Puzzle #1: City-States


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25x25 Themeless: Parking Lot

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Hopping back on the train of asymmetrical themelesses with open centers. This one is a fair bit harder than the last, as a result of the center being bigger. The previous puzzle, "Parking Lot," had a 6x6 open section; this one has a 7x6. While all of the answers are legitimate (at least to me), be warned that they might be less familiar overall. Once again, the center was achieved with a little bit of computer fill in the center and a lot of manual fill around the edges. Besides the larger center, this puzzle has a higher average word length than the last. "Parking Lot" was 6.08 on average, this one is 6.13 on average. So, good luck! Thanks to Joel Grus for noticing a couple of errors in an earlier version!
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This themeless was inspired by Diana Sessions, a Pre-Shortzian constructor who was making puzzles with centers like this as early as the 1950's. I have no idea how you could even start to go about this back then; I used Crossfire and it still took ages and a lot of manual reworking to achieve anything like it. Just a couple of stats for the puzzle before we begin. It has 126 words, but only 52 black squares, thanks to the fact that the open center takes up so much space that you need minimal blocks to make the edges fillable. It's also finally a big-center themeless with rotational symmetry. Enjoy!
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