Introduction
I was yet another Millennial who grew up with the Harry Potter books & movies. Since then, a lot more information about the Wizarding World universe has become available, in the form of subsequent movie franchises & video games such as Hogwarts Legacy. As a Ravenclaw myself (or technically Horned Serpent, since I am American rather than British & therefore would attend Illvermorny rather than Hogwarts to learn wizardry), I couldn’t resist the chance to make a Just-for-fun GIS side project for Terra Curiosity that would attempt to determine the location of Hogwarts.
Information about Hogwarts’ location
Since the release of the books, JK Rowling has long since confirmed in interviews that Hogwarts is located in Scotland, specifically the western highlands. This much can be discerned from different tidbits of information we get, such as book descriptions of the surrounding area, and fact that the area around Hogwarts has four distinct seasons.
In the video game Hogwarts Legacy, released in 2023, we finally got a world map that includes not just the Hogwarts grounds, but also the surrounding countryside in which much of the later parts of the story take place. This world map, found here, shows that Hogwarts actually is located very close to the western coast of Scotland, and that the castle itself is located south of the Forbidden Forest, and southwest of the village of Hogsmeade.
Information about the Hogwarts Express Route
Between the descriptions of Harry’s first ever journey to Hogwarts aboard the Hogwarts Express in Sorcerer’s Stone, and a few new key pieces of information from Chamber of Secrets (which sees Harry & Ron fly an enchanted Ford Anglia to Hogwarts after they miss the Hogwarts Express, we can discern a few key pieces of information that I can use to create a map of the route.
First, we know that the train departs Kings Cross station at 11 AM, and arrives at Hogwarts sometime around 8-9 PM, as it’s shown in the movies to be dark outside by the time the students arrive for the Sorting Ceremony (due to the latitude of Scotland, it does not even begin to get dark until that late at the start of the school year). We also know that Harry & Ron’s car flight in the second book was spotted by a woman “at noon in Norfolk” from the newspaper article that Snape reads to the two of them. I used the measure tool to measure a line from King’s Cross station to the westernmost edge of Norfolk county, and the distance was about 65-70 miles, indicating that the train is travelling at roughly 70 miles per hour.
Creating the Maps
To create the maps which I have posted to this portfolio, I used QGIS as my GIS software of choice, since this is not an overly complicated project that would require any special tools.
I first spent time looking at the western Scottish Highlands in OpenStreetMaps’ basemap, and eventually found one particular area that, whilst not 100% accurate to the Hogwarts Legacy world map, still has a lake of roughly the correct size, is located south of a large forest, and is located just a few miles north of the coast. By using the Measure tool again to draw a makeshift line between this point and King’s Cross, I got a total distance of around 640 miles, which, using the previous estimated train speed of 70 mph, would fit the estimated timetable (640 / 70 = 9.14 hours).
So, I digitized a line layer to indicate the route, following existing train lines as best I could until the final leg of the journey, where I added in an “invisible to Muggles” line through the forests to the Hogwarts point. Next, I decided to create another map of the Hogwarts Ground and added a polygon of Hogwarts Castle showing its location relative to the lake & “forbidden forest”, and used labels in Print Layout mode to illustrate each key landmark.
Overall, this was an interesting side project that took this blog into more unconventional/fantasy territory. Odds are very good that I will attempt another project like this in the future, involving a different IP franchise that I enjoy. I hope you enjoy these maps as much as I enjoyed creating them!