The Map of Oz

Everyone agrees that Oz is an oblong of four countries around a green city in the middle. Baum is consistent about which way round they go: the Munchkins are in the east and the Winkies in the west, in all fourteen of his books — his Wicked Witch of the West rules the Winkies.

The confusion came later, and from two directions. Ruth Plumly Thompson follows Baum in Kabumpo in Oz (1922) and reverses herself by The Gnome King of Oz (1927). And the map Baum's publisher printed in 1914 carried a reversed compass rose, which kept the Munchkins in the east where the books put them; after he died the rose was quietly turned north-up and the countries left where they lay, which moved the Munchkins west and contradicted every book he wrote.

This map follows Baum, and is drawn east-for-west against that printing. The compass above it turns rather than the land, because that is the shape of the disagreement — the same four countries in the same four places, read two ways. The passages behind both are quoted on Munchkin Country and Winkie Country.