Man spends 50 years painting map of imaginary land

Jerry Gretzinger doodled an imaginary town fifty years ago that has blossomed into a 1,521 square-foot artwork he still works on each day, adding churches, airports and train stations to the world he built in his imagination.

Gretzinger's lifelong project has made him the subject of news stories, art gallery exhibitions and a short documentary. The depth of his dedication is astounding: Gretzinger has a census for the population of his map-made world, which includes 416 cities and 27 parishes.

Ukrainia, the world's largest city, had an imaginary population of 2,414,234 as of March this year. The entire map includes river networks and urban neighbourhoods connected through 2,738 individually-drawn panels, though Gretzinger says he has archived some of the original panels that would make his world even bigger.

[ Related: Celebrity peanut gallery: Artist Steve Casino recreates your heroes on a full shell ]

Each day, he draws a card from a pile that tells him what to add or improve on his map, according to the documentary.

A post about Gretzinger on Reddit last week received nearly 700 comments and a user saying he was Jerry's son posted an interactive online image of the map.

Gretzinger has invited artists to submit 2D artwork he can incorporate into the piece and recently, he posted on his blog that he planned to hide map tiles around Traverse City during its film festival, creating a treasure hunt for a world within a world.