The printed plate
Mountains to coast on one plate.
North Carolina
Sixteen regions, mountains to barrier islands
▶ Play it onlineFew places pack so much change into one state outline. The western pieces are Appalachian, folded and steep; the middle is Piedmont, rolling and worn; the east is coastal plain, so flat the relief nearly disappears, ending in the thin sand of the barrier islands. Laid out in order the pieces read as a cross-section of the whole Appalachian story from summit to sea. The Land of Sky piece, around Asheville, is the subject of its own puzzle.
What a child works out
- Mountains, hills and plain in one state, in that order, west to east.
- Old mountains are round; young mountains are sharp.
- The coast is a moving line made of sand.
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 North Carolina.
The plate
- Pieces
- 16 pieces
- Plate
- 250 × 176 mm
- Scale
- 1 mm ≈ 3.4 km
- Vertical exaggeration
- × 6.87
- Thickness
- 8.8 mm
- Smallest piece
- 357 mm²
- Fit
- 0.3 mm clearance
- Material
- PLA, printed in Switzerland
B5 — the size of a school exercise book.
How much ground one millimetre of plate covers.
Height is stretched by this factor so the relief is readable at desk size.
Nothing is cut smaller than a child can pick up.
Printed in place, so every piece seats first time without sanding.
Every named piece
- Albemarle
- Cape Fear
- Centralina
- Eastern Carolina
- High Country
- Isothermal
- Kerr Tar
- Land of Sky
- Lumber River
- Mid Carolina
- Mid East
- Piedmont Triad
- Southwestern
- Triangle J
- Upper Coastal Plain
- Western Piedmont
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 borders — World to continent to country to state to township
More from Countries & States
See all →
Europe
Forty-five countries at real elevation
The political map, printed on the terrain it was drawn over. Forty-five pieces, from Andorra to Russia's western edge.
- Pieces
- 29 pieces
- Scale
- 1 mm ≈ 24.7 km
- Suitable for
- Ages 6 and up
- Price
- CHF 15.00
The United States
The lower forty-eight, and two pieces you would not expect
Fifty pieces. The straight western borders and the crooked eastern ones, over the ground that explains both.
- Pieces
- 46 pieces
- Scale
- 1 mm ≈ 20.1 km
- Suitable for
- Ages 6 and up
- Price
- CHF 15.00
North America
Nineteen countries, Panama to the Arctic
The continent as countries — including the Caribbean islands that are usually too small to cut.
- Pieces
- 6 pieces
- Scale
- 1 mm ≈ 49.3 km
- Suitable for
- Ages 6 and up
- Price
- CHF 15.00