A staff-room outline map has one job: it has to be legal to photocopy. A lot of “free” blank maps on the web are not. They are Wikimedia traces with a share-alike clause, or a publisher’s worksheet with a watermark, or a screenshot of a quiz. You find out when someone in the office asks who licensed the class set.

What is actually on the sheets

MyGeoQuiz publishes blank and labelled outline maps for the world, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and the United States. Each sheet is SVG and PDF. The blank version is the worksheet; the labelled version is the answer key. Geometry is Natural Earth 1:110m — the same public-domain cartography a lot of newsrooms use when they need a simple country layer.

A world outline is a worksheet, not a wall poster — keep the licence as simple as the linework

The licence that matters in a staff room

Every map page carries the same sentence: public domain, free to print, copy and redistribute, no attribution required, classroom use encouraged. That is Natural Earth’s grant, not a “for personal use” footer. You can send the PDF to a photocopier, put the SVG on a homework portal, or hand the labelled sheet to a cover teacher. You do not need to keep a credit line on the page, and you do not owe anyone a share-alike copy of the derivative.

What 1:110m leaves off

These are not wall atlases. At 1:110m, small islands drop out and some borders are simplified so the photocopy still reads. Madagascar is there; a chain of atolls is not. If the lesson is “label every Pacific state,” this is the wrong sheet. If the lesson is “name the countries of Africa” or “the fifty states,” it is the right scale: enough border to be fair, not so much ink that a Year 7 map turns into a scribble.

Blank, labelled, and what not to use them for

• •Blank — labelling, a starter, a test that cannot be a website.
• •Labelled — the answer key, or a support sheet for students who need the names in view.
• •Not a click-the-map quiz. Seterra (now on GeoGuessr) still does that on screen. A paper outline and a projector quiz are different tools.

Where to get them

The index is at mygeoquiz.com/printables. Each continent page links the matching flag, capital, landmark and dish quizzes so a paper starter can turn into a short on-screen drill without hunting. There is no login and no watermark. If you already bookmark GeoGuessr’s buried PDF maps at geoguessr.com/l/pdf, keep them; these sheets are the same job with a readable URL and a public-domain line you can quote to a head of department.

Print the blank world or Africa sheet for tomorrow, keep the labelled PDF as the key, and stop arguing about whether the outline was allowed on the copier.