Nine sheets from one page: the US states, the countries of the world, or the continents, each as a blank outline, a labelled reference, or a numbered quiz with its answer key. Each is drawn at true page size in your browser, with no watermark and nothing to sign up for.
How this generator works
The outlines are drawn from real boundary data. Three public-domain sources are read once at build time: the US Census Bureau's 2023 cartographic boundary file for the states, at 1:20,000,000, and two Natural Earth datasets at 1:110,000,000 for the world's countries and its coastlines. They are projected, simplified to the detail a printed sheet can resolve, and stored as path geometry in this page, so the sheets suit teaching and are too coarse for surveying. The US set is the 50 states and the District of Columbia; Puerto Rico and the other four territories are left out. The boundaries are a snapshot of the data editions named in the provenance file, so a very recent boundary or name change may not be reflected. Nothing is fetched while you use it and nothing is uploaded; the sheet you see is drawn from numbers already here.
On the US sheet an equal-area projection keeps the states at their relative sizes, and the conventional insets hold Alaska and Hawaii. That composite is the classroom US map; drawing the country as it truly sits would put Alaska across the whole sheet. The world sheets use Robinson because it keeps continent shapes recognisable. Each sheet is then fitted to the printable area of the paper in true millimetres, and the print page size is set to match, so the browser has nothing left to scale.
The page places each label by comparing areas: a name goes inside its shape only if the drawn area of that shape is several times the area of the text box. A US state too small for its name gets its two-letter code if that fits. The rest run out to a column in the margin on leader lines, stacked in the same order as the shapes so the lines cannot cross. Once the column is full, the names left over go unprinted: the world map has 175 countries, far more than one margin column holds, so the labelled world sheet leaves many small countries unnamed, and the numbered variant with its key covers every one. The split changes with paper size and orientation, and the Labels readout reports it for the sheet you are looking at.
Frequently asked questions
Which maps can this print?
Nine sheets: three subjects, each in three variants, all from this one page. The subjects are the United States as its 50 states plus the District of Columbia, the world as its countries, and the world as its continents. The variants are blank, which is outline only and is what you want for colouring or for a test; labelled, which prints the names; and answer key, which numbers every shape and prints a numbered list on the following page. The page draws each sheet when you ask for it, so changing the paper size or orientation redraws whichever one you are looking at.
Why are some names on lines out in the margin?
Those names do not fit inside their own shapes at a size anyone can read. Rhode Island on a Letter sheet is a few millimetres across, and printing its name inside it means type too small to survive an inkjet. So the page measures each label against the drawn area of its shape, keeps the ones that fit, and sends others out to a column in the margin on leader lines. The readout tells you how the split came out. The lines cannot cross each other, because the labels are stacked in the same top-to-bottom order as the shapes they point at. Choosing landscape moves more names back onto the map.
Is the map accurate, and which projections are these?
The outlines come from public-domain government and Natural Earth data, listed with their sources beside this page. The US sheet is an Albers equal-area conic projection on the standard parallels, with Alaska and Hawaii moved into the insets every classroom map uses. Alaska is drawn at about a third of its real scale, so the sheet is not area-true between those insets and the lower 48. The world and continent sheets are Robinson, the projection wall maps use. Antarctica is left off both: on Robinson it stretches into a band across the whole bottom edge that no classroom exercise uses, and it would cost a fifth of the sheet.
Will it print at the right size?
Yes, as long as the print dialog does not rescale it. The sheet is drawn in true millimetres for the paper named in the Sheet readout, and the page sets the print page size to match, so the map fills the printable area of that sheet exactly. In the print dialog, choose 100 percent or Actual size; Fit to page shifts everything by a few percent. Download PDF runs a small PDF writer in your own browser; nothing is uploaded either way. Save as PDF in the print dialog is your browser writing the file, which is why there is no watermark on it.
Can I use these in my classroom or my worksheets?
Yes. The underlying boundary data is public domain (a US Census cartographic boundary file and two Natural Earth datasets), and the sheets this page draws from it carry no restriction from us. Print a class set, put them in a worksheet, mark them up.
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