An online map indicating the status of all open and closed international borders
I like to make up my own interesting international routes on my longer trips rather than always following conventional routes.
But often it's tricky to plan a route in lesser-known parts of the world due to the changing relationships between neighbouring countries whose borders may vacillate between open and closed with the passing years and decades.
This might only be a concern when thinking about a trip across a large swathe of the world, such as Western Europe to East Asia overland.
Does anybody know of an online zoomable map, perhaps based on Google Maps or OpenStreetMap or such, that clearly features indication of the status of each border. Colour-coding would be the obvious way with green meaning open, red meaning closed, and some colour meaning "open only to residents of these two countries", which seems pretty common.
Obviously some borders are open or closed to various nationalities etc, but this is not going to be easy to include in such a map so it's not what I'm looking for.
As a bonus, a map showing each official crossing point just as clearly would be extremely useful.
Best Answer
For Africa, the Africa Border Monitor is a non profit group tracking all the border statuses of African countries.
They have a map indicating open, mostly open or closed border statuses.
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Answer 2
So I was wondering what you exactly meant by planning a route. Like do you take a map and say I'm gonna go from this country to the next, or do you say I'm gonna take this exact road, and you expect that if you cross the border 10 km further it'd be easier?
The problem for such a tool mostly comes from data aggregation, there is little data and it would expire very fast anyway.
But I found a resource you might like, even though it doesn't quite match your idea. So the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an app (for Android) to give advice for travellers (Conseils aux Voyageurs). It particularly includes information about security, with a color-coded map for most countries showing how dangerous an area is. Most information (except the map) is available offline. The given information is also available on their website.
The problem, you would say, is it's in French. I didn't find an equivalent in English though. To get to this map, you should navigate to "Pays" (countries), then pick the one you're interested in, then you select the "Sécurité" tab. You'll find the map, with in red the places that are strongly recommended to avoid, in orange the places that are to be avoided unless really needed, and in yellow, no uncommon risk for the country.
It is quite unprecise if you are expecting maps of pretty specific areas, but the good thing is it's quality content, and you can access it on a mobile device.
Answer 3
For the Western Europe to East Asia part of the trip, start on this page on my website.
It has all border crossings updated on a Google Map in Central Asia.
Answer 4
I've made a map of all border crossings in Asia (excluding the Middle East) which you can find here: https://toptravelstories.com/border-crossings/
I might add other continents in the future but it's a ridiculous amount of work. Updates and/or corrections are always welcome.
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