Fortnite locations guide (V9.00) - Fortnite map locations, best place to land, best locations in Season 9

Fortnite's map is no stranger to change, with its many locations altering or even disappearing altogether over the course of each season. And now Season 9 has begun, offering up a plethora of new areas where we can all go and die together. Our Fortnite map and locations guide collates all our formidable knowledge on the ever-changing Fortnite map. We'll tell you not only all the best locations and where to find the best loot, but also how to go about deciding where to land on a match-by-match basis.

If you're looking for a more general overview on Fortnite, look no further than our Fortnite guide; you can also find links to other areas of our Fortnite series, such as our complete list of Fortnite week 6 challenges, our Fortnite building and editing guide, and our Fortnite weapons page.

Fortnite map locations guide (V9.00)

There's a dizzying array of different locations on the Fortnite map, ranging from named locations such as Lazy Lagoon or Pleasant Park to unnamed gems like the "Tracks" area above Paradise Palms. But in order to decide where to land in Fortnite, you need to know what you're looking for. We'll take you through the key criteria for deciding the best place to land in Fortnite, then go through lots of different areas across the map and see how they rank against one another.

Where to land on the Fortnite map - best place to land

There are a great many factors that determine where the best place to land on the Fortnite map might be. But we've condensed it all down into six key criteria:

• Loot - How many treasure chests are there in this place? Are you likely to find good gear and loot here?
• Materials - How much opportunity is there for harvesting materials for building? Are you likely to walk out of this place with 1500 materials, or 150?
• Popularity - How many players land here? How much of a fight are you looking for?
• Size - How many players can this place accommodate? How compact or spread out is all the loot?
• Position - Is the location central, or on the coast? How likely are you to be pushed by the Storm? Are there methods of transportation nearby to help?
• Rotations - What other nearby locations can you rotate to after you're done here?

Some of these criteria go hand-in-hand with one another. For example, if a location scores high on loot and position, then it's likely to also score high on popularity. But there are occasional exceptions, as we shall see.

Fortnite best locations and best loot

In the below table you can find every named (and many unnamed) locations across the entire Fortnite map. We've ranked each location based on the above six criteria, with a score for each one (the higher the better). The scores are all subjective, except for loot, where we've simply counted the number of possible chest spawns in that location.

Check out our findings (you can use the arrows in the headers to sort by different criteria), and once you're finished we've written a little on some standout locations further below.

Location	Loot (no. of chests)	Materials	Popularity	Size	Position	Rotations
Sunny Steps	15	04	08	05	03	04
Lazy Lagoon	26	06	09	06	05	05
Pressure Plant	26	03	09	05	04	08
"Lonely Mountain" (E8)	03	02	06	01	08	08
"Mansion" (J6)	04	05	02	02	02	03
"Tilted Warehouses" (C5)	06	03	02	03	06	05
Shifty Shafts	09	06	06	04	08	07
"Frozen Lake" (C7)	09	01	02	07	05	03
"Villain's Lair" (B4)	10	04	04	04	04	05
Junk Junction	10	07	02	03	01	01
"Viking Mountain" (B6)	11	04	07	05	05	08
"Tracks" (J7)	11	09	03	08	04	07
Salty Springs	12	04	08	05	09	09
Haunted Hills	12	05	04	07	02	02
Lucky Landing	13	04	05	04	02	03
Dusty Divot	14	10	07	08	10	10
Lonely Lodge	14	08	04	05	03	03
"Warehouses" (E9)	14	05	03	03	05	04
Snobby Shores	15	04	05	06	02	03
Polar Peak	16	04	06	05	05	05
Pleasant Park	17	04	09	08	06	04
"Westworld" (H9)	17	03	05	03	01	03
Fatal Fields	17	05	05	07	06	05
Mega Mall	30	08	10	09	08	08
Paradise Palms	23	06	09	06	04	08
Frosty Flights	23	03	07	05	03	06
Loot Lake	24	03	08	10	09	07
Happy Hamlet	26	06	08	06	03	04
Neo Tilted	31	05	10	07	09	09
The Block	-	-	-	05	03	03

Now let's take a look at some locations of interest and how they rank against one another in terms of best loot, materials, popularity, and more.

Neo Tilted

Tilted Towers is dead. Long live Tilted Towers!

We knew that something would come to replace the burning remains of Tilted Towers after it was destroyed by Season 8's Volcano eruption, and now we've had a proper chance to look through Neo Tilted - the high-tech, Pressure Plant-powered mesh of skyscrapers and slipstreams at the centre of the Fortnite map.

It looks as though Neo Tilted is still the most populous area of the map where chest spawns are concerned, but it doesn't have quite the lead over everywhere else that it once did. Still, you'll recognise the general topography and arrangement of buildings for the most part, and each structure has between 3 and 5 (possibly more) potential chest spawns, so it's still loot central. The downside (or upside if you're a bloodthirsty beast) is that if you thought Tilted was popular before, just you wait.

Mega Mall

Mega Mall is what was built over the smouldering ruins of the venerable Retail Row - which, incidentally, had been a part of the Fortnite map from the very beginning - and, again, at first it's quite recognisable. At least, the west side will be, consisting as it does of the same houses in the same locations (with some interior redesigns, of course). But dominating the east side is the massive mall, which easily holds a good 20 potential chest spawns, and which must easily be the largest building on the map.

That mall is a very easy place to get lost in, let me tell you. And that's good, because it makes for some interesting fights, with plenty of cover and escape or initiating opportunities - and, of course, a huge amount of loot. Just be prepared to battle your way out, because, just like Neo Tilted, everyone will want to start dropping here.

Pressure Plant

Pressure Plant is the new area of interest inside the Volcano, and it actually bears some comparison with areas like Frosty Flights in its types of structures and generally open feel. It's the smallest of the new areas, but it holds quite an array of chests, especially if you include those within easy hopping distance scattered about the lava river to the south.

You'll of course have to be wary of players approaching from any direction, because although it may feel isolated, it's actually very easy to jump down into the Pressure Plant either by foot or using the nearby Sky Platform. It'll be a tense landing location for quite some time, because plenty will be landing there over the course of Season 9, and there's nowhere really to hide, so you'll need to be ready for a fight.

Lazy Lagoon

Lazy Lagoon is likely to continue to be a popular landing location in Season 9 after things have settled. Characterful, packed with loot (and a good 10-12 chest locations on the pirate ship alone), and the main source of Season 8's Pirate Cannons, you can expect a great many players to drop here, at least in the first few weeks of the season.

So far it seems your best chance of survival is to land on the ship itself and immediately drop below deck, where you'll find loot enough for a good early game at least, after which you can make your escape using any of the ship's ten thousand cannons.

Sunny Steps

As with Lazy Lagoon, Sunny Steps received a lot of attention throughout Season 8 simply because it was a new location. In reality, it's a rather small space dominated by three pyramid buildings which each contain surprisingly little loot (at least in terms of chest locations). The ease with which you can use the roofs of these structures is its main selling point, but you're unlikely to kit out more than a couple of players properly here over the course of a match.

Paradise Palms

I kinda see what all the fuss is about with Paradise Palms, but at the same time I kinda don't. It's clearly modelled after Tilted Towers, with its multi-storey buildings and open roads compacted into a relatively small space; but with just two-thirds the number of chest spawns as Tilted, it shouldn't be as popular as it is.

But it is. And because it's so popular, it's bloody dangerous to land there. When I do land there, I tend to hit the south-eastern-most houses first, because people tend to focus on the large skyscraper on the west side, and that's where most of the fighting tends to take place. If I get decent gear there, I'll head through the rest of Paradise Palms and try to win it all for myself; if not, there are plenty of rifts to the north and south with which to expedite your escape.

Frosty Flights

Frosty Flights always sees a fair amount of attention at the beginning of each match. A large airbase built against the side of a giant cliff, there's a smattering of smaller towers and loot areas but the location is dominated by the two hangers and a large central facility, which usually contains more than enough loot for a solo or duo - albeit not many materials at all.

But of course the real reason for the area's popularity is that it is by far the most reliable location for finding X-4 Stormwing planes. This is also what bumped up Frosty's "position" and "rotations" rankings a few points, because once you're done with the area, you can always just hop into a Stormwing and go where you please.

Pleasant Park

Pleasant Park offers some of the most chaotic and death-filled early games outside of Tilted Towers. Eight houses and one shop surrounding a flat, open expanse in its centre, the general aim of landing at Pleasant is to beat everyone else to your chosen house roof, loot everything you can, and then hop from one house to the next with your head on a swivel for nearby players.

Each house contains at least one chest, though I find by far the best houses to land on for loot and a few moments of safety are the south-west houses overlooking the football pitch. From there, I can head in a clockwise route through each of the other houses, usually meeting three or four other players on the way. If you survive into the mid-game after landing here, you'll hopefully have a nearby rift to the east which you can use if pushed by the Storm.

Salty Springs

Salty Springs is a very central and popular drop spot, particularly the larger of the two west houses, which holds up to four chests across three storeys, and usually sees the most action early on, with a number of surrounding high ground opportunities (including the colossal peak to the north, which holds the possibility of three chests and an overlook of Salty and Dusty together), and nearby apples for recovering after your fights.

Salty is not only a popular spot to land at but also one which sees near-constant movement throughout the game thanks to its location on the map. It also offers a great many different rotation options after a successful early-game.

Dusty Divot

Dusty Divot gives you one of the strongest early games possible if everything goes well. There's plenty of loot in the form of up to 11 chests throughout the crater, and a tonne of cover provided by the trees and the crater itself. But the true power of Dusty is that it's a phenomenal area for gathering materials. A duo left uncontested in Dusty can easily rack up full wood and full metal by chopping the trees and fences surrounding the compound.

Of course, it's also a very central, valuable location, which means you're very lucky if you find yourself alone when dropping in Dusty, no matter the flight path of the Battle Bus.

"Westworld"

So-named for its resemblance to Las Mudas from the Westworld TV series, Westworld is a useful alternative to Paradise Palms for those who prefer to stay on the outskirts rather than dropping right into the action. Westworld is in fact staggeringly good for chests, with 17 chest spawn locations compacted into a tiny, easy to traverse area, which makes it better for loot than most named locations. For this reason it's one of the more popular unnamed locations across the map, but still not nearly as much as it should be, because apparently most players don't realise quite how loot-rich this area is.

"Tracks"

One of my favourite places to land for solos or duos, Tracks is avoided by many because of its large surface area and apparent absence of loot. But the truth is it's a contender for the most underrated location on the entire map.

Land at any of the three houses (I prefer the furthest east, as it limits the directions from which enemies can approach) and you'll generally find at least enough loot to clear out the one or two other players that might also have dropped here; and after that, not only do you have up to ten uncontested chests to loot, but you can spend some time breaking tires in Tracks for an incredible amount of metal that can often see you through to the very end of a match. Not to mention, you can just head onto the hill to the west once you're done, and nearly always find a Rift so you can reach the next Safe Zone with ease.

"Lonely Mountain"

Lonely Mountain is the large peak just north-west of Fatal Fields, and it's often far more popular than it has any right to be. It provides enough loot for a single player, and some decent high ground from which to assess your next move, but if the Battle Bus passes nearby Lonely Mountain you're almost always going to see a good 4-5 players all jostling for control over this fairly insignificant area. Mind you, it's great in the late-game if the circle closes around Lonely Mountain and you're the first one up there.

 

Overall, The key to quickly learning how to play Fortnite well is to create a routine for yourself by landing somewhere repeatedly and learning everything about it. That's all we've got for now, but keep your eyes peeled for further updates and more focused pages on individual locations as time goes on. For now, why don't you let us know your favourite, familiar spots to land across the Fortnite map, and what it is about them that keeps you coming back!