There are a handful of things you need to know before beginning, and I’m going to go over them now, and then tell you how to include them in the map later. You need to know a lot about your city before you can begin to lay pen to paper, I’m afraid. I highly recommend using a dual-grid strategy (where you have a grid where 1 hex equals 1 mile, and another where 1 hex equals 1/10th of a mile). Any tighter than that and your map may lose its value, or you’ll find yourself making a blueprint or a battlemap. Whatever you select, you’ll want to have a single grid point to be equal to about 1/10th of a mile. This will provide a coordinate system: any one square can be identified with its letter and number (e.g., square B4, or square C9).
If you do so, along the top (or bottom, or both) you should label each column with a letter (A, B, C, etc.) and along the side (left or right, or both) label each row with a number (1, 2, 3, etc.). However, it is sometimes desirable to use a square scaling grid and do cross-section coordinates.
