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A straightforward puzzle for the patient. There are no tricks or decryptions needed. The task is 'simple' albeit potentially challenging (and maybe time-consuming).

The goal

Dissect the Africa-grid below into 54 pieces of different shape and size.
- Each piece consists of fully connected squares, i.e. is a polyomino.
- The letters on each piece are anagrams.
- All anagrams belong to the same group of words, defining the dissection property.
- The anagrams may contain one or more 'white spaces'.
- The English language is used.

If you dissect it correctly, you may be able to spot a rather well-known word in an African native language. (Googling the word gives 125,000,000+ results)

DissectThisInto54Pieces

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    $\begingroup$ @kaine BmyGuest's puzzles always seem to be really impressive. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 0:34
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    $\begingroup$ I guess it would be poor taste to make an educated guess at the "final" word without finding any polyominos. It does show "About 125,000,000 results" when I Google it, though ;) $\endgroup$
    – Set Big O
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 1:14
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    $\begingroup$ @Geobits: that (easy to guess) word is not the solution, but the verification anchor to help limit the parameter space and put back some faith into your solution. You still have to find it though. The dissection is the solution. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 6:28
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    $\begingroup$ Where is Madagascar? $\endgroup$
    – Victor Stafusa
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 5:51
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    $\begingroup$ @VictorStafusa Too small (too few squares) to put it appropriately on the map, so I restricted to mainland (continental) mass only. Basically I took an Africa map image and scaled it down to get to ~pixels I needed (=letters) and then edited to get the best representation. Madagascar didn't look good at all. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 13:04

2 Answers 2

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Got the dissection part done. No idea about the native African word, though.

The 54 pieces are the various nations of Africa
Africa

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  • $\begingroup$ I see a B in there (in pink), and maybe an L. $\endgroup$
    – xnor
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 20:10
  • $\begingroup$ Morocco, Mauritius, Sao Tome and Principe, Libya, Cote d'Ivorie, Mauritania, Madagascar, Comoros, Cabo Verde... I'm missing a country/letter :( $\endgroup$
    – Set Big O
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 20:10
  • $\begingroup$ If you colour your solution differently, you will see. I'm going to post in a sec... $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 20:13
  • $\begingroup$ @Geobits: You miss it, because the dissection is not 100% like mine. Benin/Niger could be dissected differently. That's why you miss the T in this solution. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Mar 10, 2015 at 20:16
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    $\begingroup$ You have an extra I in NAMIBIA which should be in GUINEA. $\endgroup$
    – Luke
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 14:32
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Golden Dragon has solved it, but for the record, this is as intended:

Solution

UBUNTU

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  • $\begingroup$ Another fantastic puzzle! $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Mar 12, 2015 at 20:02
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    $\begingroup$ I think it's very difficult to see the Ubuntu, although it can be guessed when you say "a well-known word in African native language", haha $\endgroup$
    – justhalf
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 3:59

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