Frequently asked questions

SlightlyMap is a free map of the whole world, drawn down to every street in one ink-and-paper style, with map games you can play anywhere on it. You can explore borders through history, compare the area and population of places, and build your own games from any country, region or city. Learn more ›

Yes, it is free, and there is no account and no sign-up. You open the site and play. The site is funded by advertising.

Place: drag regions, states, departments and countries back to their place on a blank board. City fingerprint: recognise a city from its street network alone and drop it on the map. Rank: put places in order of population, area or density. Surprise me: one click gives a random game anywhere in the world. Learn more ›

No. Every game is played by dragging and clicking on the map. You never type a name, so the games work the same in every language, on a phone as on a computer, and they test where places are rather than how they are spelled. Learn more ›

Yes. Open Play, then Make your own game. Browse from the world to a continent, a country and its divisions (states, counties, regions, districts…), add one or several sets of places, mix them freely, and choose what to compare and how many places and rounds you want. Anything you leave open is drawn at random. Learn more ›

Every country, with its administrative divisions as recorded in OpenStreetMap: for example the 50 US states and 3,000+ counties, the regions, departments and communes of France, the German Länder and districts, Brazilian states and municipalities. The number of levels depends on each country. Learn more ›

All the way down to every street, footpath and building, anywhere in the world. Country names give way to regions, cities and neighbourhoods as you zoom in. Learn more ›

Yes. For France: the provinces, généralités, pays and bailliages of 1789, the first départements of 1790 and their changes in 1815, 1860, 1871, 1919 and 1968. For the United Kingdom: the historic counties. Historical layers are rebuilt from the same base as today's municipalities, so a border shared by two periods falls exactly in the same place. Learn more ›

Open Map, then Select, and click places at any level: countries, regions, municipalities or historical units. Each selection shows its area, population and density, counted once even when layers overlap. You can group places into your own territories, cut out enclaves and exclaves, and save the whole map as a file. Learn more ›

Populations are 2025 estimates from the Global Human Settlement Layer of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, counted within today's borders. They can differ slightly from official censuses. Areas come from OpenStreetMap borders; urban areas come from the GHSL Urban Centre Database. Learn more ›

A place is shown in your language when its translation exists, otherwise in English, otherwise in its local name. Greek, Cyrillic and Georgian names are transliterated into the Latin alphabet (Θεσσαλονίκη becomes Thessaloniki, Київ becomes Kyiv) so every name can be read.

Yes. The map and the games work on phones and tablets as well as on computers; the games are designed for touch.

No personal data is kept on our servers. Your language, your current map and your settings stay in your own browser. Audience measurement uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookie. Advertising cookies are only set with your consent in Europe, the UK and Switzerland. Learn more ›

Yes. In Select, the save button downloads your map (places, groups, colours) as a file on your device. You can open it again later from the same panel. Nothing is stored on our side. Learn more ›

Prints made from the same maps — every street of a city, a county, a whole country, history drawn to scale — are coming to the shop. Learn more ›

Yes: @SlightlyMap, with history and statistics told on the map — vanished empires, borders on the move, cities growing street by street. Open ›

Write to hello@slightlymap.com for questions, ideas or a mistake on the map. Open ›