While most of us Oz fans accept Munchkin Country to be in the eastern region of Oz, throughout the books it was occasionally represented in the west as shown in this map from Tik-Tok of Oz; which is not far off from the Disney one:SwordInTheStone777 wrote:That map is wrong as all Oz fans know that Munchkinland is in the East not West.
From Wikipedia:
West and East
The first known map of Oz was a glass slide used in Baum's Fairylogue and Radio-Play traveling show, showing the blue land of the Munchkins in the east and the yellow land of the Winkies in the west. These directions are confirmed by the text of all of Baum's Oz books, especially the first, in which The Wicked Witch of the East rules over the Munchkins, and The Wicked Witch of the West rules over the Winkies.
Like traditional western maps, the Fairylogue and Radio-Play map showed the west on the left, and the east on the right. However, the first map of Oz to appear in an Oz book had those directions reversed, and the compass rose adjusted accordingly.[21] It is believed that this is a result of Baum copying the map from the wrong side of the glass slide, effectively getting a mirror image of his intended map. When he realized he was copying the slide backward, he reversed the compass rose to make the directions correct. However, an editor at Reilly and Lee reversed the compass rose, thinking he was fixing an error, and resulting in further confusion.[22] Most notably, this confused Ruth Plumly Thompson, who frequently reversed directions in her own Oz books as a result.
Another speculation stems from the original conception of Oz, which at first appeared to be situated in an American desert. If Baum thought of the country of the Munchkins as the nearest region to him, it would have been in the east while he lived in Chicago, but when he moved to California, it would have been in the west.[23]
Modern maps of Oz are almost universally drawn with the Winkies in the west and the Munchkins in the east, although west and east often appear reversed. Many Oz fans believe this is the correct orientation, perhaps as a result of Glinda's spell, which has the effect of confusing most standard compasses; perhaps resembling its similarity to the world Alice found through the looking glass in which everything was a mirror image; or perhaps just reflecting the alien nature of Oz. In Robert A. Heinlein's book The Number of the Beast he posits that Oz is on a retrograde planet, meaning that it spins in the opposite direction of Earth so that the sun seems to rise on one's left as one faces north. March Laumer's The Magic Mirror of Oz attributes the changes to a character named Till Orangespiegel attempting to turn the Land of Oz orange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Oz#West_and_East
Also, while the film is taking notes from the books and the '39 film, Raimi and Co. are really writing their own story here which is an amalgamation of previous sources and original ideas. It's not a religious adherence to any one particular source of 'Oz' info. So, it really is their prerogative to shift things about as they wish and in this case, they have a valid argument given the conflicting history in the books.
