Editing Earthsea (section)

=== Geography ===

[[File:Earthsea.svg|thumb|left|upright=2|Map of [[Earthsea]] ]]

The [[Earthsea (universe)|world of Earthsea]] is one of sea and islands: a vast archipelago of hundreds of islands surrounded by mostly uncharted ocean. Earthsea contains no large continents. The largest island, Havnor, at approximately {{convert|380|mi|km}} across, is about the size of [[Great Britain]]. The cultures of Earthsea are literate non-industrial civilizations and not direct analogues of the real world. The overall climate of Earthsea is temperate, comparable to the mid-latitudes (over a distance of about {{convert|1800|mi|km|disp=or}}) of the northern hemisphere of the Earth. There is a yearly transition from warm summers to cold and snowy winters, especially on northern islands like Gont and Osskil. In the southern regions of Earthsea, it can be much warmer.

Most of the people of Earthsea have brown skin.<ref>{{cite news |title=Chronicles of Earthsea |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/feb/09/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.ursulakleguin |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=12 September 2016 |date=9 February 2004}}</ref>  In the Archipelago, "red-brown" skin is typical; however, the people of the East Reach have darker "black-brown" complexions.{{sfnp|Le Guin|1968|loc=chapter 3, ''The School for Wizards''|ps=: "He had the accent of the East Reach, and was very dark of skin, not red-brown like Ged and Jasper and most folk of the Archipelago, but black-brown."}} The people of Osskil in the north are described as having lighter, sallow complexions,{{sfnp|Le Guin|1968|loc=chapter 2, ''The Shadow''|ps=: "She was a tall girl of about his own age, very sallow, almost white-skinned; her mother, they said in the village, was from Osskil or some such foreign land. Her hair fell long and straight like a fall of black water."}} while the [[Karg]]s of the Kargad Lands are "white-skinned" and often "yellow-haired".{{sfnp|Le Guin|1968|loc=chapter 1, ''Warriors in the Mist''|ps=: "...they are a savage people, white-skinned, yellow-haired, and fierce, liking the sight of blood and the smell of burning towns."}} Le Guin has criticized what she described as the general assumption in fantasy that characters should be white and the society should resemble the European [[Middle Ages]].<ref name=harcourt/> Richard Erlich writes that Earthsea is "Earth in a legendary time", not some other planet. Having power centralized under a king could, Erlich writes, be the "least bad political option". He places the era as something like the [[Bronze Age]] for Gont at the start of ''A Wizard of Earthsea'', and the later period of rule by kings, started by Lebannen, as resembling [[Mycenaean Greece]] as mentioned by [[Homer]].{{sfn|Erlich|2010|p=99}}