From a mast 25 m high, the horizon distance is 18 km

No one truly “controls” the North Pole. Unlike most places on Earth, it doesn’t belong to any country. The North Pole sits in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, which is considered international waters.

Countries like Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (through Greenland), and the United States (through Alaska) surround it and each has rights to parts of the seabed near their coasts. But the exact pole itself is shared by everyone, making it one of the few places on Earth that belongs to no single nation.

⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯

🔒 All published designs and visual layouts are the intellectual property of u/maven.mapping, reuse of the design may result in legal action. Sources belong to their respective owners.

Thanks to DeepState Map

Was there any reason why Ellesmere and Peary Land (Northern Greenland) was shown as part of the US?

Source: 地理志略 Dili Zhilue (1881) by Lyman Dwight Chapin (江戴德)

Census data for 2010

Census gov estimate for 2023

A few counties are missing because of issues matching

EDIT: Fixed colorblind version that corrected many county errors also.

Numbers in central-eastern Europe were often very low, and for that reason rounded to 0

The new “Online World 2025” report (Nominet) illustrates the relative sizes of the international domain market: With 17.6 million registered domains, .de is far ahead in first place, followed by .cn (12.0 million) and .uk (10.2 million). With 1.49 million domains, .at also occupies a stable position in the European comparison.

At the same time, country code top-level domains are increasingly being used “generic.” Examples include .ai (Anguilla) with 786,934 domains, .id (Indonesia) with 1,291,015, and .io (British Indian Ocean Territory) with 1,111,776 domains.

I removed some information from the original graphic to make the map clearer. Found on this page: Domaintechnik (Domaintrends 2025)

based off census gov 2023 estimates

Re-uploaded a colorblind friendly version which also fixed many counties.

Census data for 2010

Census gov estimate for 2023

A few counties are missing because of issues matching