A Topologist's Map of the World: Borders Only, No Geography
Reddit user xilefakamot crafted a unique world map in 2020 that shows only international borders, discarding shapes, sizes, and distances. The result is a network-like visualization that highlights adjacency relationships between countries. The creator manually sketched and smoothed the networks, aiming for efficiency in representing border patterns.
No calculations per se – I sketched out a series of networks showing which countries bordered each other, then gradually smoothed them out to make the map – all done manually.
- jfengel
It is remarkable how much it resembles the medieval T&O maps, including putting Jerusalem and the Mediterranean at the center of the world. (Which is what Mediterranean means.) And the East at the top (where we get "orient" from).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map
I am sure they knew that and the allusion is deliberate.
- gus_massa
If you like this, you may like "Guess the countries just from what borders what" https://wilf.live/worldgraph/ (HN submission by the author wolfred: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44604511 sadly without too much traction 3 points | July 2025 | 2 comments)
[spoiler alert] Try finding Canada
- Lerc
Notably Oman, and Iran border seperate bodies of water.
That would make things a lot simpler.
[Edit, I stand corrected, there's a little bit that goes up to Iran and nips off a corner)]