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R2 CDN — maps.worldmonitor.app

All large static map files are served from Cloudflare R2, not from Vercel. The R2 bucket worldmonitor-maps is fronted by a CF-proxied custom domain:
URLUse
https://maps.worldmonitor.app/<file>Production URL (CF-proxied, cached, CORS headers)
https://pub-8ace9f6a86d74cb2bd5eb1de5590dd9e.r2.dev/<file>Raw R2 — never use in code (no CF caching, no CORS)

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Why R2 instead of Vercel?

  • Cloudflare bandwidth is free; Vercel charges per GB at scale
  • CF Cache Rules cache /data/, /assets/, /textures/ etc. for 30 days at edge
  • Large files (GeoJSON, PMTiles) don’t bloat the Vercel deployment

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Files on R2

FileSizePurpose
countries.geojson~210 KBBase country polygons (ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 coded)
country-boundary-overrides.geojson~600 KBHigher-resolution Natural Earth boundary overrides
*.pmtiles~80 GBSelf-hosted vector map tiles (when VITE_PMTILES_URL is set)

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Uploading to R2

# Single file
rclone copyto <local-path> r2:worldmonitor-maps/<filename>

# rclone config note: set no_check_bucket = true (token lacks CreateBucket permission)

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CORS

R2 does not support wildcard subdomains (https://*.example.com). Each origin must be listed explicitly in the CORS rules. Use r2 bucket cors set or direct curl -X PUT to the R2 API (Wrangler 4.31 may fail with “not well formed”).

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Country Geometry Service

File: src/services/country-geometry.ts This service provides all country-level geocoding: point-in-polygon lookups, ISO code resolution, name matching, bounding boxes, and centroids. It loads country boundaries once on first use and indexes them for fast queries.

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Data Flow

countries.geojson (/data/)  ──►  Parse & Index (rebuildCountryIndex)  ──►  countryIndex Map
                                        │
country-boundary-overrides.geojson      │
  (R2 CDN, 3s timeout)     ──►  applyCountryGeometryOverrides  ──►  replace matching polygons
  1. countries.geojson — base polygons with ISO codes and names, served from /data/ (Vercel)
  2. country-boundary-overrides.geojson — optional higher-resolution polygons from Natural Earth, served from R2 CDN (maps.worldmonitor.app). Features matched by ISO3166-1-Alpha-2 (or ISO_A2) code; matching features replace the base geometry
  3. Base file loads first and the country index is built immediately (service becomes usable). Override file is fetched afterward with a 3-second timeout — failures are silently ignored. Override lookup uses a Map&lt;code, Feature&gt; for O(1) matching

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Indexed Data Structures

StructureKeyPurpose
countryIndexISO-2 codeFull geometry + bbox for point-in-polygon
iso3ToIso2ISO-3 codeAlpha-3 → Alpha-2 conversion
nameToIso2lowercase nameCountry name → Alpha-2 lookup
codeToNameISO-2 codeCode → display name
sortedCountryNames—Regex matchers sorted by name length (longest first) for text extraction

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Key Exports

FunctionPurpose
preloadCountryGeometry()Trigger early loading (call at app startup)
getCountryAtCoordinates(lat, lon)Point-in-polygon → country code + name
isCoordinateInCountry(lat, lon, code)Check if point is inside a specific country
getCountryNameByCode(code)ISO-2 → display name
iso3ToIso2Code(iso3)ISO-3 → ISO-2
nameToCountryCode(text)Exact name match → ISO-2
matchCountryNamesInText(text)Extract all country names from free text
getCountryBbox(code)Bounding box [minLon, minLat, maxLon, maxLat]
getCountryCentroid(code)Bbox center, with optional fallback bounds
resolveCountryFromBounds(lat, lon, bounds)Resolve overlapping bounding-box regions using geometry

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Name Aliases

Common alternate names are mapped in NAME_ALIASES: 
'dr congo' → CD, 'czech republic' → CZ, 'uae' → AE, 'uk' → GB, 'usa' → US, ...

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Political Overrides

POLITICAL_OVERRIDES maps sub-national codes to sovereign codes where the app treats them as separate entities (e.g., CN-TW → TW).

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Country Boundary Overrides

The override mechanism lets us improve individual country boundaries without replacing the entire countries.geojson. This is the foundation for addressing disputed borders (see #1044).

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How It Works

  1. After loading base countries.geojson, the app fetches country-boundary-overrides.geojson from R2 CDN with a 3-second timeout
  2. For each feature in the override file, it matches the country in countries.geojson by ISO Alpha-2 code (using a Map for O(1) lookup)
  3. The override geometry replaces the base geometry (both in the raw GeoJSON used for map rendering and in the indexed point-in-polygon data)
  4. The override file can contain any number of countries — only matching codes are applied

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Adding a New Country Override

  1. Source the boundary from Natural Earth 50m Admin 0 (depicts de facto boundaries — actual territorial control — not diplomatic claims)
  2. Extract the country feature by ISO code and save as GeoJSON
  3. Merge into or replace country-boundary-overrides.geojson
  4. Upload to R2: 
    rclone copyto public/data/country-boundary-overrides.geojson r2:worldmonitor-maps/country-boundary-overrides.geojson
  5. No code changes needed — the app picks up the new geometry automatically
Example script: scripts/fetch-pakistan-boundary-override.mjs downloads the full Natural Earth 50m dataset (~24 MB), extracts Pakistan’s feature, and writes the override file.

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Geopolitical Sensitivity

  • Natural Earth shows de facto boundaries (who actually controls the territory), not diplomatic claims
  • This is the same standard used by most mapping platforms
  • When adding overrides for disputed territories, document the source and rationale in the PR description
  • The override system does not add or remove territory — it replaces low-resolution outlines with higher-resolution ones from the same authoritative source

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Fallback Bounds

For regions where full polygon geometry may not be loaded, ME_STRIKE_BOUNDS in country-geometry.ts provides rectangular bounding boxes for Middle Eastern countries. resolveCountryFromBounds() uses these as a fast first pass, falling back to precise point-in-polygon when multiple bounding boxes overlap.

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Basemap Tiles

Basemap tile configuration lives in src/config/basemap.ts. See Map Engine for full details on tile providers (PMTiles, OpenFreeMap, CARTO), themes, and fallback behavior. PMTiles are also served from R2 via maps.worldmonitor.app, configured through VITE_PMTILES_URL.

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Common Mistakes

MistakeFix
Using pub-*.r2.dev URLs in codeAlways use maps.worldmonitor.app (CF-proxied)
Serving large GeoJSON from VercelUpload to R2 — Vercel bandwidth is expensive at scale
Fetching overrides without a timeoutAlways use AbortSignal.timeout — override CDN may be slow or down
Forgetting POLITICAL_OVERRIDESCheck if the country code needs mapping (e.g., CN-TW → TW)
Adding aliases without checking existingCheck NAME_ALIASES and nameToIso2 map first
Using projection([lon, lat]) without NaN guardd3 projections can return [NaN, NaN] (truthy) — always check with Number.isFinite()