MapToSTL
Country map to STL, free and online
Pick a country, get a 3D printable map. Download the STL or ready to print G-code.
Pick a country and generate
Elevation is sampled from public terrain tiles, clipped to the national border, and turned into a printable solid in your browser.
- Printed size
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- Relief
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- Grid
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- Triangles
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- Volume
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- Mesh
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Total printed height, base included, at 30x vertical exaggeration. At true scale a country is essentially flat: Sweden is 1 600 km wide and 2 km tall, so the mountains only become something you can feel once they are exaggerated.
Countries made of islands print as loose pieces without one. The plate joins them into a single part, and doubles as a stand for any country.
Advanced
Material under sea level, so coastal land is not printed as a skin.
Download
Prefer your own slicer? Take the STL and the .ini; it imports straight into PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer or Orca.
A free 3D map generator that runs in your browser
MapToSTL converts real elevation data into a 3D model of any country, ready for a 3D printer. Choose one of 241 countries, set how wide and how tall you want it, and the terrain is downloaded, clipped to the national border and turned into a watertight solid you can spin around before you download it. Island countries can sit on a base plate so they print as one part. There is no signup, no upload and no file size limit, because the whole conversion happens on your own machine.
- 241 countries
- ~30 m ground sampling
- STL + G-code downloads
- 0 supports needed
What happens when you press generate
The border becomes a stencil
Natural Earth polygons for the country are rasterised onto the sample grid with a scanline fill, so coastlines, lakes and enclaves all resolve in one pass. Anything outside is simply absent from the model.
Elevation tiles fill it in
Terrarium encoded terrain tiles are fetched at the zoom level that out-resolves your chosen detail setting, decoded to metres, and sampled bilinearly at each grid point inside the stencil.
It closes into a solid
A quad is emitted only where all four corners are inside the country, and walls drop to the build plate wherever a quad has no neighbour. The result is watertight and ends exactly at the border, which the mesh check in the datum block confirms before you download.
Slicing exploits the shape
Terrain is a heightfield, so every layer's cross-section is exactly where the surface rises above that Z. No plane-mesh intersection, no contour repair, no supports. That is why full G-code can be produced in a browser tab in a few seconds.
Questions
What does MapToSTL do?
MapToSTL is a free online converter that turns a country into a 3D printable map. You pick a country, it downloads real elevation data, clips it exactly to the national border and builds a solid 3D model in your browser. You download it as an STL file for any slicer, or as G-code that is ready to print.
Is it really free, and do I need an account?
Yes, it is free, and there is no account, no email and no watermark. Everything runs in your browser, so nothing you generate is uploaded anywhere.
What file formats can I download?
A binary STL file, which works in every slicer and 3D modelling program, and G-code tuned for PLA or ABS on a 0.4 mm nozzle. You can also download the matching .ini profile and slice the STL yourself in PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer or Orca.
Where does the elevation data come from?
AWS Terrain Tiles, a public domain merge of SRTM, NED, GMTED2010 and several national elevation datasets. Ground resolution is roughly 30 to 90 metres per sample depending on the region, far finer than a 3D printer can resolve at country scale.
Does the STL have a base plate under it?
Not unless you ask for one. By default the mesh is clipped exactly to the national border: terrain on top, a flat underside, and walls that follow the coastline, with lakes and enclaves cut out. Tick the base plate option and a solid slab of the thickness you choose runs under the whole map, which is what you want for a country made of islands.
How do I print a country made of islands?
Turn on the base plate. Indonesia, the Philippines, Greece and Japan are separate pieces of land, so without a plate they come out as loose islands scattered on the bed. The plate joins them into one part at the right relative positions, and you can set how thick it is. It also works as a display stand for any country.
Why is the terrain exaggerated?
At true scale, countries are flat. France is about 1,000 km across and 4.8 km tall at its highest point, so a 150 mm print would have 0.7 mm of relief across the whole of the Alps. Exaggeration between 20x and 60x is standard practice on physical relief models and is what makes the mountains readable.
Do I need supports to print it?
Never. Terrain is a heightfield, so every point on the model has material continuously beneath it. No overhangs, no bridges, no supports.
Which material should I use?
PLA for almost everything. These parts are wide and thin, the geometry ABS warps worst on, so only reach for ABS if you have an enclosure and need the heat resistance. The ABS profile adds a brim and holds the fan near 15% for that reason.
How long does one take to print?
A 140 mm model at default settings is typically 6 to 12 hours and 40 to 90 g of filament. The exact figures for your own settings appear on the G-code button once slicing finishes.
Can I sell prints made with MapToSTL?
The elevation data is public domain or CC-BY depending on the source region, and the borders come from Natural Earth, which is public domain. Attribution is appreciated. Check the licence terms for the specific region if you plan to sell commercially.