About and credits

About the game

Utility Ranger is a game that tests your knowledge of where electric utilities are. Drop a pin inside the area where you think it delivers power!

It’s a free game made by one person.

How to play

Which companies are in it

Each card is an electric distribution company in the US, Canada or Mexico. This is the company that owns the poles and wires, and not necessarily the company that sells you power. In Dallas, your bill may say TXU Energy or Reliant, but the wires belong to Oncor, so Oncor is the company covering Dallas. Only utilities with at least 50,000 customers are included.

The maps are approximations

Every territory is a simplified shape made from public data, which may be a simplification of its official boundary.

• US territories are smoothed versions of federal maps. Where a federal map is known to be wrong, a few are corrected from a state regulator’s map, an earlier federal map, or the counties and cities a utility says it serves.
• The fifteen Ontario distributors use the Ontario Energy Board’s boundaries. ENMAX, EPCOR Edmonton and Hydro-Sherbrooke are drawn as their city. Other Canadian utilities are drawn as a whole province or island, with a few cities that run their own utility cut out, and CFE as all of Mexico. The game labels these stand-ins when it reveals them.
• Certain utilities such as FortisAlberta, ATCO Electric, FortisBC and Saskatoon Light & Power are left out, as no open maps of their territories exist.
• The data is a snapshot as of the latest version update.

Utility icon legend

• Investor-owned
• Cooperative
• Municipal
• Public power district
• State or provincial
• Federal
• Crown corporation
• Community choice
• Other or unrecorded

Names and trademarks

Utility and company names are trademarks of their owners. The game uses them only to name those companies.

Utility Ranger is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any utility, regulator or government agency.

It uses no utility logos. The name on each card is set in the game’s own typeface.

Corrections and takedown requests

If you own a name used here and want it removed, or something is wrong, please email. Name the utility or page so the right thing gets fixed.

Email: admin@utilityranger.org

Credits and licences

Utility Ranger is built from public data, open fonts and open-source software.

Data

• HIFLD Electric Retail Service Territories US territory shapes. US government work, public domain; thanks to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy (CESER).
• US Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 (2024) Utility ids, ownership and customer counts. Public domain.
• Ontario Energy Board Ontario boundaries and customer counts. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Ontario.
• Statistics Canada, 2021 Census boundary files City shapes for ENMAX, EPCOR Edmonton, Hydro-Sherbrooke and the cities cut out of province stand-ins, and Canadian headquarters points. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada.
• Michigan Public Service Commission Michigan service areas. Dataset credit: State of Michigan. A public record, free to use and share.
• US Census Bureau 2024 boundary files County, state and city outlines that correct a few US territories. Public domain.
• Headquarters points US Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer Files, US Geological Survey GNIS, Natural Earth and Statistics Canada. Public domain except Statistics Canada.
• Natural Earth Country and province outlines. Public domain. Made with Natural Earth.
• OpenStreetMap The basemap. © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. Also credited on the map.
• Protomaps Basemaps Basemap build tools. BSD-3-Clause.
• Utility facts Written in our own words, each linked to its source; no source text is copied. Most sources are Wikipedia articles under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
• Wikidata Each utility’s official website, behind “More about this utility”. CC0, public domain.

No utility logos or other third-party artwork are used.

Typefaces

All under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. The licence text ships with the font files.

• Barlow and Barlow Condensed Copyright 2017 The Barlow Project Authors.
• Source Serif 4 Copyright 2014 The Source Serif 4 Project Authors.
• Source Sans 3 Copyright 2010-2020 Adobe, with Reserved Font Name “Source”.
• Noto Sans Map labels only, served by Protomaps when labels are on.
• Caveat The handwritten note in About the game. Copyright 2014 The Caveat Project Authors.

Software

• MapLibre GL JS 6.11.2 Map renderer. Copyright MapLibre contributors. BSD-3-Clause.
• PMTiles 4.5.0 Reads the basemap file. Copyright Protomaps LLC. BSD-3-Clause.
• Full licence texts The complete BSD-3-Clause texts for both libraries, with notices, conditions and disclaimer.