Minecraft gamers to experience new detailed world of Great Britain

Ordnance Survey (OS) has attempted to break a world record by creating the largest real-world place to ever exist in Minecraft.

Inspired by the new A Minecraft Movie, the incredibly detailed representation of Britain, with all its surrounding islands, was put together by the national mapping service using its own detailed mapping data.

This blocky version of Britain – accurately based on OS’s cartography – features motorways and roads, vegetation, meadows, dense ferns, forests, woodlands, lakes, rivers, sand beaches, railways and islands. From local neighbourhood streets to remote national parks, OS is bringing the country to life by putting data back on the map in the digital gaming space.

By bringing OS data into gaming, OS has created an interactive, realistic representation of Britain that brings geography and mapping to both younger generations, keen to explore and learn about these islands, and seasoned gamers.

Due to the extraordinary level of detail, accuracy and size of the world, OS decided to release 16 areas of Britain first to improve the gaming experience for players. London, Manchester, Cardiff, Ben Nevis, Cornwall, Isle of Wight, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Western Islands, Shetland Islands, Hampshire, Cumbria, Glasgow, Newcastle and Snowdonia all have co-ordinates for players to orientate themselves. Players can use the in-built game mapping features to create their own maps or find areas they want to build upon.

This new Minecraft world was developed by OS graduate and Minecraft enthusiast Jonathan Allsup, who created and processed the map at OS headquarters in Southampton.

Jonathan said: "Finding new, innovative ways to map and visualise our nation is what it’s all about when working for OS.

"The same principles of cartography apply here in game space as they do when making OS maps. Balancing map styling and our data’s capability is an art form.

"For this project, we strived to push our open data to the limits which is why it looks so realistic.

"Plus, the educational aspect to it is strong. Kids relate to this game. It’s still popular now and is a great way to communicate the idea of location data and geography.

"Playing and building on a Minecraft map of Britain is much more engaging than looking at PowerPoint presentations in a classroom."

This is the second time OS has built a world in Minecraft.

Back in 2014 it made the Guinness Book of Records for the largest real-world place in Minecraft containing 83 billion blocks that covered 86,500 square miles of landscape. It was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times by Minecraft fans.

That original version is dwarfed by the latest one. The new version is powered by OS OpenMap Local data and uses block sizes that are 15 metres squared, compared to the 25 metre squared blocks from 11 years ago. OS estimated this latest version exceeded over 100 billion blocks.

This world looks much more realistic, with more detailed vegetation, buildings in 3D, and sandy beaches among the improvements to the world’s visual quality.

Jonathan said: “The latest version is natural advancement in quality and size as more resources became available for this work which means everything looks so much better and more detailed than 10 years ago. We want this to be a resource for anyone to try. OS is an organisation founded on exploration and we encourage anyone to do to the same with these maps!”

Download OS Minecraft GB 25 for PC by visiting os.uk/minecraft.