The Full Map of Hallownest

Hallownest is one continuous cave system carved into a hillside, seen from the side. The full world map is wide rather than tall, with the surface village at the top and the void at the bottom, and almost every region touches at least three others. Once you can picture the shape, navigation stops being guesswork.

The shape of Hallownest

Think of it as five horizontal bands.

The surface band, at the top. King’s Pass descends from the top left into Dirtmouth, which sits at the top centre. West of Dirtmouth and slightly higher are the Howling Cliffs, the windy outer edge of the kingdom. Far to the right and higher than everything else is Crystal Peak, the mine in the top right corner, with the Resting Grounds tucked to its lower right.

The upper band. Directly beneath Dirtmouth, down the well, is the Forgotten Crossroads, the central hub of the early game. It stretches east toward the base of Crystal Peak. To its west, filling the whole left side at the same depth, is Greenpath.

The middle band. Below Greenpath is Fog Canyon, a narrow pale strip. Below and west of that, in the far left, are the Queen’s Gardens. Directly below the Crossroads sit the Fungal Wastes, and to their east, taking up the whole centre right, is the City of Tears, the biggest mapped area in the game. Off the far right edge, at roughly the same height, is Kingdom’s Edge, with the Colosseum of Fools at its top and the Hive at its bottom.

The lower band. Deepnest fills the bottom left. The Royal Waterways run as a long horizontal channel directly under the City of Tears, reaching east toward Kingdom’s Edge.

The bottom. The Ancient Basin is a wide, thin band across the bottom centre, sitting under both Deepnest and the Waterways. Below it, filling the very bottom of the map, is the Abyss. The White Palace sits inside the Basin’s footprint but exists in a dream, and Godhome is not a physical place at all.

How the areas connect

The pattern to notice: the City of Tears is the real hub of the late game, touching six other regions. The Forgotten Crossroads is the hub of the early game. Almost everything else is a spoke.

The travel network

Walking across Hallownest takes several minutes. Three systems exist to stop you doing that.

The Stagway. Eleven stag stations, unlocked by finding each one on foot and ringing its bell. The stations are Dirtmouth, Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, Queen’s Station in the Fungal Wastes, Queen’s Gardens, City Storerooms and King’s Station in the City of Tears, Resting Grounds, Distant Village in Deepnest, Hidden Station in the Palace Grounds, and the Stag Nest. The Stag Nest only becomes available once every other station is open, which makes it the final piece rather than a useful stop. Details are on the stag stations page.

The tram. A single tram line connects Deepnest to the Ancient Basin. You need the Tram Pass, found on the Deepnest side of the network, to use it. It turns one of the worst walks in the game into a ten second ride, so open both terminals early.

Lifts. Two large mechanical lifts shortcut the vertical gaps. One runs between the eastern Forgotten Crossroads and the base of Crystal Peak. The other, the Great Lift, drops from the west end of the City of Tears down into the Ancient Basin, which is the standard route to Broken Vessel and the Abyss.

The Dreamgate. The best of the lot, and the one people forget to buy. The Seer in the Resting Grounds sells it for 900 Essence. It lets you plant a single warp point anywhere in the game, then travel to that point from any bench. Plant it in whatever area you are currently grinding and the rest of the map becomes one hop away.

Benches. Not travel, but the backbone of everything. Benches save, heal, let you change charms and are the only place your map redraws. See the map and Quill guide for why that last point matters.

The areas with no map

Five places have no map at all. There is nothing to buy, Cornifer never surveyed them, and nothing you explore inside them is ever drawn.

• The White Palace. It is a dream, entered from the Palace Grounds in the Ancient Basin with the King’s Brand. Your position is not even tracked.
• Godhome. A boss rush realm reached by Dream Nailing the Godseeker in the Junk Pit. It is a menu, not a map.
• The Colosseum of Fools. Three arenas and a lobby at the top of Kingdom’s Edge. The Kingdom’s Edge map stops at the door.
• The Hive. A honeycomb spiral hidden inside Kingdom’s Edge. Compact enough to learn by feel.
• The Abyss. Deliberately unmapped and deliberately dark. Bring the Lumafly Lantern and plant a Dreamgate at the top before you go down.

Two more are worth flagging. Dirtmouth and King’s Pass appear on the world map but have no map to buy, because they are too small to need one. And the Resting Grounds has a map that Cornifer never sold, so Iselda in Dirtmouth is the only source at 75 Geo.

Reading the in-game map

Explored rooms are drawn as solid coloured shapes. Rooms Cornifer surveyed but you have not entered are drawn in a paler outline. Corridors between rooms are thin lines. Gaps mean either a room you have not found or a connection the game does not draw, which happens with a few one-way drops.

Areas are colour coded, which is the fastest way to work out which region a border room belongs to. If you are standing in a room that looks like it belongs to two areas at once, it usually does: transition rooms are shared.

The Wayward Compass charm, 220 Geo from Iselda, adds an arrow showing where you are. Without it the map tells you the shape of the world but not your place in it.

Using the interactive map instead

The in-game map shows only what you have discovered, and only after you have paid for it. The interactive map on this site shows the whole of Hallownest immediately: every bench, boss, charm, grub, Mask Shard, Vessel Fragment, Pale Ore, Whispering Root, stag station and Cornifer stall, on the real world map image, with filters per category.

Tick things off as you go and it stays saved in your browser with no account needed. If you would rather read than click, the area pages cover what is in each region, in what order to do it, and what to bring, and the beginner route guide turns all of it into a single path through the game.