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The Mississippi relief puzzle, seen at an angle
Drag to turn, scroll or pinch to zoom.

The printed plate

The Mississippi watershed plate with its tributary basins removed, showing the river network printed on the red floor beneath

The basins lifted out. Every seam is a real drainage divide, so it only goes together one way.

13 piecesUnited States

The Mississippi

The basin that drains a third of a continent

▶ Play it online

Rain falling on a field in Montana and rain falling on a street in Pittsburgh both end up passing New Orleans. This puzzle is that fact as an object. The Missouri and the Ohio are the two largest pieces and they are startlingly different shapes: the Missouri long and dry and reaching for the Rockies, the Ohio compact, wet and folded into the Appalachians. The main stem is carved into the surface as a printed channel, so the assembled plate has the river running through it.

What a child works out

  • Tributaries are territories that fit together like a jigsaw, because that is exactly what they are.
  • Compare the Missouri and the Ohio: same river system, completely different country.
  • Follow one drop from the ridge to the sea.
CHF 15.00

A download, to print yourself

  • A .3mf file with the colours already assigned
  • One STL per piece, for any other slicer
  • A print guide with the settings and the order to print in
  • For your own use; the licence is in the download

What you need to print it

  • A build plate that takes 250 × 176 mm: the Bambu Lab A1, P1S and X1C (256 mm) do, the A1 mini (180 mm) does not
  • A multicolour setup such as an AMS, for the colours as designed

Printed it? Got an idea?

Send me photos of your print and I'll add them to this page — or tell me what you'd add, leave out or change on The Mississippi.

The plate

Pieces
13 pieces

7 named; the rest are sub-basins the source data leaves unnamed.

Plate
250 × 176 mm

B5 — the size of a school exercise book.

Scale
1 mm ≈ 14.5 km

How much ground one millimetre of plate covers.

Vertical exaggeration
× 13.92

Height is stretched by this factor so the relief is readable at desk size.

Thickness
8.8 mm
Smallest piece
103 mm²

Nothing is cut smaller than a child can pick up.

Fit
0.35 mm clearance

Printed in place, so every piece seats first time without sanding.

Material
PLA, printed in Switzerland

Every named piece

  • Arkansas
  • Illinois
  • Missouri
  • Ohio
  • Red
  • White
  • Yazoo

Zoom in, zoom out

A piece of each of these is the subject of the next one. Each plate is redrawn at its own scale, so it is a real map at every level rather than an enlargement of the one above.

Follow the water — A continent to one creek, cut by ridge lines with no borders

  1. Level 1
    North America by River1 mm ≈ 49.4 km
  2. Level 2
    The Mississippi1 mm ≈ 14.5 km
  3. Level 3
    The Ohio1 mm ≈ 5.8 km
  4. Level 4
    The Tennessee1 mm ≈ 2.8 km
  5. Level 5
    The French Broad1 mm ≈ 976 m
  6. Level 6
    The Swannanoa1 mm ≈ 163 m

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North America by River relief puzzle map, 29 pieces

North America by River

A continent divided only by where water goes

No countries, no states. Twenty-nine pieces, each one the whole territory that drains into a single river.

Pieces
29 pieces
Scale
1 mm ≈ 49.4 km
Suitable for
Ages 8 and up
Price
CHF 15.00
The Upper Mississippi relief puzzle map, 16 pieces

The Upper Mississippi

The river before the Missouri joins it

Twenty-one pieces — the Minnesota, the St Croix, the Wisconsin, the Des Moines, the Cedar — draining the northern half of the Mississippi.

Pieces
16 pieces
Scale
1 mm ≈ 4.7 km
Suitable for
Ages 8 and up
Price
CHF 15.00
The Ohio relief puzzle map, 14 pieces

The Ohio

Where the Appalachians drain west

Eighteen pieces: the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Allegheny, the Monongahela, the Wabash and the ridges between them.

Pieces
14 pieces
Scale
1 mm ≈ 5.8 km
Suitable for
Ages 8 and up
Price
CHF 15.00