How Big Is Azeroth?

Last week we heard that World of Warcraft hit 8 million users.

How big a virtual world does it take to house all those Horde and Alliance guys and girls? Answer: Not very big, according to Tobold of Tobold's MMORPG blog.

Based on an average marathon runner's speed of 12mph Tobold runs corner to corner and with a bit of simple maths comes up with the answer: Kalimdor is 41 square miles and Azeroth (pre-Burning Crusade) is 80 square miles.

For an idea of how big (or small) that is - the island of Manhattan is 20 square miles and the Isle of Wight is 146 square miles.

I'm betting the inhabitants of Azeroth aren't as weird as the locals on the latter though.