The Island Map

The LOST Island. It's big and mysterious, but where does all that stuff belong? Having an interest in maps, this is a project I wanted to undertake in order to create a comprehensive and attractive map of all the major locations and landmarks on The...

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I can't believe so many people still follow this project nearly four years after the last post. Consider this your "thanks" for not hitting unfollow years ago - it's an accurate redrawing of the blast door map based on the evidence presented here in the Island Map project. While it was nice that Stuart and Kelvin's map fit so nicely inside that octagon, the "reality" of the Island's locations turned out to be very different.

Click here to see a hi-res version. This probably really will be the last post.

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The Island Map project is one year old today, so this seems like a good time to post what will most likely be the last map update.

The official LOST Encyclopedia came out a few months ago. It included most of the individual maps seen on the show, but it appears that the authors didn't attempt to create a comprehensive map of the entire Island. Therefore I don't feel the need to make any major revisions due to some geographical revelation from the encyclopedia.

Now that LOST is over, there's not much more that can be done with the map, although there is obviously still lots of room for speculation. In the end, this map is simply my best guess based on the various bits of evidence. I've really enjoyed working on this project, and thanks to all of you who stuck around to see it to its conclusion.

Click here for extra hi-res version.

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There are some older, fairly extensive posts about the content of the blast door map, but most of those posts were made before many of you started following this project. Since it has come up in the answers to several recent questions, let's revisit Radzinsky and Inman's contribution to Island cartography.

For the purposes of this project, the locations on the blast door map fall into three categories: confirmed, confident, and incorrect. This image is a simplified version of the map which contains only the most pertinent information regarding locations.

Confirmed locations are green. The places are either marked as "confirmed" on the map itself or (in the case of the Pearl) were later confirmed by the producers. For these locations, the Island Map deviates as little as possible from the blast door map, even though evidence from later seasons (like the fate of the Black Rock) can be somewhat contradictory.

Confident locations are orange. They aren't marked as "confirmed," but they are all well-known and long-standing DHARMA facilities. Radzinsky would have ben well-aware of these locations, and confident of the positions of the notations on his map. Again, the Island Map attempts to deviate as little as possible from the general positions of these locations.

Incorrect locations are red. These notations were marked as "alleged" or "possible" locations on the blast door map. We know that these places do exist on The Island, however, their locations are eventually shown to be very different than they appear on the blast door. It seems likely that Radzinsky would have known the accurate locations for most of these facilities, but we know that he eventually committed suicide and Kelvin Inman later finished the map. The most logical assumption is that these notations were added by Kelvin, who was not as sure about their locations. For these places, evidence from elsewhere in the show is used to determine their locations.

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The Heart of The Island

I think enough time has passed since the finale that it's safe to post spoilers, so the first order of business is to identify the location of the Heart of The Island. Jacob gave Jack clear directions on how to find it: the "source" is over a ridge, just beyond the bamboo grove where Jack first woke up in the pilot episode. We know that the bamboo grove is very close to the fuselage crash site, since Jack was able to run from the grove to the plane wreckage in a matter of moments. Therefore, the Heart must also be close to the southern coast, just a short hike from the survivors' beach camp. Its location is indicated by the gold starburst northeast of the fuselage. Even though it's this close to the beach camp, the survivors wouldn't have discovered it since only the protector of The Island can find it.

After watching the final episode, it is also obvious that the cliffside cave is not located along the northern shore of The Island. The Man in Black and Jack reached the cliff far too quickly for it to to be at the extreme other end of The Island. Based on the appearance of the terrain, the cave is most likely located south of the volcanic crater. We know that, although they frequently explored the southern areas of The Island, the survivors never discovered the cave, which would indicate that they must have found another path around the crater, or that the ladder is situated in a way that makes it difficult to see.

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One minor revision before the finale this weekend:

After this week's discussion about the Black Rock, it does make sense that the ship would not have ended up on the upper ridge of the eastern mountains. So I've moved it out of the highlands to the base of the mountains near the Mesa. This location is still consistent with the notation on the blast door map, but also satisfies the need for some logic, at least as much as it can be satisfied when we're talking about LOST.

Everyone enjoy the finale this weekend, and look for another update sometime next week.

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The Island Map for 4/26/2010. A few minor changes have been made to the coastline, and a new marker has been added for the stone bench. The Unknown C4 marker has been removed, because frankly, I think that one is going to remain unknown. The big change, of course, is the relocation of the Hydra Island notation, based on the latest evidence presented during the episode "The Last Recruit."

Click here to see the most recent version of the map.

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We're going back to Hydra Island, and the first thing we're going to do is ignore every bit of dialogue anyone has ever said about its size or location. Instead, let's look as what we have seen on-screen, as well as some real-world facts which relate to the crash-landing of Ajira flight 316.

Whenever we have seen Hydra Island, particularly during the Ajira 316 crash-landing scene, it has appeared much larger than Ben's description that it was "twice the size of Alcatraz." But we're ignoring dialogue now. Let's look at some real-world facts instead:

Ajira 316 is a Boeing 737. So how long would a runway have to be for a 737 to land? Santos Dumont Airport in Brazil is typically regarded as the airport with the shortest runway that 737s regularly land on. Even then, pilots require special training to land there. The runway length is approximately 1300 meters [0.8 miles].

OK, we know that the runway on Hydra Island wasn't long enough for the 737 to land, but it was long enough for the plane to slow down to a speed where it wasn't completely destroyed when it hit the trees. Let's assume that the runway on Hydra Island [pictured above] is at least .75 miles long.

With this information, we can rule out all of the atoll islands off the west coast of the main Island. None of them is remotely large enough to contain a runway of this size.

On Rousseau's map, she named the two largest of the minor islands: "Alex Island" in the extreme southeast, and "Robert Island" off the east coast. Both of these islands are large enough to accommodate the runway.

I'm not abandoning all of my assertions from the previous Hydra post. I still think that the island closest to the barracks would be the most likely candidate for the Hydra station. Furthermore, the Man in Black's map indicates a large portion of the eastern coastline to the north and south of Hydra Island. If Hydra Island were actually "Alex Island," which is located at the end of a point far to the southeast, the map would've looked much different.

Based on the new information provided by this latest map, combined with what we now know about real-world runways, Hydra Island is most likely the large, round island located off the east coast of the main Island. I'm going to publish a new version of the map soon, which will reflect this change.

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The appearance of a new map in this week's episode makes it necessary for us to revisit an old question - one that has never been definitively answered: Where the hell is Hydra Island?

Anyone who has been following this project for a while knows that my location for Hydra Island is simply an educated guess. There just hasn't been enough evidence to determine a conclusive location. This map clearly shows a portion of the east coast of The Island. It even contains a compass rose so that there can be no doubt as to what we're looking at.

Based on the dialogue in this scene, we can conclude that the smaller island further to the east [under the thumb] must be Hydra Island. So we finally have some evidence to help us find its real location. That's good, right? Sure it is, except for the fact that this map disagrees completely with my location for the Hydra.

But it's OK. Seeing this map is causing me to reevaluate some of my arguments regarding the location of Hydra Island. So I'm gathering some more evidence now to present in a new post soon.

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In the past, I rationalized not adding Jacob's cabin to the map because it had been burned to the ground. Now the Black Rock has suffered the same fate, but I'm not going to remove it from the map.

Jacob's cabin was obviously important, but we had no way to know it's exact location. The Black Rock, on the other hand, was one of a very few confirmed locations on the blast door map, making it a significant landmark which helped to determine the positions of other Island locations. Additionally, many really significant events have occurred at the Black Rock during the course of the story of The Island. For those reasons, I think it should remain on the map, regardless of its current condition.

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DHARMA Electromagnetism Map

I usually wait a few days after the latest episode to post updates, but this one will be mainly spoiler-free. Just when I was thinking that the producers were finished showing us maps and compasses, here's a new map from last night's episode, "The Package."

Apparently, the DHARMA Initiative kept maps of the electromagnetic pockets on The Island. This map is difficult to read in this screen-capture, but we have to assume that the gray areas are water and the red markings indicate the electromagnetic pockets.

This map does not line up precisely with any portion of the coastline on Rousseau's map, but there are two areas which this map may represent:

The Northwest Coast - Although there are differences, this map may show the area west of the Barracks, which would include the Temple, the false hatch, and Pala Ferry. If that's the case, the red marking in the center of the map would be in the vicinity of the Temple. Given the properties of the Temple, it could be very possible that there is a pocket of energy beneath it.

The Southwest Coast - There are more discrepancies between the shape of the coastline on this map and Rousseau's map, but it could possibly be a drawing of the area including the beach camp and the Swan.  In that case, the red mark in the center would indicate the location of the Swan. This theory is plausible because we know that there was a confirmed pocket of electromagnetism at the Swan site.

I think it's safe to say that this map definitely indicates some portion of the west coast of The Island, but without a little more information, it's difficult to tell exactly which portion of the coast that is.

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Where is the Stone Bench?

We can reason that the small ruins are fairly close to the Black Rock. Richard was extremely weak when the Man in Black rescued him, so he probably would've taken him to a nearby location so that Richard would not be weakened even further by a long journey.

The Man in Black tells Richard that if he hikes due west from the bench, he will find the statue. With this information, we know that the stone bench is due east from the statue. It is also notable that the Y-shaped tree behind the bench has grown very large during the course of 140 years, making this location a very picturesque spot on The Island.

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The Stone Bench

In this week's episode "Ab Aeterno," we're introduced to a small, but notable, new location. In a clearing, presumably close to the location of the Black Rock, we see the ruins of a small structure, along with a stone bench in front of a small Y-shaped tree.

Ricardo and the Man in Black had a discussion here in 1867. Richard would revisit this location in 2007.

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In this week's episode, "Dr. Linus," there was an interesting bit of dialogue between Jack and Hurley when they were discussing returning to the Temple. Jack states that if they leave immediately, they can reach the Temple by nightfall. We know that it's the morning since Hurley says he wants breakfast. So we can assume that it's about a twelve-hour hike from the Lighthouse back to the Temple.

If we also assume that they were camping in the vicinity of the Lighthouse, they would still be 35-40 miles from the Temple. With an average adult walking speed of three miles per hour, we can calculate that the distance from the Lighthouse to the Temple, based on Jack's estimation on how long it will take, is at least 36 miles.

This helps us to confirm the locations of the Lighthouse and the Temple at the far southeast and northwest corners of The Island, respectively.

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The Island Map for 2/27/2010

There are new markers for the cliffside cave and the Lighthouse, even though those are purely educated guesses on my part.

I've noticed something about this season so far. The producers seem a lot more interested in getting the story told and "answering questions," rather than showing our characters hiking around The Island.

I have a feeling that we're not going to see characters spending a lot of time studying maps and compasses this season, like they did all the time in the first two seasons. Now when they venture out into the jungle, they rarely even carry packs or provisions anymore. Again, I think the producers are most interested in arriving at a satisfying conclusion for the show, so if that means that a nearly thirty-mile hike from the Temple to the caves gets condensed down to about three minutes, that's OK.

Click here to see the most recent version of the map.

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The Lighthouse

We've got yet another Island landmark to find a location for. So where is the Lighthouse? We know that Hurley and Jack hiked from the Temple to the Lighthouse, and they passed by the caves en route. This would place the Lighthouse somewhere along the southern coast of The Island.

Now this is just speculation on my part, but I don't think that the Lighthouse is located along the southwest coast. When Sayid, Jin, and Sun took the sailboat north along the west coast, Sayid kept a close watch on the shoreline, and noticed other landmarks like the four-toed statue. I don't think he would've missed something as prominent as this Lighthouse.

The area east of the crater, on the other hand, has not been explored as thoroughly by the survivors. Other than a few missions to locate Rousseau or the Looking Glass, or Desmond's camping expedition to find Naomi, very few of the survivors have explored this area of The Island.

The Lighthouse is obviously high in the mountains, but still very close to the shore. There is likely a beach at the base of the cliff, since we know that people have hiked around this area of The Island by sticking to the beaches. The Lighthouse may be situated in such a way that it's difficult to see from the beach below, but easy to see from the mountains or from out at sea.

Finally, Jacob tells Hurley that he wanted to get them as far from the Temple as possible. If we take this statement literally, then the Lighthouse would be located at the extreme southeastern tip of The Island.

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The Cliffside Cave

Jacob's cave is obviously located in an extremely rocky portion of the coastline. It seems unlikely that this cliff is the same one that "Dave" tried to convince Hurley to jump off of. That cliff was very close to the beach camp, and this one seems to be in a much more remote location where it can't easily be discovered.

There's really no way to know for sure where this cave is, based on what we've learned about it so far. It might be logical to assume that it's somewhere along the north coast, possibly a few miles from the Temple or Barracks. We know that the coast is rocky up there, and it didn't take Sawyer and the Man in Black too long to hike there from the Barracks.

I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of this cave. Hopefully future episodes will shed some light on its location. If anyone has any theories, just use the ask feature.

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Geography of the coastline: the Eastern Shore

Much of the east coast of The Island has never ben seen on-screen. We know that the survivors have explored the southeastern area along the beach to the Looking Glass communications cable. Later, Desmond and Charlie paddled an outrigger from the beach camp to the Looking Glass. A fire which created a black pillar or smoke was lit on one of the eastern beaches during the events at the end of the first season.

Other than that, we haven't seen much of the actual shoreline north of the Looking Glass. Of the several small islands near the main Island, the largest of these are off the eastern coast. But these islands are too close to the shore to be Hydra Island.

Perhaps we'll get to see more of the eastern shore during the remaining episodes.