I am hoping for suggestions regarding software that can be used to visually plan out and design a 2D world map for a game. It would be helpful if it can produce a text file or something that can easily be read by another program.

Something like Tiled comes to mind?

You might find some of my work of interest: https://richstrat.com/ww2.html

Code at: https://github.com/richtype/openstrat