Map & Methodology Credits
Reference page for the waitlist globe shown on the landing page.
Map data
The world map asset is simple-world-map (original artwork by Al MacDonald, edited by Fritz Lekschas). Country paths are annotated with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes.
- License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Source: github.com/flekschas/simple-world-map
The SVG is served unmodified at /waitlist-world-map.svg; runtime annotations (region groupings, active-state styling) are applied in the browser and do not alter the served file. No changes are redistributed under a different license.
What the globe actually shows
The map is driven by a single public Firestore document, stats/waitlist_public, which is maintained server-side by a Cloud Function and exposes:
- countriesCount — the number of distinct countries represented on the waitlist.
- activeCountries — the list of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes that have at least one signup (e.g.
["US", "IN", "IT", ...]). - signupsBucket — a coarse, rounded indicator of overall waitlist size, shown only in increments of 50 (e.g.
250, rendered as “250+ and counting”).
The underlying waiting_list/ collection itself is not publicly readable. Per-country counts and any personally identifying fields (name, email, institution) are never written to the public document and never reach the browser. Free-text country input is normalized server-side via an alias table that is not bundled with the frontend.
Region definitions
Asia is split into five sub-regions to give meaningful granularity for our user base. Other continents are kept at the top level. Edge-case country assignments follow UN M49 grouping where possible.
| Code | Region | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| NA | North America | Canada, United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean. |
| SA | South America | Brazil, Argentina, the Andean states, the Guianas. |
| EU | Europe | Includes Russia (population majority west of Urals) and Cyprus. |
| AF | Africa | All 54 African states. Egypt grouped here (Nile-valley majority). |
| EAS | East Asia | China, Japan, Korea (both), Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao. |
| SEA | Southeast Asia | ASEAN footprint: Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Timor-Leste. |
| SAS | South Asia | SAARC footprint: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan. |
| WAS | Middle East & Western Asia | Gulf states, Levant, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia). |
| CAS | Central Asia | Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. |
| OC | Oceania | Australia, New Zealand, Pacific island nations. |
| AN | Antarctica | Research stations only — no permanent population. |
Edge-case country assignments
- Russia (RU) → Europe (population majority west of the Urals)
- Turkey (TR) → Western Asia (~97% of landmass east of the Bosphorus)
- Cyprus (CY) → Europe (EU member; common cultural grouping)
- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia → Western Asia (Caucasus, south of the geographic divide)
- Egypt (EG) → Africa (Nile-valley population majority, not Sinai)
- Afghanistan (AF) → South Asia (SAARC member; commonly grouped with Indian subcontinent)
Have a correction or a suggested re-grouping? Contact us via the waitlist form on the landing page.