Can you talk more about what models of geography you're referring to? In school in the US, I was always taught there were 7 continents, including the North and South Americas as 2 separate ones. As far as I remember, there was never even a mention of other models apart from maybe some historical understanding before lands had been fully explored by Europeans.
Is there such a tool for use with python? preferably matplotlib compatible. I often find myself needing to plot some data to get a quick idea of what it looks like, and my work is generally on a remote host. Having to open a new ssh session with X forwarding is not difficult but a more frictionless approach would be nice.