Roadmap

PyWorldAtlas grows through small, installable releases with explicit data, documentation, and compatibility boundaries. Planned work is not part of the public API until it is implemented, tested, documented, and published.

Current release

0.8.0 makes the rich offline atlas easier to explore, explain, and use in lessons without changing the reviewed dataset.

Next milestone

0.9.0 focuses on API consistency, typing, performance, packaging, compatibility, and documentation completeness.

Stable destination

1.0.0 represents a dependable offline atlas contract with clear upgrades and reproducible releases.

Release train

Version	Status	Main boundary	Publication
0.1.0	Complete	Rebuilt runtime, generated database, countries, capitals, and cities	Published
0.2.1	Complete	Rich profiles, coordinates, distances, and initial discovery tools	Published
0.3.1	Complete	Reviewed neighbors, shortest land paths, and border learning tools	Published
0.5.0	Complete	Local identities, English formal names, and editorial policy	Published
0.6.0	Complete	Reference facts, practical metadata, filters, and rankings	Published
0.7.0	Complete	Physical geography, climate classes, feature search, and learning prompts	Published
0.8.0	Complete	Summaries, city discovery, coordinate helpers, quizzes, and documentation UX	Published
0.9.0	Planned	API, typing, performance, packaging, and documentation hardening	—
1.0.0	Planned	Stable offline atlas contract	—

What 0.8 established

The education-and-usability release adds a presentation layer without hiding the typed data underneath it:

• summary() assembles readable country introductions;

• search_cities() and nearest_cities() make place discovery approachable;

• Coordinate formats decimal and DMS labels and names initial compass directions;

• learning_topics() exposes the complete learning menu;

• quiz() creates repeatable multiple-choice material.

All five capabilities use existing reviewed facts or transparent calculations. They add no learner tracking, scoring service, live API, or new source layer.

Deferred work

Boundary geometry, GeoJSON export, bounding boxes, polygon centroids, and point-in-country lookup remain outside the current plan. They add meaningful package size, licensing, modeling, and boundary-interpretation work and may be better suited to an optional post-1.0 extension.

Anthem lyrics, audio, contributor histories, and adoption dates remain outside the current source contract.