 The landscape in Eragon is based on the " wild territory " of Paolini 's home state , Montana . He said in an interview that " I go hiking a lot , and oftentimes when I 'm in the forest or in the mountains , sitting down and seeing some of those little details makes the difference between having an okay description and having a unique description . " Paolini also said that Paradise Valley , Montana is " one of the main sources " of his inspiration for the landscape in the book . Eragon takes place in the fictional continent Alagaësia . Paolini " roughed out " the main history of the land before he wrote the book , but he did not draw a map of it until it became important to see where Eragon was traveling . He then started to get history and plot ideas from seeing the landscape depicted . 
