The mod is older, and they hired the modder to work on the expansion. From the blog posts the expansion is a lot closer to vanilla then the complex mods.
Sweden had colonies in north America and the Caribbean. Denmark still controls Greenland. Sweden and Norway are both colonizers in the US way, expanding boarders by stealing land from the indigenous people (Sami) etc
Google dont directly use osm, as far as we know, but they or subcontractors check the changelogs and often add newly built things hours/ days after they get added to osm, presumably from their own sources as the data is not identical.
Sweden had/has roads onthe middle of nowhere/forest that has more free space on the sides and at each end of particularly strate and flat stretches, there are oversized parking spots. Supposedly so fighter planes could refuse and rearm from mobile crews
I had a similar thing happened with Zelda for the original Gameboy. There was some mobs in one of the first dungeons, that needed to be killed in a particular order, written on a plack. I spent months on and off trying everything, but it took a older friend borrowing it until I got past it.
True, we are only 9 million people total and the north is mostly uninhabited. I totally see how that feels tiny. Anyway by your description I pictured a small winding 1-line 40mph road, not a 55mph banked 2lane road
Opentopomap is openstreetmap with height data primarily from the space shuttle LIDAR missions. The resolution is good for 60N-60S, towards the poles not so much.