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How the paper model is made
Real shape, few faces
The land is turned into triangles where it matters most: each new corner goes where the model is furthest from the real ground, so peaks and valleys come first. Easy keeps it to about 35 big triangles; Hard has every ridge.
Flat pieces that fold back
The solid is unfolded into pieces that never overlap and always fit the page. Every cut edge has exactly one glue tab, both sides carry the same number, and blue and red fold lines tell you which way each crease goes.
Paper cities
Buildings that touch become one block, outlines are simplified to a few walls, and the biggest become fold-up boxes at their real height. The rest are printed on the street map, with a numbered outline where each paper building stands.
For classrooms
Colour it in prints outlines and contour lines to colour by hand. Build a volcano or the local hills to see how contour lines become a landscape, or a town centre for a lesson on maps and plans.
Elevation: Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (© DLR e.V. & Airbus) and Mapzen Terrain Tiles on AWS. Satellite colours: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. Water, roads, land cover and buildings: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); building heights also from Overture Maps. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. Have a 3D printer? Open the TerraPrinter app, make layered contour models to laser cut, or see more 3D map gift ideas.