About CountryShape
CountryShape is an interactive map for comparing the true size of countries, subdivisions, historical empires, organizations, and proposed states. Drag shapes across latitudes to see how Mercator projection distorts apparent size—Greenland and Africa look comparable on most web maps, but Africa is roughly fourteen times larger.
Modern boundaries come from OpenStreetMap; historical shapes from OpenHistoricalMap and public-domain archives; statistics from Wikidata and Wikipedia. The basemap tiles are separate—see Attributions.
Boundaries follow common cartographic conventions and OpenStreetMap data. Displaying a territory does not imply a legal or political position. Disputed areas are shown as commonly mapped, not as an endorsement of any claim.
Learn more about CountryShape →
How to Use
- Search & Add: Type any country, state, historical empire, or subdivision into the search bar to place its shape onto the map.
- Drag & Compare: Click and drag shapes across different latitudes to observe how their visual size dynamically updates relative to the map scale.
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Rotate & Flip:
- Drag the Compass Dial at the bottom left to rotate selected shapes.
- Double-click or double-tap the compass needle at any time to reset the shape's rotation back to true North.
- Use the Flip H and Flip V buttons to mirror shapes horizontally or vertically.
- Context Menu (Right-Click / Tap): Right-click any shape on desktop (or tap to bring up options on mobile) to quickly flip, duplicate, bring to front, send to back, or delete the shape.
- Group Shapes: Select "Group Shapes" to combine multiple territories into a single master shape (such as grouping all 50 US States or European nations) so you can move, rotate, and color them together.
- Share Your Setup: Click the Share button to generate a unique link that instantly saves and loads your exact map arrangement for friends or social media.
FAQ
Q: Why does a shape change size when I move it?
A: Each shape keeps its true area but rescales to match the map projection at that latitude—Mercator stretches features toward the poles.
Q: What can I compare?
A: Countries, subdivisions, historical empires, organizations, and proposed states—search to see what is available.
Q: How does sharing work?
A: Share encodes your scene in the URL hash. Nothing is stored on our servers.
Q: Is an account required?
A: No. CountryShape is free and requires no registration.
View the full FAQ →
Privacy Policy
No accounts or server-side storage of your map scenes. Share links encode your arrangement in the URL hash only. We use local browser storage for theme preference and dismissed UI tips.
The site is delivered via Cloudflare; map tiles and shape geometry load from third-party endpoints. When advertising is enabled, Google AdSense may use cookies to serve ads—see our full policy for opt-out links.
Read the full Privacy Policy →
Attributions
CountryShape is built on open geographic data and open-source mapping libraries. We are grateful to:
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OpenStreetMap
contributors, for map data and boundaries (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL).
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Protomaps
and OpenStreetMap, for vector basemap tiles.
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Leaflet
, the interactive map library (BSD 2-Clause).
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OpenHistoricalMap
and public domain archives, for historical boundaries where applicable.
Statistics and labels may also draw on Wikidata and Wikipedia.