Cartographers have spent centuries solving one quiet problem: how to put thousands of names on a map so they never overlap. It is a known NP-hard problem in computational geometry, and the elegant answer is to let the labels push each other apart until they settle into a balanced layout. Place Map turns that algorithm into something you can touch — a living map where the names of the world arrange themselves like a flock.
An interactive world map drawn entirely from place names — no coastlines, no country borders, just the words for the cities, mountains, deserts, seas, rivers, islands and lakes you know. Zoom into a region, search for a place, or dim whole categories to reveal the structure hidden beneath the labels.
Every place has a real geographic coordinate, projected onto a canvas using the equirectangular (plate carrée) projection — the simplest world map, where one degree of longitude equals one degree of latitude. On top of that, a physics engine treats each name as a soft circle with its true position as an anchor. Each frame the labels repel one another (resolving collisions) while a spring gently pulls them back to their geographic spot. The balance produces a natural, readable layout that adapts as you zoom or filter.