Ordnance Survey, which is the national mapping agency for Great Britain and one of the largest producers of maps in the world, has decided to recreate mainland Great Britain Minecraft. In an interview with Gamasutra, Gemma Nelson revealed that the Ordnance Survey Labs team has been “exploring the possibilities of new ideas for the OS OpenData system“. Then, a summer intern Joseph Braybrook mentioned that they could build the map in Minecraft. She went on to say:

“We discovered he (Joseph Braybrook) was an avid Minecraft fan and we decided to explore the potential educational benefits of the popular video game. We decided to build a Minecraft world using free-to-use OS OpenData products to display the landscape and terrain of Great Britain.”

“We do think there is potential for use in education and have already seen a number of geography teachers and parents discussing this on social media this morning. We haven’t explored this any further as yet, but it’s certainly of interest to our Education team.”

It is quite an awesome undertaking, the Minecraft world consists of more than 22 billion blocks which represent over 220,000 square kilometres Great Britain and is around 3.6 GB to download. If you feel like checking this out, then head over to the Ordnance Survey website for more information and a download link.

What do you think about this Minecraft map? A great undertaking? Or a waste of time?