Strange Maps
A special series by Frank Jacobs.
Frank has been writing about strange maps since 2006, published a book on the subject in 2009 and joined Big Think in 2010. Readers send in new material daily, and he keeps bumping in to cartography that is delightfully obscure, amazingly beautiful, shockingly partisan, and more. "Each map tells a story, but the stories told by your standard atlas for school or reference are limited and literal: they show only the most practical side of the world, its geography and its political divisions. Strange Maps aims to collect and comment on maps that do everything but that - maps that show the world from a different angle."
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All Stories
The cartoonist who escaped death in Copenhagen last week produced another controversial work of art: his very own micronation.
The Woman in White is a Victorian mystery novel containing a “songline” of a chance slice of London.
It’s 1962 in an America that has lost World War II…
One corner of the animal kingdom is immune from extinction: the monsters that thrive in our imagination (and on this map).
Unless you’re an astronomer, you’ve probably never heard of an analemma. And even if you are one, this might be your first tutulemma.
Are some cities more honest than others? And does that honesty correlate with geography?
Few inhabitants of the world’s biggest megacity have any idea of its existence, or of its name.
Using the location data attached to billions of tweets, these maps indicate where the five best friend words — bro, buddy, dude, fella, and pal — occur most frequently.
No prizes for guessing that English is the world’s lingua franca. But how good are the world’s other languages at spreading information?
Instead of choosing sides, this map shows all versions of the cartographic argument.
The threat of territorial annihilation as a perverse incentive for the home front – on both sides
You’ve probably never heard of Ahwaz. But the Emirate in waiting already has a flag – and, of course, a map…
What if the Black Plague had killed off almost all Europeans? Then this is what Africa might have looked like.
The World was supposed to be finished years ago. But the financial crisis of 2008 slowed construction. Work now has resumed on the artificial archipelago off Dubai. However, changing plans […]
Edinburgh is the “grey metropolis in the North.” It has been for centuries, and thanks to Unesco, the capital of Scotland will keep its dour exterior for the foreseeable future. […]
On a recent flight over the Netherlands, I found the landscape stare back at me
On 18 September, Scotland voted to stay in the UK by 55% to 45%: a wider margin than most expected, but still close enough to warrant the constitutional re-think promised […]
Ayn Rand fell for the popular misconception of the ancient myth
Kick out the French, send over colonists, break the three ‘doors’ to the outside world
As Scots go to the polls to determine their future, one oracle has already decreed that independence is inevitable: Englishman Terry O’Neil discovered this piece of chicken in his KFC meal, and was struck by its resemblance to the contours of Britain — minus Scotland.
Yes, there is a map for that.
Vice was just around the corner – but this map refused to show you where exactly.
Probably the most recognisable map from the latter half of the 20th century – if you like tv westerns.
Wyoming and Colorado are not the only cartographic twins
We do not set out to cause offence. But we go where strange maps lead us.
No, this is not an illustrated guide to basket weaving. This is indeed a map. Or to be precise, a cartogram: statistical data presented in a geographic context. Even if […]