Filling a drawing with colors? (How?)

[confounded]

I drew a somewhat complex map. Sections of a continuous coastline were done separately, and now behave as if there is an invisible line from the start to end points of each segment when I try to use the bucket to fill in the "land" color and the "water" color. This gives very weird results. How can I fix this so I can just use the bucket to fill an area that looks to be bounded by the lines of my map? Thanks

 

[askIllustrator]

There are a number of steps to completing this one.
first, make a new layer. Then select all the linework on the map, copy it, paste in front (command+f), and in the layers pallete, drag the colored square up the new layer. Now hide all the layers except for the new one with just the linework on it. Do a select all (command+a) and eliminate and fills you might currently have so that the only color applied is the strokes. Now outline the strokes and perform a pathfinder unite. now release the compound path you just made and ungroup. deselect all and select the largest shape (the outlined map lines) and delete it. Now you should be able to color the remaining shapes any color you want. reveal the hidden layers and viola! Hope that helps!!!