Bear, Way of the Turtle.
As Roland understands it, beyond the ring of portals lies the Prim, the soup of creation that is the source of magic. Beyond that is the todash space that separates one world from the next. This is reminiscent of our concept of the Earth when people believed that if you sailed far enough you would fall off the edge of the world. Clearly there are gaps in Roland’s knowledge. He, Eddie and Susannah find one of the Portals of the Beam, and it is sixty miles inland from the Western Sea. At no point in his travels does he encounter the Prim or the end of the universe. Perhaps Mid-World looked like a disc in the days after creation, or perhaps that story was just created to educate children.
The concept of All-World as a disc manifests itself in some descriptions. Distances are measured in wheels, which have arcs as subunits. In geometry, arcs are segments of circles. Certain regions are known as arcs. The more remote Baronies are in the Outer Arc, whereas Gilead is in the Inner Arc. The Arc of the Callas is the fertile crescent along the River Whye, also known as the Arc o’ Borderlands. The Dogans are numbered based on arcs as well. The Fedic Dogan is the Arc 16 Experimental Station. People even talk about the arc of time. The Dogan near Calla Bryn Sturgis is Arc Quadrant Outpost 16 and North Forest Kinnock Dogan is in Bend Quadrant. A quadrant is a quarter of a circle.
Over the course of Roland’s journeys, we are exposed to only one section of Mid-World—that which lies along Shardik’s Beam, which runs northwest from the Dark Tower, and that which lies north along Aslan’s Beam. Nothing is known of what exists east, west or south of the Dark Tower. It can’t be said for certain which of the two Beams in the northwestern quadrant is the Path of the Bear, but one might assume it is the one that lies closest to Aslan’s Beam. That would make them the ones that end at XI and XII respectively on a clock face.
The region about which we know the most is that which lies along Shardik’s Beam. Starting at the Dark Tower and working outward (northwest), one would follow Tower Road to Stuttering Bill’s outpost, to Westring (home of Dandelo), the White Lands of Empathica, Le Casse Roi Russe (slightly off the Beam), and the carriage road leading to Castle Discordia and Fedic. Beyond Fedic is Thunderclap, where Algul Siento is located. Crossing the Devar-Tete Whye, one would reach the Callas and then the forest that marks the boundary between End-World and Mid-World, including the town of Gook near the western branch of the Whye, eventually ending up in Topeka. The geographic region known as Mid-World is roughly eight thousand miles across, from Topeka (via Dasherville, the Falls of the Hounds, Rilea and Candleton) to Lud and River Crossing at the River Send, near the beginning of In-World. From there it’s a straight shot past the Speaking Circle where Jake crossed over to Shardik’s Portal and the Western Sea beyond.
The Arc of the Callas runs roughly six thousand miles north and south along the Whye River. Four thousand miles south of Calla Bryn Sturgis is the Southern Sea. The Callas grow smaller to the north until you reach the lands where the snow falls. Aslan, the Guardian of the Beam that runs north from the Dark Tower, also lives in a land of snow.
Where is Gilead relative to this? The Great Hall of Gilead lies along the Eagle-Lion Beam, which runs north/south, according to The Wind Through the Keyhole, though where it is on that Beam is never specified. Tree Village is at the farthest northern edge of the North’rd Barony. Beyond that is the Endless Forest containing Fagonard Swamp. The forest is interrupted by the Great Canyon, which is at least a hundred miles across. North Forest Kinnock, at the edge of this chasm, was once known as the Gateway of Out-World.
From the perspective of the descendants of Arthur Eld, Gilead is the center of the world. There are East’rd and North’rd and West’rd and Southern Baronies, but these directions are all relative to New Canaan, not to the Dark Tower, the true center of All-World. Mejis is roughly five hundred miles east of Gilead—thousands of miles from Tree Village—and Garlan, where failed gunslingers are sent, is some distance to the west. The Western Line of the railway once ran from Gilead all the way to the Mohaine Desert, although it now ends at Debaria. Jericho Hill is five hundred miles north of Mejis. To the east is the Salt, the ocean that becomes the Clean Sea next to Hambry.
Roland’s long journey from Gilead takes him to Pricetown and Tull, where there are signs in the sky that Shardik’s Beam is in the vicinity, though Roland doesn’t notice. He parallels the Beam’s course southeast across the Mohaine Desert to the mountains and goes west to the sea. He, Eddie and Susannah follow the beach north and then move inland through the Great West Woods until they reach Shardik’s Portal. That means that, from the time Roland leaves Pricetown until he reaches the Portal of the Bear, he goes in a clockwise loop, ending up in the woods slightly north or northeast of Pricetown. That also means he probably crossed Shardik’s Beam at some earlier point. Once he, Eddie and Susannah set off down the Path of the Beam, they are paralleling Roland’s trek across the desert.
What exists in the other directions outside of this narrow slice of Mid-World? Did other great civilizations grow and die along the Path of the Turtle on the far side of the Dark Tower from Gilead, or is everything else a wasteland? The books supply no answers to these questions. Future generations of explorers have a grand adventure ahead of them as they map out the remaining eighty-five percent of Mid-World.
NOTES CONCERNING THE MAP OF MID-WORLD
This map assembles the known geography of Mid-World. Few distances are known, so the scale is arbitrary and probably wildly different in different parts of the map.
The biggest problem is this: if there is a Beam that goes due north, there cannot be a Beam that goes southwest. Since the Beams are arranged like the hours on a clock, that means there are two in the northwest quadrant. One runs from the eleven o’clock position south-southeast toward the Dark Tower, and the other runs from the ten o’clock position east-southeast.
For a long time, the relative placement of Gilead was unknown, but in The Wind Through the Keyhole we learn that Tree is on or near the Beam of the Lion that ends in the north, and that Tree is north of Gilead.
After Roland saves the Beams, he believes that Shardik’s Beam has snapped into an eastward direction, which might lead one to assume it was the one that begins in the ten o’clock position. However, we also learn that the Western Rail Line used to run from Gilead through Debaria all the way to the Mohaine Desert. This is possible only if the Mohaine, which is south of Shardik’s Beam, is relatively far north. Closer to eleven o’clock than ten o’clock, in other words. This also means that Roland crossed only one Path of the Beam before reaching Tull, and not two. How he ended up near the Western Sea without reaching it before he visited Pricetown is another mystery.
There are other issues. According to Roland, the Western Sea used to be only a thousand miles from Gilead. We have only his word on this point, and there’s a lot about Mid-World that he doesn’t know. The distance from Lud to Topeka is around eight thousand miles, and this is only a segment of Shardik’s Beam. Mid-World has expanded a great deal if both pieces of data are accepted as fact.
We also know that the Arc of the Callas extends all the way to the region where the snow falls. That means Roland must have crossed it at some point. Perhaps the Callas are widely spaced and he went between them.
Garlan’s position on this map is arbitrary. It is to the west of Gilead and Debaria. But how far? No one knows. Presumably not near the Callas.
Here’s the bottom line: if you ever find yourself in Mid-World, you probably shouldn’t stake your life on this map, even if directions and distances are no longer drifting.