The Po

The Alps and the Apennines, draining to one plain

The Po basin is a trough with mountains on three sides, and that is exactly how it feels in the hand: white Alpine pieces along the north and west, the lower Apennine pieces to the south, and the flat plain between them where nearly all of northern Italy's agriculture and industry sits. The great lake tributaries — Ticino out of Maggiore, Adda out of Como — arrive from the north as long pieces with a lake printed into them.

What a child works out

• A plain is what mountains on two sides produce.
• Italy's lakes are steps in a river, not isolated pools.
• The wettest ground and the flattest ground are next to each other for a reason.

The plate

Pieces

15 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 ≈ 2.0 km

How much ground one millimetre of plate covers.

Vertical exaggeration

× 1.65

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

Thickness

8.8 mm

Smallest piece

124 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

• Adda
• Adige
• Dora Baltea
• Oglio
• Sesia
• Tanaro
• Ticino