The United States of America (USA) is 250-years old today. The country is now nearly post-geriatric (joining only a few other countries for sticking around this long, such as the Swiss). I would argue its foundational institutions are showing some joint wear recently; others might be forgiven if they opined the country has not entered terminal dementia status.
I would argue… but that’s not why I’m here today. Today I’m posting a map for US Independence Day.
If there are two things I’ve noticed observing teenage Americans, it’s that many are completely naive to the larger world around them aside from what they see on formerly PRC-controlled TikTok or tech-bro-controlled US social-media feeds, which means… they have a more warped and bias perspective of the world than LLM you’ll meet. And they often don’t know much about the US either – more on that toward the end.
But first, because I can’t help but digress… It truly vexes me that in all the discussions I see online about the dangers of LLMs increasing and promoting hidden biases, few if anyone has had the guts to confess that their children and many citizens are no different than the LLMs.
Our kids consume our biases – heck, they are essentially preprogrammed by us through mimicry at a young age and are then funneled institutional and corporate bias non-stop as soon as they are exposed to any type of media. (And yes, that includes Sesame Street. Puppet idolatry is a real thing!) Once teenagers are exposed to social media, your kids essentially turn into sponges soaking up a surfeit of garbage data and all the inherent biases gazzillionaires and pseudo-intellectuals provide. In turn, like trusty LLM agents, they spread a ton of their teen hallucinations to their peers.
I guess what I’m saying is: it may behoove all of us to think a bit more critically before we go around criticizing LLMs for doing things we have been doing ourselves as a species since the beginning of time. Hallucinating… you should listen to my niece spread rumors about Bill Gates dropping poisonous ticks from airplanes at a family reunion… After all, she “researched it” on YouTube.
So let’s “stop othering LLMs!”
(Very tempting to create t-shirts to hand out at conferences.)
LLMs are a silicone reflection of us as a species – based on a very large, though not complete, sample size. And we our species offers us a lot of warts to look at.
Now that this is out of the way…
Alas, fortunately today is US independence day, not national reflection day.
And to celebrate, today I have two things to share – one a map app and one a geography/fact trivia game!
Why two?
Well, at first, I thought I’d make a quiz app about the US and its ranking in the world. I did create it, actually. That was the initial post and I’m retaining it below – a US trivia by guessing sort of game.
But then I realized, there wasn’t even a real map in the game. I had asked for a simple animated one in the original prompt and I could have spent several more prompts updating it, but I was trying a new tool instead of WebMapGPT, and well… if you see the map, you’ll understand why I thought: this isn’t going to cut it.
So instead… I created another web app – one hopefully useful for the teenagers I come across naive to the world and US. (Though, I really do think the kids will be alright; their thinking is just alien to me.)
Exhibit A: one of my daughters is really NOT into geography. (I kind of applaud her for being different from her parents. That’s not easy!)
So she hasn’t even bothered learning all the states and capitals yet. (I swear this is partially to terrorize her parents.)
It’s summer; it’s independence day. After seeing the map in the first app, I figured:
Why not create an app and game where she can learn them by the end of the summer?
So today, I also produced a video game map called, wait for it… “The US States and Capitals Game.”
I know… the title?! I’m running out of steam, though. I have to get some sleep before I make tomorrow’s map! 🙂 I an add a new name in the future.
The US States and Capitals Game
Play the game here
States and Capitals Original Prompt
I have created a dataset with state facts. I would like to create a map-based game for grade-schoolers and middle-schoolers called: “50 Nifty”. The goal is to teach students facts (very low on Bloom’s Taxonomy, but that’s okay) about different states.
There will be different games they can pick from. I would like you to look at the dataset and come up with some ideas that I may have missed, and no matter what, I’d like this app to built so it’s scalable.
Mandatory Game PoC:
– States and Capitals: a state is highlighted on an Albers equal area projection of the coterminous US with Alaska and Hawaii in the lower left under CA, AZ, and NM. After a second for contextualization, the map will zoom to the state so it fills much of the display. Six state names are shown on buttons at the bottom of the screen in random order, with one being the state being shown. The student must guess.
If they click the correct state, a “ta-da” sound plays, the state fills with a solid “completed” color and a small star symbol appears on the map where the state capital is (this is probably best achieved with a state capitals point dataset?), and four capital city names are shown on the bottom of the screen in random order (one being correct). When they click the correct one a “ta-da” sound plays – all the ta-da sounds should be the same and should roughly mimic the energy and tone of the Duolingo sound when you get something right, please – the star fills in with a prominent dark color (the same for all completed capitals) and the map zooms out to show the entire US again. Then, after a one or two second pause, the map zooms in to a state that has not yet been passed.
When a user guesses the wrong state name, play an empathetic bouncy noise that grade schoolers and middle-schoolers would like, not a buzz or anything… we want positive reinforcement! 🙂
Then show the state name and a random fact about it (not about the prison, though): e.g., the state bird, state flower, or perhaps the name of the largest city, or the state’s total population… etc. Random every time. Then zoom back out to the US and pause a second or two before zooming in on another random state. When a student misses a state, unless there are no other states left to randomly select, do not select that state again until at least six other states have been shown.
Once a state is filled in, the student is half done with the state. If they miss the capital city name, they aren’t completely done, however. You will eventually need to return to the state, and the student will have to pick the correct name again, and then they can be shown the capital city star again and try to answer that correctly.
Once the student has solved both a state’s name and its capital name, the state is considered completed and will never be randomly selected again. It is filled in. States that have not yet been identified remain a lighter color (pick a cool, modern, and kid friendly color aesthetic for this game). States where the student has successfully solved the state name but not the capital should be a color value between the lighter (not passed) and (passed states).
When the student completes all 50 states and capitals, I would like applause to and cheering to play and a big “Congratulations! You now know all the 50 Nifty States and Capitals!”
Add a share button and when clicked pop up a modal with the following share links to Instagram | Facebook | Snap | X | Bsky | LinkedIN | Copy. Also add a Cancel button. Once they close this modal or hit Cancel, show the opening splash screen (described below) again, please.
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Be sure to use a state geometry set that exludes the great lakes, please.
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Please design the game to look like a modern, mobile game. It should work on mobile devices first and foremost, as that is what kids use, as well as on Chromebooks without stuff going below the fold in teh browser window. Portrait mode is a must.
The capitals should only appear on the map when the states are zoomed in on, not on the national map.
Give the app an opening splash screen 50 Nifty (in a Day) and a subtitle “Ace that states and capitals test tomorrow morning!”
Underneath, have a button “How to Play” that opens a modal (wiht a close button in the upper-right) that explains how to play the game and how it works with a button to start the game at the bottom that will start it.
Next to the “How to Play” on the Splash Screen have a button that says “Play”, which will remove the splash screen and begin the game by showing the US and zooming in on a random state.
Add a third button called “Race the States”. When a user clicks this button, the game plays almost as normal, but instead they have 150 seconds to race through all the states and capitals. This version does not zoom across the map but instantly shows a zoomed in on state with its capital already showing. They must select the correct state, then capital, and then another random state (that they haven’t yet solved the state name and capital name for) is shown. They don’t have to wait for the zoom in and out. It’s a speed game. If they don’t solve it within 150 seconds, they get some optimistic, try again short music bit and they are shown the splash screen again.
Include an About modal and mention the game was created using WebMapGPT by Copyright 2026, Ian Muehlenhaus. Provide links to both webmapgpt.com and muehlenhaus.com.
In here please provide a list to the dataset CSV (for educators) and mention that the map used whatever geojson files were found and used to create the map, as well as D3, etc. Do not mention aything else that you normallyl do This will be an app for school kids to learn from, not a bonafide map.
Thank you! If you have any additional questions before you begin, please let me know!
Completed with two prompts total. Original and revision. Done. Woohoo! I love prompt cartography!
USA Facts Game
If you have ever played any of the Wits & Wagers board games, it should feel familiar to you.
The premise is simple and can be played by anyone in the world. You don’t actually need to know facts about the US to play or do well; it’s all about common sense and conventional wisdom.
Turn-by-turn, you will be presented with a statement with a missing phrase or a fact about the US, along with four four (not necessarily correct) “answers” to choose from. Important: these aren’t necessarily the correct answer, just random answers that surveyed people have given.
Example
“The United States is the ______ most visited country in the world by non-domestic tourists.”
Answer options: | second | sixth | thirteenth | twenty-first |
Your goal is to pick the value, of the four given, that is higher than the actual answer but closest to it.
Again, you want to be higher than the actual answer, because most of the facts are about rankings, and lower rankings are higher numbers.
Once you’ve selected which one you think is closest and higher, the answer will be shown.
Also important to note again: there is a great chance that none of the answers shown are correct. Your goal is to pick the answer closest to the factual answer that is higher.
If the answer to the above question was truthfully “fourth”, then you would score if you had picked “sixth”, because you didn’t overestimate the US ranking and picked the closest answer that is higher.
Keep going until you miss three times.
Every time you get one correct, you will score two points. Every time you get one wrong, you get minus-one point.
Also, please post your scores on social media and share the site to help celebrate and diffuse factual knowledge about the United States of America on its 250th Birthday!
P.S. Cousin Allie: I finally made a game that isn’t so hard it’s impossible to play. I listened to you at the family reunion. 🙂 Thanks for playing!
Important Note
Though this game was tangentially inspired by the board game, this map and all affiliated websites and maps have no affiliation with Wits & Wagers and merely shares a similar game mechanic. This map is not affiliated with that board game in anyway.
View Geography Quiz Game Here
Codex Agent Prompt (I’m experimenting with agent building in OpenAI Codex… mapmaking is not its strength)
The United States of America (USA) is 250-years old today.
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View map here
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