15

How big is the Discworld Universum?

Does any dimensions appears in the books?

For example if we extrapolate dimensions of Ankh-Morpork to get Disk radius and based on this calculate size of 4 elephants and turtle.

  • 2
    The Wikipedia states that the moon and the sun of Discworld were 1 mile in diameter in earliest books, and were later stated to be 80 miles in diameter each. – Gallifreyan Aug 18 '16 at 13:46
  • So in earliest books sun were smaller than Disc. Any quote for this? – janisz Aug 18 '16 at 14:18
  • only Wikipedia - I myself have only read Mort and started reading The Colour of Magic. – Gallifreyan Aug 18 '16 at 14:22
  • 1
    @janisz The sun is always smaller than, and orbiting, the disk. – OrangeDog Aug 18 '16 at 15:49
  • @OrangeDog my bad, misinterpreted thousands comma with decimal dot – janisz Aug 18 '16 at 15:51
15

Circumference: 30,000 miles (ish)

"Ten thousands of miles. I just patrol this length.”

“That’s a third of the way around the disc!”

The Colour of Magic

As you can see from this top-down map from the Discworld Mappe Atlas, Great A'Tuin isn't dramatically wider or longer than the Disc's 9,549 mile diameter.

The area of the disk is approx 71,619,724 Miles2 which is slightly bigger than the pacific ocean.

enter image description here

  • 7
    That's about 50000 km (ish) in SI units. Imperials... – Zommuter Aug 18 '16 at 14:16
  • 6
    @zommuter - The discworld books were written in English for a British audience. The fact that the odd colonial may have found a copy or two is no good excuse to be going around converting things for them. – Valorum Aug 18 '16 at 15:19
  • 2
    In case anyone wonders, translations also convert the units, but not always to SI. French edition has “Seize mille kilomètres. Moi je patrouille seulement sur une lieue". Which translates back to “Sixteen thousand kilometers. I just patrol one league”. – spectras Aug 18 '16 at 20:01
  • 3
    @Valorum: I don't recall the British empire extending to discworld... also, the people of Albion should get with the program and start using sane units, not the furlongs-per-forthnight or whatever it is you people have :-) – einpoklum Aug 18 '16 at 20:02
  • 1
    How do you know a Discworld mile is the same length as an Imperial mile? – JeremyP Mar 10 '17 at 10:48

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