Open Data Gives Rise to a Virtual Denmark In Minecraft

Since the US government opened its troves of public data we've seen some pretty neat projects like climate-change prediction tools and deforestation-monitoring systems. Denmark however, on the other however, has adopted an entirely different approach. The Danish Geodata Agency used internally developed topographic maps and elevation models to build an exact representation of the country that is the most happy within Minecraft's squishy confines. Contrary to the virtual Great Britain we've seen before this pixels-filled Denmark is much more than natural features like hills and forests. Books Ars Technica discovered that it also contains exact copies of major highways and landmarks. The idea behind the project was to show the country's open data initiative to students and educators However, anyone can look around until the Danish government's game servers were shut down in the latter part of October. The rules for servers, however, have been changed to block enemies and TNT -there are no Creeps allowed Naturally.