Sansara

Sansara in aug 2013

Sansara is the oldest and most complex of all mainland continents. It is the bigest continent, with 900 sims. About Sansare there are more articles then about all other continents together.

Since the Geography and History of Sansara are well studied, this page is made to give links to these pages.

Statistics

Size in sims 981 (North-South 35, East-West 57)

Size in km: 64.29 square km (8.96, 14.59 km)

Since the data between West and East Sansara varies a lot, in this table the information is given separately.

It is linked with Heterocera at North, by the ANWR channel (see Transcontinental Channels).

Criteria	West Sansara	East Sansara	Total
Surface	364	617	981
Sea sims (complete flooded)	45	33	78
Coast sims (with water access)	304	132	731
Land sims (no water)	15	157	172
Sims with roads	160	151	311
Sims with railways (rail or tram)	27	18	45
Sims without direct access	8	98	106
Population density	high	med-low	med-high

Note: The separation line was considered the line Campello-Sutherland and Sutherland-Maryport, the sims that formed the separation line were included into East group.

Coordinates

These are sim Coordinates. For each region, they mark: longitude (min) - longitude (max) / latitude (min) - latitude (max). This system is used by Gridsurvey [1] to find the coordinates of every sim. There are many materials with region names. Coordinates define only a square, not a complicated object, so here sometimes one border sim can be in two regions. Also, the names vary from source to source. The regions listed below are from many sources. Sometimes, two areas merged into one, sometimes new (subcontinents) had to be included because the conditions in 2013 are much different then the conditions in 2007. Many sims in South-East are depopulated, while other sims are not.

Continent: 982-1038/982-1012

Bay City & suburbs: 982-996/997-1006
1. West Bay City: 982-987/1000-1004
2. East Bay City: 988-992/1000-1003
3. Gulf Of Lauren: 987-992/1004-1006
4. Nova Albilon & Luna: 993-996/999-1003
5. Sheferville: 993-994/1003-1006
6. Sandbox & Vehicles: 994-996/997-999
Old World: 997-1007/998-1001
1. West Old World: 997-1001/999-1002
2. Islanders: 1002-1007/999-1001
3. Da Boom sim: 1000/1000
4. Bay Of Space Pigs: 1002-1007/998-999
5. The Lake: 1003-1008/1002-1002
North Subcontinent: 995-1007/1001-1012
1. Color Sims: 995-1005/1006-1009
2. Micronesia: 999-1007/1003-1006
3. Volcano Sims: 1008-1012/1001-1006
Central Area: 1000-1017/993-1005
1. Coast Town Sims: 1000-1007/995-997
2. Kami & Mare Secundus: 1008-1017/1000-1005
3. Cosmic Sims (Moons): 1005-1009/995-1000
4. Lost Lakes (West part): 1010-1013/993-1000
North-East Subcontinent: 1013-1028/1002-1012
1. Nuba: 1013-1020/1002-1011
2. Hidden Lakes: 1022-1028/1003-1009
3. Linden Village: 1022-1025/1007-1012
Snowlands: 1003-1018/979-994
1. Main Snowlands (high populated): 1006-1015/984-992
2. Ice Bay: 1015-1016/992-995
3. Tundra (not official, transition region): 1016-1018/984-992
4. Chamonix: 1002-1006/885-888
5. South Snowlands (low populated): 1006-1015/979-983
Lakes: 1015-1028/985-1001
1. Great Lakes: 1020-1028/997-1001
2. Sea Of Fables & Lost Lakes (East): 1015-1023/992-999
3. Warmouth: 1023-1028/922-1001
4. Sutherland: 1022-1026/991-994
Far South: 1018-1028/977-985
1. Brownworth: 1018-1023/982-985
2. Bear: 1024-1028/982-985
3. Chemical Elements & Mountains: 1018/1023/977-981
East Coast: 1029-1038/979-1010
1. North East Coast: 1029-1034/945-1010
2. South East Coast: 1029-1034/979-944
3. Northern Islands: 1031-1038/1008-1010
4. Southern Islands: 1031-1038/981-985

Grid Sector: I9, J9, I10, J10

Geography

The geographic features of sansara are well documented in many different materials. However, some places have common Geographical features. For a newcomer, who doesn't know the history of Sansara, the following descriptions are very useful. They are made using almost only Geographic critera.

Geographical Units

Sansara - Geography

Sansara, from a strict Geographic point of view, can be divided into some clear, well separated units: Bay City Plain (and suburbs), Old World, Central Rivers, Mountain Islands, Northern Islands, Snowland, Central Waters, South-East Sims, Islands and Exterior Waters. Each of them have different features.

Bay City Plain is a large oceanic plain, covered by Bay City. This plain has an average elevation of 25 meters and no hills. Water is present, with many navigable channels, gulfs, ports and islands. The channels, roads and the central tram are all created to form interesting Geometrical forms. Accessibility is very high, thanks to the large network of roads and channels. Bay City is the largest and most complex of all cities created in Second Life. However, Bay City is not the only one. Other huge cities are Calleta in Heterocera, Nautilus City in Nautilus, Kama City in Zindra or Victoria City in Caledon - Winterfel private continent.

The suburbs (Luna, Nova Albilon, Sheferville) have a more complex Geography, not with so many rectangular shapes, but overall they are placed in a plain, with altitudes higher then Bay City. This plain can be considered an extension of the Bay City Plain.

The Old World includes a lot of various sims, the oldest places created. Usually, they are composed of smaller or larger islands, water channels, all with different textures. Therer ae not two similar islands, each one has something unique. On these islands can be found anything, from mountains and almost vertical cliffs, to smooth hills, plateaus and features difficult to be included into one classification system. The maximum altitude never reaches 100 meters, but these heights are sometimes very close to seaside. In comparation, Heterocera has the highest mountains, but they are far from the shore. These places have the highest ground fragmentation and the most variated textures from all the grid.

The Old World includes not only the sims close to Da Boom, but also many other places, like the Color Sims. This is agains some Historical considerations, but for Geographical reasons, all these places can be included into one large common group. It is better to consider the sandboxes in South-West as separated from this unit. Also, it is good to notice the Sandbox Island, South-West to the continent, not part of the continent, but also a mainland strucutre and very old.

Central Rivers can be a common Geographical term for the sims in the center of the continent. It is not official, but a newcomer will fast discover this unique feature. Rivers are found in many places throughout the map, but the number of river sims in Sansara is higher then all the other similar sims from all other continents. The rivers expand to other regions. Their valleys are usually deep, sometimes with high shores. Between rivers, a traveler can find hills, small mountains or plateaus, very good for building. A particular aspect of the rivers is that many of them have dams. Rivers can also be found in other places like the Premium Continents, Kama River in Zindra, small rivers in West Heterocera, the rivers of Sharp Continent and some rivers in private continents like Caledon - Winterfel, Europe Continent or Wild West. East River Community is one of the most notable places.

A particular case is formed by the volcano sims. From a central volcano are formed rivers that spread accross the area in different directions.

Snowlands are a distinct feature for Sansara. Also, there is a region of tundra, a transition region between permafrost and the nearby regions. The snowlands have many rivers, sometimes completely covered with ice. Between these rivers, there are mountains (or they can be better called glaciers). Close to the seas, there are fjords and icebergs. The snowlands are an incredible place for winter sports. The Chamonix sims are specially created to look like a winter touristic station. However, the Northern part of the snowlands is more populated and has more interesting Geographical features then the Southern part. More information is in Snowlands Subcontinent and in Snow & Snowlands.

These are not the only snowlands. 3 snow sims exists also in the North Islands of Sansara. Also, 4 sims covered with snow can be found in the Premium Sea (see Premium Continents, Premium Sea and Oceans for more info) The Sharp Continent also includes snowlands and recently Eden and Wild West continents added snowlands. Limited ice surface can also be found in many private sims (for example in NorthCountry New York - the New York Microcontinent, see List Of Microcontinents And Sim Clusters) or mainland sims (like Vine in Heterocera). The snowlands of Sansara are so large, that they include more then 80% of the ice-covered surface of all land.

Central Waters include large water basins, like seas and lakes. They are internal seas. Their most inetersting fact is the incredible depth. Many other continents have seas, but they are exterior seas. Interior waters can be found in Heterocera (1) and Nautilus (1) and small endorheic lakes in many continents (like Jeogeot, Heterocera, Satori and the Premium Continents.

These internal seas and lakes have different depths, different water leverls (sometimes much above sea level) and are very large, that usually you cannot see from one shore the other shore. Sansara has about 10 internal seas and lakes (depends on author).

Mountain Islands are also feature of Sansara. They include many islands in Central-North part of the continent. These islands are full of mountains, with unaccessible shores and high peaks. Some of them are connected with roads that include many bridges. These islands are something that was never created on such a large scale. similar islands are only in the Sharp Continent. Many other continents have islands, including many private continents. However, those islands are more smooth, usually looking like tropical beaches.

The mountain islands of Sansara are unique because they are much more realistic.

North Islands are the official Linden Village. They include places like the Welcome Island or Orientation Island. These are the places where we all came to birth in this virtual world.

South-East Sims are the newest places of Sansara. They look like large high mountains, that slowly expand from the South coast to the central waters. They are the most unpopulated part of the continent. They can be compared with the mountains of Nautilus in size and wideness.

Islands (or Islanders) are two subcontinents, two peninsulas in East, that are private owned. They usually include topical beaches and tropical islands and are similar to the majority of the private owned continents. They also include lush forests, residential places and even 3 snowland sims. So, Sansara is not completely a mainland continent. Like Blake Sea, it includes both mainland and private sims. The islands have some problems with accesibility, since they are not linked to the mainland with a road.

Exterior Waters are the seas around Sansara. The shores are very different and also the ocean floor textures are not the same. The unique feature in Sansara are the sea castles in North-West, near the Color Sims. Similar forts are in Caledon - Winterfel and at Castle Valeria, one of the Transcontinental Channels that link Nautilus and Corsica. No continent has so many forts as Sansara has (see North Sansara Sea Forts for more info).

Prisoner Sims are two sims without contact to continental sims, isolated in the void near Color Sims. Their names are Cayman and Edge. Cayman is a place to rent skyboxes, while Edge is a fashion shop. Both are attracting many visitors and both are private-owned land, owned by the same estate owner. To include them or not into Sansara, however, is not clear.

Altitude

Click for large

At right there is an Altitude map. For every sim,there are given 9 average elevtions, with an error of 20 meters. This map shows that the North part of Sansara is lower then the South. Despite the high altitudes in South, the ground features are not fragmented. In many places, the entire sim is a large plateau, while in North, it is much more different. The highest elevation is in the tundra, North to Snowlands. The bigest altitude difference is in the Volcano sims.

The maximum altitude is of 315 meters in Tethis sim. However, there is no way to get there, since an entity orb will instantly teleport you away. This places sansara on the 3rd place for maximum altitude, after Heterocera and Sharp Continent. The vast plateaus in South are the highest plateaus in Second Life. However, they look like plains.

For 3 sims, altitude could not be measured due to access or script restrictions.

Representative Features

Sansara has some Geographic features that are found almost or only here.

Water level above sea level. This is common for many of the Sansara internal seas. This feature exists also for the lakes of Heterocera (inner lake and another small lake in South-West), Second Norway region of Blake Sea and some small lakes in Jeogeot.

Dams are of two types: massive concrete dams or boulder and wood dams. Sansara has 7 dams (more then all other continents: Zindra has 3, Heterocera has 2 low boulder dams in West and Corsica one private dam). See Dams for more info.

Volcanos. Sansara has many volcanos. Other volcanos can be found in are in Jeogeot and Hawaii-Pele (private island). See Volcanos for more info.

Under Sea Level. Only the sim Oak Grove has the water level set below the sea level. It is the only continental sim with this feature.

Flight Limit is not the same for all sims of Sansara. For example, in Bay City the flight limit is sometimes under 4000 mters, while in other sims, it is usually above 5000 meters. For other continents, the flight limit usually has a constant value.

Resident Hospitability The old part of Sansara has almost no Land With Restricted Access, no ban lines or entity orbs that teleport visitors away. In fact, there are many places created to help newcomers. However, this is not common in the South-East part of the continent.

Transportation

Sansara has one of the largest and most complex road networks on the grid. Transport ways are also the 5 multisim railways. There are many waterways and the image is completed with a lot of airports. For road transportation, please see Sansara Network. For railway, please take a look at Bay City Railway & Trams, East River Railway, GSLR, SJRR and ONSR.

Infrastructure efficiency

For more information, see Sansara Network and Second Life Railroad: Technical Data.

Road:

Total road network:        72.88
Conventional road:         66.08
Paths:                      4.91
Off-road:                   1.89
Sea access:                  yes
Unconnected road pieces:       5
Continent surface:         64.29
Land coverage:             1.134

Road efficiency index: 0.739

Railway:

Total rail network:         7.22
Total tram network:         3.80
Unconnected rail pieces:       4
Sea access:                  yes
Land coverage:             0.112

Railway efficiency index: 0.157

Waterway efficiency index: 3.232

Ground transportation efficiency index: 0.896

Total transportation efficiency index: 4.128

Accesibility

In old part of Sansara, residents are more friendly. Ban lines and entity orbs are rare, while in the Eastern part, they are found more frequest. Even in East, Sasara can be considered a friendly continent, compared with other continents.

Useful links

Homepage: Second Life Geography

On the wiki:

Articles about places inside Sansara:

Situation in 2013

After the discovery of Heterocera and the build of all new continents, Sansara was left to its own fate. The construction of new sims was cancelled and many projects were left unfinished. This can be seen very clear in Bay City and its suburbs. The Bay City tram is still unfinished (it should end somewhere close to Nova Albilon and meet the Nova Albilon tram). The Color Sims have unfinished shores and there is a large gap between the Color Sims and Bay City suburbs. There are some 'protected land' parcels that should form roads, but they look like an abandoned building place.

Sansara had 3 railway sistems: GSLR in the color sims, ONSR in the snowlands and the Bay City railway (Bay City area) and two tram lines in Bay City. The SJRR (Sutherland Junction Railway) is a resident-to-resident railway that connects the sims Sutherland, Lily, Hartwick and Gogebic. A new one, East River Railway, was made in summer 2014. The presence of 4 private railways in this continent shows a great interest for this kind of transportation, so a transcontinental railway to connect all should be required.

Population density is not equal. The old part of Sansara (with the most interesting Geographical features and transportation ways) is the most populated. In this part, land for sale is rare and abandoned land is almost unexistent. In contrast, the Eastern sims (mainly the South-Eastern) are full of parcels of abandoned land, rentals are present but a large surface is not rented.

By comparation, the shape of the continent suffered little changes. The Islands in East have changed a bit their shapes.

The ANWR channel connects Heterocera and Sansara. It is the thinest transcontinental channel, but the most busy. The problem is that in Sansara, the only way to move is by railway, with the GSLR. A road connection to the main continental network is required.