#rvb reference

Map description: A world map of Chorus built on the blue map base shown at the Temple of Arms. The Purge Temple is located on an island left of center, set between the three main continents but closes to the top left continent. Radio Jammer 1C is on a smaller island north and slightly east of the Purge. The rest of the locations are place on the planet's largest continent, taking up most of the right half of the map. Federal Army Outpost 37 is placed at the tip of a long peninsula extending from the northern side of the continent. Crash Site Alpha is on the coast at the northwest corner of the continent, with Crash Site Bravo to the southwest. The Temple of Trials is on the west coast about midway down. The Temple of Arms and Charon Research Complex C-2 are at the southern tip of the continent. Armonia is inland, north and a little east of the Temple of Arms. New Republic Headquarters is just west of the center of the continent, with the Abandoned Fueling station immediately to the northeast. Federal Army Outpost 22 is a ways north and east of New Republic HQ, a little east of the base of the peninsula. The Temple of the Key is inland on the eastern side of the continent. The Temple of Communications is to the south of the Temple of the Key.

Adventures in Cartography

I began by overlaying the two temple maps we're given in season 13. The first (blue) shows the coordinates Tucker is given at the Temple of Arms. These coordinates are where the True Warrior test takes place. I call it the Temple of Trials. (That's not canon, it's just easier to say and it sounds cool.)

The second (red) shows the coordinates given by Santa at the Temple of Trials. Based on his dialogue, it is slightly confusing whether he's talking about the location of the Purge or the Key:

Santa: (to Tucker) As its bearer, the Great Key will remain bonded to you and you alone, until the time of your death. If you believe the inhabitants of this planet are not ready for my creators' gifts, activating the Purge will cleanse them.

Carolina: And by "cleanse" you mean...?

Santa: All sentient life on Chorus will be exterminated.

Tucker: Dude. Buzzkill.

Epsilon: And... where exactly is this thing?

Santa: Here. (a red holographic map lights up with a dot pointing at the Purge's location, east of the Jungle Temple) I will also update all previously sent maps with temple locations.

I believe that map marker is the Key, because that is where everyone goes next. In particular, it's the map marker the mercs see at one of the other temples, right before they head for the Temple of the Key. It fits Carolina's description of "the mountains east of our location."

So these are our touchstones: the Temple of Trials and the Temple of the Key.

Biomes

The next thing I did was attempt to sort the Chorus locations into climate groups based on their environments.

Jungle/yellow sky

Crash Site Alpha

Crash Site Bravo (canyon)

Temple of Trials (on the water)

Temple of Gravity (near Crash Site Alpha and the Purge)

Remote Research Facility (established to study wildlife)

Tropical?

Radio Jammer Station 1C (island off the coast, sky half blue half stormy)

Desert

Abandoned Fueling Station

New Republic HQ (right on the edge of the jungle)

Temple of Communication (debatable, but rocky and not a lot of foliage)

Snowy/Mountainous

Federal Army Outpost 22 (on the edge of the mountains, not snowy)

Federal Army Outpost 37 (on the water, amid mountains but at sea level)

Temple of the Key (high in the mountains)

Grassy/Deciduous

Temple of Arms & Charon Excavation site (on the water, visible from Complex C-2)

Charon Research Complex C-2 (near the Temple of Arms, within visibility)

Unsettled Territory

Who Fucking Knows

Armonia (but it seems warm)

The Purge (red crystal hell)

Directionality

Armonia -> unsettled territory -> Temple of Trials

Armonia -> Fueling Station -> Crash Site Alpha

The Temple of Trials is a shorter trip from Armonia than Crash Site Alpha, thought probably not by more than an hour or so.

New Republic HQ -> Fueling Station -> Federal Army Outpost 37

Crash Site Alpha is relatively close to the Temple of the Purge.

The Communication Temple is to the east of Crash Site Bravo. It seem to be night at the Comm Temple while it is still daylight at Crash Site Alpha.

Why I put almost everything on one continent

The two canon locations are both on that continent, and while characters sometimes have access to air vehicles and teleportation grenades, in both seasons 12 and 13 there is a lot of ground travel happening. (Also, all the grenades detonate early in season 13 and all travel from there on has to be done the long way.) In particular:

Felix leads the Reds and Blues from Crash Site Bravo to New Republic Headquarters by ground, via caves.

Tucker, Grif, Simmons, and Caboose travel from New Republic Headquarters to Federal Army Outpost 37 by Warthog, stopping at the gas station in between.

Carolina and her away team travel from Armonia to the Temple of Trials by ground, passing through unsettled territory.

Kimball leads the troops from Armonia to Crash Site Alpha by ground, also through unsettled territory.

While many of the locations are located by water, we don't have any instances of characters crossing a large body of water.

We're already kind of handwaving how quickly characters can move across the continent in land vehicles, without adding intercontinental travel to the mix.

Doyle claims in season 12 that the rebels were given opportunity to move to a different part of the planet and build their own society. This suggests that a fair amount of Chorus still remains unsettled.

While we don't know the population of Chorus at the time of canon events, if we take a bit of Sarge's dialogue, he refers to "thousands." Even if we estimate generously and say this could be hundreds of thousands, we're still looking a severely contracted population. For comparison, 100,000 to 300,000 people is considered a medium-sized city in the US. With the population so depleted and the war still raging, it makes sense that the populated area of Chorus would have shrunk considerably even if it was once larger.

Keep in mind that this doesn't mean there is nothing of interest on the other continents. There might be more alien towers, settlements, other cities. For this map I’m only working with locations relevant to the Chorus Trilogy storyline, not the entire world.

Other Considerations

As this is a flattened map of a globe, it is not to scale and landmasses distort more the further they are toward the corners. It is probably best, therefore, not to get too hung up on distances. For visibility's sake the map markers are misleadingly large, and appear a lot closer to one another than they actually would be on the ground.

For my purposes I consider any Chorus canon post-season 13 to be entirely optional, but for what it's worth, the brief view we get of Chorus from space during the blockade lines up pretty well with this map, with that main continent being the one most clearly in view—and also the one at which the fleet have pointed their cannons. It is also worth nothing from this image that the bifurcated continent in the upper left corner of the map actually appears to come quite close to the central continent where it wraps around the globe. For that reason, while I'm thinking of this central continent in terms of north and south, it's probably a bit misleading to look at the whole map that way.

We can see where the sun strikes the planet in that image, but without knowing the planet's axial tilt or where the poles are, it's impossible to determine exactly where the equator is, so again, not getting hung up on it. I'm also taking the appearance of the land itself as a very general suggestion, as the area where the Temple of the Key would be doesn't show any snow. Nevertheless, we can see that central continent divided into three distinct regions: green, tan, and a darker brown. Or: jungle (with some grassy and deciduous area to the south), desert, and mountains.

It makes sense to me that the Temple of the Purge would be located somewhere remote and difficult to access, so I played it off the mainland, on an island.

It's hard to tell in the show, but the Halo map representing the radio jammer is an island, and I thought that made sense as somewhere Charon would place one. They wouldn't put the jammers too close to populated areas, in case the Chorusans got the bright idea to try to shoot them down.

Federal Outpost 37 (the outpost where Wash, Sarge, Donut, and Lopez are taken and where they meet Doyle) is snowy and cold, but it's also right on the water, at sea level, so the cold can't be due to elevation. It made sense to put it further north. According to the Fan Guide, this outpost became the Feds' primary base of ops after they pulled out of Armonia, and while highly defensible due to an "enormous frozen wall," it's also a difficult position from which to mount an offensive. For all these reasons it made sense to me to put it at the end of the northern peninsula.

I probably debated the most where to place Armonia, as it could go pretty much anywhere warm. The scene where Carolina goes out to the city limits is probably the most indicative of Armonia's climate, and I think it would most likely sit right on the edge between desert and the deciduous area south of the jungle, and that's where I've placed it. (I entertained the idea of putting it on that big south central island, but the channel separating it from the mainland would be a lot bigger than it looks on the map, and in the end it just didn't really fit.)

Though I didn't include it on this map, I like to think Chorus might have rebuilt their new capital near the Temple of Communication, in the bones of a city that survived the war abandoned but mostly intact.

I hope you enjoy this map, and perhaps find it useful! Please credit if using, as there is a whole lot of my own headcanon and analysis going into this.