The Danish Broadcasting Corporation reports that Simon Kokkendorf and Thorbjørn Nielsen of Geodatastyrelsen, the Danish Geodata Agency, recreated Denmark at a 1:1 scale inside Minecraft. This was accomplished by using public data about roads, buildings, elevation models and so on. The two disabled dynamite and enemies in order to protect the virtual landscape from serious damage.
"This means that all of Denmark is now a virtual world in the ratio 1:1 inside the Minecraft," the mod's description reads. Thus you can freely move around in Denmark, find your own residential area, to build and tear down as you can in whichever any other Minecraft world."
The Danish Geodata Agency's FAQ for the map reveals that the agency wants to bring spatial data to more locations, and get children and teachers interested in the technology. The servers hosting the map are only temporary, and chunks of the map will be available at a later date. The information used to create the virtual Denmark can be found here.
Danish residents, who have access to the map, are encouraged to freely move about the virtual country, find their residential area, and do what Minecraft gamers love to do best: build and tear down. The government wants this map to be used as an educational tool, allowing students to visit hard-to-reach parts of the country.
The overall map of Denmark is so detailed that it had to be split into three separate maps. Minecraft players can check out the maps by logging into the Danish government's servers, but there can only be 70 simultaneous players connecting to each server, so good luck in trying to log on. If you do, you're free to build and destroy… for now, at least. These servers will operate until October 23, 2014.
Want to check out virtual Denmark in private? Sign up at the country's Map Supply site right here.
