Long ago, before the realm of the automated programmable arithmetic machine, I once GM'ed a Runequest campaign, and I took the quite unusual and alternative step of giving the players the entire map of the fictional world, before they even began playing. It was missing some information, such as a few towns and rivers, that they would need to add as they went along. It also had an ocean on two sides, and an impassable mountain range on the other two sides, thus I limited their travels to within the area I had drawn on the map. That made it possible for them to choose to go in any direction that they wished, and they were not forced by the GM to go anywhere in particular. Where they went and in what order, was entirely their own choice, although to solve the game, they would need to explore almost every place. This was very unlike table top games with caverns, such as D&D, that were quite restrictive. I later found this idea to be quite similar to computer games such as Pokémon and Minecraft.
A second point about maps that I'd make is one to do with the strong connections between the geography of a place and it's history. I hadn't realised until I did a local history course, that what I thought was common sense, seemed to be quite an eye-opener to many historians who had not studied any geography. On a perfectly flat agricultural plain with uniform soils and geology, then market towns will appear at regular distances which are the maximum distances a man can walk there and back again, or travel with a horse and cart to market in a day. This is the Central Place theory of German geographer Walter Christaller and sees towns and villages formed into a hexagonal grid. Of course, no where is perfectly flat with uniform soils, but there are hills, mountain ranges, rivers, lakes and seas. You therefore get ports where the river is deep enough to land ships, or at the tidal limits of a river. These ports have a sphere of influence that will stretch across the sea in front of them to the land beyond, and when sea travel was quicker than on land, they would have more in common with sister ports than the hinterland behind them. Castles and fortifications, and the towns that grow up around them, will be found in the natural breaks between downs and hills to defend the roads that will pass there, or else on hilltops, or where rivers make a circular bend. These are all naturally defensive positions. Then you have natural resources to consider too, where towns grow up around mineral resources to mine or quarry, or springs with fresh water, or hot water spas, or places where you can dam a river and build a watermill, or place that would suit a windmill.
So, when you are world-building, you also need to consider these things.
