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A puzzle whose piece is the next puzzle

Most map sets are a list of places. Each collection here is a descent: you lift a piece out of one plate, and that piece is the subject of the plate below it. A handful of levels take you from a continent to ground you could walk across in an afternoon — and the scale on the plate tells you, honestly, how far you came.

There are two rules so far, and they are opposites. One follows borders and does not care where the water goes. The other follows water and does not draw a single border. Run both over the same ground and children notice the disagreement on their own, which is the entire lesson — so each place below has one of each.

Zürich

Ending in the twelve Kreise, either side of the Limmat.

Follow the borders

World to continent to country to canton to city district

  1. Level 1
    The World7 pieces1 mm ≈ 157 km
  2. Level 2
    Europe45 pieces1 mm ≈ 24.7 km
  3. Level 3
    Switzerland23 pieces1 mm ≈ 1.5 km
  4. Level 4
    Canton Zürich12 pieces1 mm ≈ 305 m
  5. Level 5
    Zürich City12 pieces1 mm ≈ 81 m

Follow the water

The Rhine down to the river that runs through Zürich

  1. Level 1
    The Rhine22 pieces1 mm ≈ 3.4 km
  2. Level 2
    The Aare15 pieces1 mm ≈ 1.1 km
  3. Level 3
    The Limmat15 pieces1 mm ≈ 517 m

Watch the scale along each row: from tens of kilometres per millimetre down to a hundred or so metres. Every plate is re-cut from the source data at its own scale rather than enlarged, so the last is as detailed as the first. Both routes together are 8 plates.

Black Mountain

Ending in one Appalachian valley in western North Carolina.

Follow the borders

World to continent to country to state to township

  1. Level 1
    The World7 pieces1 mm ≈ 157 km
  2. Level 2
    North America19 pieces1 mm ≈ 49.3 km
  3. Level 3
    The United States50 pieces1 mm ≈ 20.1 km
  4. Level 4
    North Carolina16 pieces1 mm ≈ 3.4 km
  5. Level 5
    Land of Sky43 pieces1 mm ≈ 522 m
  6. Level 6
    Black Mountain4 pieces1 mm ≈ 87 m

Follow the water

A continent to one creek, cut by ridge lines with no borders

  1. Level 1
    North America by River29 pieces1 mm ≈ 49.4 km
  2. Level 2
    The Mississippi15 pieces1 mm ≈ 14.5 km
  3. Level 3
    The Ohio18 pieces1 mm ≈ 5.8 km
  4. Level 4
    The Tennessee17 pieces1 mm ≈ 2.8 km
  5. Level 5
    The French Broad17 pieces1 mm ≈ 976 m
  6. Level 6
    The Swannanoa15 pieces1 mm ≈ 163 m

Watch the scale along each row: from tens of kilometres per millimetre down to a hundred or so metres. Every plate is re-cut from the source data at its own scale rather than enlarged, so the last is as detailed as the first. Both routes together are 12 plates.

The North America plate and the Mississippi watershed plate side by side, both with their pieces removed
Two levels of one descent: the continent, and one river's whole territory inside it.