Map Data and Coverage
Draw Borders is built from open data. Everything below is processed by us for the game (simplified, clipped, re-projected); the original providers did not make or endorse the game, and the maps are not suitable for navigation, surveying or settling any boundary.
Terrain
Elevation comes from Mapterhorn, which combines open elevation models: Copernicus GLO-30 worldwide (© DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA, all rights reserved), USGS 3DEP for the United States (public domain), the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan’s DEM for Japan, and national sources elsewhere. The full list is on Mapterhorn’s attribution page. The colour relief and hill shading are rendered in your browser with MapLibre GL JS.
Lakes and rivers
Natural Earth 1:10m lakes and rivers (public domain), simplified.
Boundaries
| Pack | Source | Licence | Data version | Units | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US States | U.S. Census Bureau, Cartographic Boundary Files 2025, 1:500,000 | Public domain | v1 | 51 | 153 |
| Japan Prefectures | 国土交通省 国土数値情報「行政区域データ」2025年版, as processed by Kyodo News japan-choropleth 0.1.0 | CC BY 4.0 | v1 | 47 | 131 |
| World Countries | Natural Earth 1:10m Admin 0, via world-atlas 2.0.2 | Public domain | v1 | 254 | 353 |
Which borders are asked
Outline and border questions are generated from each pack’s topology and then filtered. In the world pack, countries whose outline or borders are disputed or unsettled in the source data are excluded from questions for now; they are not shown one way or another. Pairs that touch only at sea, and very short borders, are not asked. Each pack page lists exactly what is playable.
Scoring follows the rules on the scoring page; each result records the scoring version and the pack’s data version.
Reporting an error
If a boundary or a terrain feature looks wrong, write to hello@drawborders.com with the pack, the question and what you expected. Fixes are recorded in a new data version so finished daily puzzles keep their original answers.
Sharing results
Share texts contain only the puzzle number and your scores. Images of the map include the data credits above; please keep them when you post.