Tiny World Map

Tiny World Map is a map of the whole wide world condensed into a very small file size. It has been designed to be used offline and with low-bandwidth web apps. The whole map is only 300 kB gzipped and apparently it works on even "low-end decade-old phones, with no discernible lag".

The main reason that Tiny World Map is so small is because it isn't much of a map. As far as I can tell Tiny World Map consists almost entirely of a very low resolution country border layer, a layer of country placename labels, and the placename labels of the '10,000 most populous cities'. 

Of course using such course mapping data means that the map is not very accurate - for example if you zoom in on coastlines around the world you will start to notice that many city placename labels are displayed off the coast, suggesting that these cities are located somewhere under water. 

The map uses service workers which means that you don't have to download anything onto your phone in order to use the map when you are offline. You just need to visit Tiny World Map when you have internet access and the map should be cached so that you can then use the map even when you don't have access to an internet connection.

However I am struggling to think of a use-case for Tiny World Map. I can't think of an occasion when I might need a low resolution map which only contains country borders and the labels of the so-called 10,000 most populous cities in the world - even when I'm offline. 

The fact that I can't think of a use case for Tiny World Map doesn't mean that there isn't one. I've never understood the point of what3words and that's now a global multi-million dollar company.