Various interpretations of world maps built with LEGO bricks

The World Map mosaic released by the designers at LEGO was clearly a winner with the constant hits to our servers on our review of the set. Having said that there was quite a bit of chatter in the forums on the decision to go with a white continent while the oceans had topography details. What if it was reversed with a bit of creativity thrown in? Lysander’s Stud Studio took that very step and depicted the national flags of the country as best as possible and leaving the wide oceans a consistent blue.

LEGO World Map

I personally think there isn’t a right or wrong answer, but it all depends on your preferences and perspectives of what appeals to you.

LEGO World Map

The idea of a World Map isn’t new and has been attempted at a similar scale by dirkb86 (dirksbricks) back in 1997.

dirks LEGO world map 1 front view

Dirk’s choice of design not only depicted depth by colour but also via physical elevation for both the ocean and land masses giving it a nice textured look.

dirks LEGO world map 18 closeup south america

You can build what you fancy, as long as you have all the bricks on hand, which can be expensive to source in quantity. This other design by Reddit user GooseWithDaGibus is built with more earthly tones.

GooseWithDaGibus also takes the approach of adding depth by stacking bricks on top of each other.

Builds of world maps is not a new idea and I’m sure we’ve seen many of these along the years and variations from creative builders out there and among those are is LEGO’s own map design found on their corporate pages which have a more playful tone.

If you’re ever in a LEGO office, I’m pretty sure you can spot a world map splashed on the wall somewhere if you’re lucky enough. This particular photo was taken in the LEGO Singapore office located at South Beach Tower. Human being shown for scale.

All things said, my favourite world map design is one that I can carry in my pocket which is another wonderful creation by dirkb86.

LEGO micro world map - view 2

4 comments on “Various interpretations of world maps built with LEGO bricks

  1. Gregory delacroix

    On the bright side, we can see that the Lego company is not all about making money as a lot believe. If the company was as greedy as many say, they would have build models as those above.

    Instead od naming the map Lego Art, they could gave renamed the rendition Lego Education.

  2. Johnny Johnson

    Disingenuous or uninformed to say that any of these are similar in scale to the LEGO art version. Let’s look at some staaaaaats!

    LEGO uses 40 of the 16×16-stud squares, forming an image that is 10,240 studs in size.

    Lysander uses 144 of the 16×16-stud squares, forming an image that is 36,864 studs in size.

    Dirks-bricks uses 72 of the 16×16-stud squares, forming an image that is 18,432 studs in size.

    GooseWithDaGibus used the LEGO version as a template, ergo it actually IS the same size! This is the one you should’ve said is the same size!

    Well, that’s it. I think there’s probably a point to be made about LEGO not wanting their map set to cost 2 or even 4 times as much as it already does. Aesthetically, everyone already knows if they like it or not in comparison to something in olive drab camouflage colors. I’m not even going to touch on the dimensions of the other ones, haha. The one from LEGO’s website doesn’t look good, and the one from their Singapore office is obviously massive (But very cool). And the miniature map is something I wouldn’t recognize AS a map in any other context.

  3. Ed

    Custom world maps would be much cheaper if the backplates came in blue instead of black.

Comments are closed.