# About the Worldbuilding category

**URL:** https://discourse.gplates.org/t/about-the-worldbuilding-category/764
**Category:** Worldbuilding
**Created:** [2 November 2023 02:39 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/about-the-worldbuilding-category/764 "2023-11-02T02:39:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![john.cannon](https://discourse.gplates.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3e96dc/32.png) [@john.cannon](https://discourse.gplates.org/u/john.cannon)
#### Post date: [2 November 2023 02:39 UTC](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/about-the-worldbuilding-category/764/1 "2023-11-02T02:39:14Z")

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[Worldbuilding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding) is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe (according to Wikipedia).

GPlates has been designed and written for the _scientific_ community to reconstruct Earth’s tectonic plates into the geological past. But it is also now used by the _worldbuilding_ community to design fictional planets (such as [here](https://worldbuildingpasta.blogspot.com/2020/06/an-apple-pie-from-scratch-part-v.html) and [here](https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=40045)).

As mentioned in this [post](https://discourse.gplates.org/t/how-we-use-gplates/501), GPlates prioritises the needs of the scientific community. However this does not prevent it from being used in a worldbuilding context.

Since there are an increasing number of questions related to worldbuilding, and those questions typically relate to specific worldbuilding processes of fictional planets (rather than plate-tectonic research on Earth), we cannot always provide answers to those questions. So we have created this category for _worldbuilding_ users to assist each other.