The world and the United States, drawn again

The world maps. Every country is built from about 60,000 real districts (GADM 4.1). Population is from the GHS-POP 2025 one-kilometer grid, GDP from the 2024 downscaled GDP grid of Kummu et al. (PPP), with nominal GDP using each source country’s World Bank price level; human development is the gridded 2015 estimate of Kummu et al. Military budgets and troops are inherited in proportion to the GDP and people each new country takes, and nuclear warheads go to whoever now holds the base.

Languages combine region-level mother-tongue estimates with Unicode CLDR speaker shares; “fluent” means roughly B2 level or better. Political positions are population-weighted estimates of public opinion, and the authority axis mixes how democratic the system is with nationalism and social conservatism. Flags are generated from each region’s color traditions. Football strength merges World Football Elo ratings and simulates a 48-team World Cup thousands of times; the starting elevens are footballers by birthplace.

The United States maps. Both are built from every county, with the counties of over 120,000 people cut into pieces of about 70,000 along the population grid. The equal map hands every piece to one of 50 centers so that each state gets the same population (within 1%) and stays compact; the other grows states from real regional centers and keeps counties whole. The votes are the 2024 county results counted again inside the new lines (Alaska and Connecticut use statewide shares), and House seats are shared out by the Huntington–Hill method used since 1941. The same pieces carry the county results of every presidential election from 2004 and the 2026 House vote, so each state can be colored by any of them, and each state’s seats are drawn as compact House districts of equal population.