Q:

Basemap drawcountries() not working

I'm simply trying to plot a map and add the borders of the countries.
Here is the code snipped:
map=Basemap(projection="lcc",resolution="l",width=1E6,height=1E6,lon_0=9.9167,lat_0=51.5167,fix_aspect=False)
map.drawcounties(zorder=1,color="black")
map.shadedrelief()
map.drawcoastlines(color="black",linewidth=2)
map.drawrivers(linewidth=0.5,color="blue")
map.drawmapboundary()

Everything is working besides the borders....There is also no 
Error...it simply does nothing.
What am I doing wrong?
Additionaly the resolution of the map is a bit blurred. Is there any way to boost the resolution?
Thanks for your answers!!!

A:

To draw to borders of the countries you need drawcountries.   (Mind the r)
To draw to borders of the counties you need drawcounties.
Note however that the german Bundesländer are no "counties" in the sense of the basemap, so it will not draw them.
To get a higher resolution try resolution="i" in the Basemap initialization.
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

map=Basemap(projection="lcc",resolution="i",width=1E6,height=1E6,
                             lon_0=9.9167,lat_0=51.5167,fix_aspect=False)
map.drawcountries(zorder=1,color="black", linewidth=1)
map.shadedrelief()
map.drawcoastlines(color="black",linewidth=1.2)
map.drawrivers(linewidth=0.5,color="blue")
map.drawmapboundary()

plt.show()

