SDV Almanac

Verified for game version 1.6.x

Your farm map is chosen at character creation and cannot be changed without starting over. Each of the eight maps changes how much land you have, what resources spawn, and how you should lay things out. This guide compares them and shares Stardew Valley farm layout principles that work on any map.

The eight maps

Standard Farm — the most tillable land (roughly 3,400 tiles) and no gimmicks. The safe default for crops, animals, and big builds. Best for players who want maximum freedom.

Riverland Farm — lots of water, little land. Fishing is easy but you will fight for crop space. Good for fishing-focused or co-op role-split where one player fishes. Sprinklers barely matter; you spend time bridging water.

Forest Farm — has a hardwood stump area that regenerates and extra forageables, but less tillable space. Great for early hardwood and a woodsy feel; tight for a crop empire.

Hill-top Farm — a quarry spawns ore on the map, plus cliffs that limit contiguous space. Nice for self-sufficient mining; awkward for one giant field.

Wilderness Farm — monsters spawn at night, giving combat XP and loot, but you must defend your crops. For players who want danger mixed in.

Four Corners Farm — designed for co-op: four separate quadrants, each with a resource (a pond, a mining area, etc.), connected by bridges. The best map for 4-player groups because everyone gets a home base.

Beach Farm — mostly sandy; only a small central patch is tillable, but crab pots work on the sand. Worst for crops, best for a fishing/crab-pot economy. A real challenge run.

Meadowlands Farm — starts with a coop and two chickens, abundant grass (including chewy blue grass for animals), and a smaller tillable area. Good for animal-focused or co-op play.

Which map for which goal

Layout principles (any map)

Whatever map you pick, a few rules make life easier:

  1. Group by function. Keep crops in one zone, animals in another, processing (kegs, jars, furnaces) in a shed, and storage near the house. Walking between scattered machines wastes more time than any crop choice.
  2. Sprinkler grids. Lay crops in rectangles that match sprinkler coverage (see the sprinkler guide). Iridium Sprinklers cover a 5x5; plan fields around that coverage.
  3. Processing sheds. A shed full of kegs outperforms spreading them across the farm. Build sheds early (see the buildings guide).
  4. Paths and shipping. Pave main routes so you do not trample crops, and keep the shipping bin central.
  5. Future-proof. Leave room for the Greenhouse, a Mill, and Obelisks; a cramped farm forces painful rebuilding.

A starter Standard layout

This keeps daily chores to a loop: water (or let sprinklers do it), collect, process, ship.

Co-op layout differences

On Four Corners, assign each player a quadrant and let them specialize — one crops, one fishes the pond, one mines the cliff, one handles animals. The shared gold means the group benefits from each person’s quadrant. On smaller maps, agree on who builds where to avoid crowding the few tillable tiles.

Farm names and identity

The name you give the farm is cosmetic and appears on the save and shipped goods. It does not affect mechanics, so pick something you like — many players use a theme. Tools like the Stardew Valley Planner (a third-party web tool) let you sketch a layout before committing in-game, which saves a lot of fence-moving.

When the map holds you back

On Beach or Riverland, accept that crops are not your main income. Pivot to fishing, crab pots, and animal products. The Greenhouse (from the community center guide) becomes your primary crop source on those maps, since its 116 tiles ignore the map’s limitations.

Tillable space by map

Rough tillable counts help you plan. The Standard Farm has by far the most open land. Four Corners trades some space for its four resource pockets. Riverland and Beach are tight by design. Forest and Hill-top sit in the middle but with irregular shapes that waste tiles to cliffs and water. If your goal is a massive ancient-fruit operation, Standard or Four Corners wins; if it is fishing or animals, the constrained maps are fine because you lean on the Greenhouse and ponds instead.

Sprinkler math recap

An Iridium Sprinkler covers a 5x5 square, so a field laid as 3-wide crop bands separated by sprinkler rows uses space efficiently. A Quality Sprinkler covers a 3x3 plus and tiles as a 2-step grid. Never place a sprinkler on a tile you could crop; stagger them on borders or dedicated rows. The full patterns are in the sprinkler guide, but the rule of thumb is “one Iridium per 24 plants.”

A compact starter layout

On any map, try this: house and shipping bin central; crops in rectangular bands to the north watered by sprinklers; a fenced pasture to one side for a coop and barn; a shed behind the house for kegs and jars; fruit trees lining the southern edge. This keeps daily travel short and scales from a handful of plants to hundreds without redesign. The buildings guide covers shed and animal placement in more detail.

Common layout mistakes

New players scatter crops to use “all” the land, then spend the whole day watering. Others put processing machines in the crop field, blocking expansion. A third mistake is forgetting paths, so they trample immature plants. Plan zones first, fill them second, and leave room to grow — a farm redesigned three times wastes more time than a farm planned once.

Next

Once the map is chosen, the getting-started guide sets your first-season plan, and crop profit strategy tells you what to actually plant in that space.

Sources & verification