Azeroth, and Outland, the two main worlds that players of the Blizzard Entertainment game World of Warcraft explore and adventure over in the game, are huge and detailed. It is a good idea for a player to know where he/she is. The Alliance and the Horde, the two main factions of the game, have outposts, bases, and cities scattered all over. An unwary player could accidentally waltz right into the opposing faction's outpost, and have a sudden visit to the Spirit Healer.

There are two in-game Wow maps; the world map, and the mini-map.

The world map is the big picture of Azeroth and Outland. The world map only displays areas the player as already explored. Roads, zones, cities, and geographic features are all displayed on the world map. The world map displays icons for local building and dungeons.

Map coordinates are vital when questing. The world map (hit the M key when playing) does not have an automatic coordinate display. An add-on is required for this. There are several out there, and they mostly all do the same thing: provide xy coordinates for both the player's location and the location of the cursor. A map coordinate add-on is the single most indispensable add-on a player needs.

Please note that dungeons and instances are not available on the world map, you can only get the limited mini-map view. There are add-ons that contain world-map views of dungeons and instances.

The in-game mini-map is vital for a player when both exploring and when questing. The mini-map offers an overhead view of the area around a character. The mini-map has limited zooming, in and out.

The mini map offers a few vital features.

• The name of the region (or city) that your character is in

• The local geography

• The location of your character appears as a silver arrow pointing in the direction (N, E, W, S) you're current facing

• A tombstone icon to indicate your corpse when dead

• Nearby party members appear as blue dots. Arrows point to far-off party members.

• Some classes have the ability to detect humanoids, beasts, or demons; these detections appear on the mini-map as dots

• Some professions can detect resources, such as mining nodes or herbs to harvest; these detections appear on the mini-map as dots

• Completed quest turn-ins appear as gold dots on the mini-map

• Day or night, and the current server time

• A You have mail icon indicates when there is unread mail for the player

Printed and/or online wow maps of Azeroth are available. There are world of warcraft map posters and printed atlases for those who want see Azeroth and Outland off line. There are also many on-line sources for warcraft maps, some wow maps are even interactive.