Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
How Atlantic City inspired the Monopoly board
The popular game has a backstory rife with segregation, inequality, intellectual theft, and outlandish political theories.
One of Atlantic City's nicknames is 'Monopoly City'. A look at this map shows why.
- The streets on a classic Monopoly board were lifted from Atlantic City.
- Here's what it looks like if we transport those places back onto a map.
- Monopoly started out as its opposite: a game explaining the evil of monopolies.
There have been several attempts to turn Monopoly the game into a Hollywood movie, one with Ridley Scott directing, another starring Kevin Hart. If none have succeeded so far, it's not for lack of an exciting backstory.
Dig deep, and you'll find racial segregation, economic inequality, intellectual property theft, and outlandish political theories. But let's start with the board—a map of sorts and a story in itself.
There's a customized Monopoly board not just for virtually any country in the world but also for movie and TV franchises (Avengers, Game of Thrones), brand experiences (Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson) and just about anything else (bass fishing, chocolate, the Grateful Dead).
To aficionados of the game, however, the names of the streets on the "classic" board have that special quality of authenticity, from lowly Baltic Avenue to fancy Park Place. Those places sound familiar not just if you like Monopoly, but also if you drive around Atlantic City, New Jersey's slightly run-down seaside casino town.
In fact, all the street names were taken from (or near) the city once nicknamed "America's Playground." Going about town, it's almost like you're traveling on the board itself. No wonder its other nickname is "Monopoly City."
This map transposes the streets on the board back onto the map, maintaining the color scheme that groups them from cheap (dark purple) to expensive (dark blue). Here's how they run.
Dark purple
Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue are parallel streets in the middle of town, running southwest to northeast. They are perpendicular to most other streets on the board, and as such, cross or touch five other colors.
Light blue
Three avenues in the east of town. Oriental runs southwest to northeast and crosses Vermont and Connecticut, which run parallel to each other.
Light purple
Three streets branching off Pacific Avenue: Virginia Avenue, a long street towards the northwest; and St. Charles Place and States Avenue, two short spurs towards the southeast. St. Charles Place is no more; it made way for a hotel-casino called the Showboat Atlantic City.
Orange
New York and Tennessee Avenues run parallel and next to each other, northwest to southeast, the former all the way to the Boardwalk. St. James Place is in between both, south of Pacific Avenue.
Red
Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois Avenues are the furthest west of the five street groups running northwest to southeast. In the 1980s, Illinois Avenue was renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.
Yellow
Past O'Donnell Memorial Park—featuring a rotunda dedicated to Atlantic City's World War I soldiers—Atlantic Avenue continues west to Ventnor City as Ventnor Avenue. It is pictured as an inset (left) on this map, which also features Marvin Gardens. That place, in Margate City, is actually spelled Marven Gardens—an error for which Parker Brothers apologized to the local residents only in 1995.
Green
These opulent streets are well-connected in more than one sense. Green is the only color to touch every other color.
Dark blue
The Boardwalk is as huge as Park Place is diminutive. Both are close to the beachfront, the most desirable location in any seaside resort.
The darker history of Monopoly
These names weren't picked at random. In the early 1930s, various informal versions of Monopoly were played throughout the northeastern United States, with local street names inserted for each city. The game's appearance and rules were perfected as it was being played. Around that time, an Atlantic City realtor named Jesse Railford hit upon an innovation: to put not just names but also prices on the properties on the board. Since he knew the lay of the land in his home city, those prices reflected the hierarchy of real estate values at that time.
That hierarchy and those prices were informed by the segregation that was rife in 1930s America. As one of the gateways of the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Atlantic City was a waystation for countless African-Americans leaving behind the stifling oppression of the South for better economic opportunities in the North. However, what they encountered on the way and upon arrival was the same racism, in slightly different form.
Railford played the game with the Harveys, who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue. They had previously lived on Ventnor Avenue and had friends on Park Place—all of which fall into the pricier color categories on the board.
In 1930s Atlantic City, these were wealthy and exclusive areas, and "exclusive" also meant no Black residents. They lived in low-cost areas like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues; the latter street is actually where the Harveys' maid called home. In many local hotels at the time, African-Americans were only welcome as workers, not as guests. Atlantic City schools and beaches were segregated.
Belying both the binary prejudices of the time and the sliding price scale of the Monopoly board, Atlantic City back then was in fact a place of opportunity where a diverse range of communities flourished. Black businesses thrived on Kentucky Avenue. Count Basie played the Paradise Club on Illinois Avenue. There was a Black beach at the end of Indiana Avenue. For Chinese restaurants and Jewish delis, people headed to Oriental Avenue. New York Avenue had some of the first gay bars in the U.S.
It should have been called "Anti-Monopoly"
An Atlantic City-based board was sold to Parker Brothers by Charles Darrow, who claimed to have invented the game in his basement. Parker Brothers marketed the game as Monopoly from 1935. The rights to the game transferred to Hasbro when it acquired Parker Brothers in 1991.
But Darrow didn't invent Monopoly. The original idea, as became widely known only decades after its "official" launch, came from Lizzie Magie (1866-1948), née Elizabeth J. Phillips.
Magie was a woman of many talents and trades. She worked as a stenographer, a typist, and a news reporter; she wrote poems and short stories; she was a comedian, an actress, and a feminist (she once published an ad to auction herself off as a "young woman American slave," to make the point that only white men were truly free); and she patented an invention that made typewriting easier.
Despite that impressive resume, she is now remembered mainly—and barely so—as the inventor of Monopoly. Except that the board game she developed was called The Landlord's Game. She patented it in 1904 and re-patented a revised version in 1924. The game was innovative because of its circular pattern—most board games at the time were linear. But its real point was economic, political, and ultimately, fiscal. The Landlord's Game illustrated Magie's belief in what was later called Georgism.
Known as the "single tax movement" and popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its concepts were formulated by the economist Henry George. He suggested that rather than taxing labor, trade, or sales, governments should derive their funding only from taxing land and the natural resources that derive from it.
As already observed by earlier thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, a land tax is economically more efficient than other taxes, since it places no burden on economic activity. It would also reduce property speculation, eliminate boom and bust cycles, and even out economic inequality.
Although Georgist ideas were influential for a while and continue to be discussed—among others by Ralph Nader during his 2004 presidential candidacy—they are no longer a vital political force, except in the related field of emissions trading. One popular counterargument to modern Georgism, now also (but not entirely interchangeably) known as "geoism," "geolibertarianism," and "earth-sharing," is that government expenditure has increased by so much since George's day that it can no longer be covered by a land tax alone.
Back around the turn of the 20th century, Magie devised The Landlord's Game to educate its players about the evils of real estate monopolies and, implicitly, about the benefits of a single tax on land.
She created two sets of rules: an anti-monopolist one, called Prosperity, in which all were rewarded for any wealth created; and a monopolist one, called Monopoly, in which the aim was to crush one's opponents by creating monopolies. In the latter version, when a player owns all the streets of one color, they can charge double rent and erect houses and hotels on the properties.
Taken together, these two versions were meant to illustrate the evil of monopolies and the benefit of a more cooperative approach to wealth creation. It's very telling of human nature that it's the opponent-crushing version that came out the winner. But, in the light of what happened to Magie, perhaps not entirely surprising.
When Darrow claimed Monopoly as his own, Magie protested. In the end, her patent was bought out by Parker Brothers for a mere $500, without any residual earnings. Parker Brothers continued to acknowledge Darrow as the inventor of the game. Magie's role was not recognised until decades later.
For more on the intersection of Monopoly, Atlantic City geography and 1930s segregation, read this article in The Atlantic by Mary Pilon. She is also the author of a book on the subject, called The Monopolists.
Many thanks to Robert Capiot for alerting me to the article. And many thanks to mapmaker Davis DeBard for permitting the use of his work. Follow him here.
Strange Maps #1078
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Is this Danish island soon coming to a coast near you?
An artificial island in the North Sea is the biggest building project ever in Danish history - and could pave the way for many more.
'Energy Island' as it may well look like in 2033.
- In 1991, Denmark constructed the world's first offshore wind farm.
- Now they're building an entire 'Energy Island' in the North Sea.
- As the U.S. catches up, Danish know-how could soon come to America.
Giant wind farms
Wind turbines of the Block Island Wind Farm, so far the only offshore wind project in operation in the U.S.
Credit: Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images
On Monday, President Biden designated a 'Wind Energy Area' in the waters between Long Island and New Jersey. It's part of an ambitious plan to build giant wind farms along the East Coast. There's currently only one offshore wind farm in the Eastern U.S., off Rhode Island (1).
When those wind farms get built, you can bet there'll be Danish companies involved. In 1991, Denmark built Vindeby, the world's first offshore wind farm. In the years since, Danish companies have maintained their global lead.
In February, the Danish government announced it would build the world's first 'Energy Island'. Everybody else in the world, take note: if the Danes pull this off, similar islands could soon pop up off your shores – perhaps also in the New York Bight.
So, what's an Energy Island, and why does Denmark want one? For the answer, we spool back to June 2020, when a broad coalition of Danish parties, left and right, in government and opposition, concluded a Climate Agreement. This is Denmark's plan not only to make a radical break with fossil fuels but also to show the rest of the world how it's done.
On the rise again
Close-up of Energy Island, with two of the seawalls at the back and the port at the front.
Credit: Danish Energy Agency
Due in large part to its pioneering work with wind energy, Denmark has a green image. But that hasn't always reflected reality. Yes, in 2019 the country generated 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources – earning it 9th place worldwide (2). But in 2018, Denmark also was the EU's leading oil producer (3).
Under the Climate Agreement, that will stop. Denmark will no longer explore and develop new oil and gas fields in its section of the North Sea. Extraction will be gradually reduced to zero. In exchange, Denmark will dramatically scale up the production of sustainable energy via offshore wind farms. The ultimate goal: nationwide carbon neutrality by 2050.
Offshore wind farms produce the bulk of Europe's sustainable energy. And after a dip in the first decade of the century, offshore wind farms are on the rise again (4). One reason for the increased popularity: taller turbines, which means larger blades, which means greater capacity.
- In 2016, the tallest turbines were 540 ft (164 m) and had a capacity of 8 megawatts (MW).
- In 2021, turbines can be up to 720 ft (220 m) tall, generating up to 12 MW.
- Soon, the turbines will reach 820 ft (250 m) – not that much shorter than the Eiffel Tower (1,030 ft or 314 m, street to flagpole). These will have a capacity of up to 20 MW.
Centralised management
Potential position of Energy Island (red) off the western coast of Jutland, surrounded by a wind farm (green) filled with turbines (blue dots).
Credit: Danish Energy Agency
As the shallow parts of the North Sea (<66 ft; <20 m) fill up with wind farms, the issue of managing the energy flow produced by these farms becomes acute. The obvious solution would be to build a central point where the energy is collected, converted from AC to DC and transmitted to one or more points onshore. Centralised management of the wind farms would mitigate the fluctuations in energy production and make it easier for supply to meet demand.
If supply is greater than demand, these collection points can also serve as storage units. Excess energy could be stored in batteries or transformed into hydrogen via electrolysis. If and when necessary, the hydrogen can then be transported onto land and reconverted into electricity.
The Dutch are thinking about it, and some have suggested the Dogger Bank as an ideal location: shallow and central within the North Sea, ideally placed to distribute energy to the various countries bordering the sea. But the Danes are doing it. The Climate Agreement envisaged not one, but two energy islands.
One would be Bornholm, Denmark's Baltic island, halfway between Sweden and Poland, which would serve as the hub for local offshore wind farms. But the other would be an entirely new, entirely artificial island in the North Sea, to be built about 50 miles (80 km) off Thorsminde, on the western coast of Jutland.
10 million households
Schematic overview of how an Energy Island could serve as a hub for collecting and redistributing sustainable energy.
Credit: Danish Energy Agency
In February, the Danish government revealed how much this Energi-Ø would cost, how long it would take to build – and what it might look like.
- Energy Island will be built via the caisson method – essentially, sinking a watertight box to the bottom of the sea. The island will be protected from storms by high seawalls on three sides. The fourth side will feature a dock for ships.
- Construction could start in 2026 and is expected to take three years. Building the wind farms and transmission network will take a few years more. By 2033, it could be churning out its sustainable GWs.
- In its initial phase, the island will have an area of about 12 hectares (30 acres, or about 18 soccer fields). It will centralize the production of about 200 offshore wind turbines, with a joint capacity of 3 GW. That's about the equivalent of 3 million households – slightly more than the total for Denmark.
- When fully completed, the island will have an area of around 46 hectares (114 acres, just under 70 soccer fields), collect the energy of 600 turbines, for a total capacity of 10 GW (5). That covers 10 million households.
- 10 GW is equivalent to about 150 percent of Denmark's entire electricity needs (households, industry, infrastructure, etc.) That leaves plenty of scope for supplying neighbouring countries. Agreements have already been reached with Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The plan also foresees a plant for hydrogen production on the island, either to be piped onshore, or stored and transported in large batteries.
Yet untested aspects
Location of Energy Island (yellow) in the North Sea, showing potential connections towards neighboring countries.
Credit: Danish Climate Ministry / Vimeo
In all, the island would cost DKK 210 billion (US$33 billion) to build – by far Denmark's largest construction project (6).
The project will be undertaken in a public-private partnership between the Danish state and commercial interests. Because it is 'critical infrastructure', the state will retain a stake of at least 50.1 percent in the project. There are two scenarios for co-ownership:
- The island will be owned in its entirety by a company, in which the Danish state retains at least that smallest of majorities;
- Private companies will be able to own up to 49.9 percent of the island itself.
The Danish government needs private-sector input to overcome unknown and as yet untested aspects of the project, not just in terms of design and building an entire island from scratch, but also on how to operate and maintain it, and even when it comes to financing and risk management.
But where there's risk, there is potential. If the project is successful, it will become the blueprint for similar energy islands the world over – and the companies that helped build the first one, will be in high demand to build the other ones too, perhaps soon in Biden's 'Wind Energy Area'.
Green, as the Danes have discovered, is not just the color of nature. It's also the color of money.
Strange Maps #1077
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Follow Strange Maps on Twitter and on Facebook.
(1) Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, a two-turbine pilot project 23 miles (43 km) off Virginia Beach, was completed last year.
(2) The Top 10 (2019) are Iceland (79%), Norway (66%), Brazil (45%), Sweden (42%), New Zealand (35%), Austria (38%), Switzerland (31%), Ecuador (30%), Denmark (30%) and Canada (28%).
(3) With 5.8 megatons of oil equivalent (Mtoe), Denmark beat Italy (4.7 Mtoe) and Romania (3.4 Mtoe). Oil production in the EU is on the way down. It peaked in 2004 (42.5 Mtoe) and has since halved (to 21.4 Mtoe in 2018). A similar trend has occurred in the two key non-EU oil producers in Europe. a. Norway's oil production peaked in 2001 (159.2 Mtoe) and has since more than halved (to 74.5 Mtoe in 2018). b. The UK's oil production peaked in 1999 (133.3 Mtoe) and has since been reduced by almost two thirds (to 49.3 Mtoe in 2018).
(4) The Global Wind Energy Council estimates that in 2020, a record 82.3 gigawatt (GW) of new wind power capacity was added, a 36% increase over 2019.
(5) The Bornholm energy hub is projected to top out at 2 GW.
(6) Inaugurated in 2000, the famous Øresund Bridge (Øresundsbroen), connecting Sweden to Denmark, cost about DKK 25 billion (US$4 billion) in today's money. When it's finished (by 2029, if work continues apace), the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link (18 km) between the Danish island of Lolland and the German island of Fehmarn, will be the world's longest road/rail tunnel. It will have cost about DKK 55 billion (US$ 8.7 billion).
What a carve-up: when French and British ruled the world
James Gillray's 'plumb-pudding' caricature is "probably the most famous political cartoon of all time."
William Pitt and Napoleon Bonaparte, carving up the world between them.
- The fight for world dominance always seems to involve a contest between two superpowers.
- Back in 1805, it was the British versus the French, and this cartoon pokes fun at both.
- Pitt and Napoleon are carving out the big slices of the world-pudding – an image endlessly copied since.
The Great Game
August 1804: Napoleon addresses the Grande Armée in Boulogne-sur-Mer, preparing to invade England.
Credit Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Great Game remains the same: how to gobble up most of the world, or at least more of it than your opponent can swallow. It's just the players that change. In our times, the two top dogs are the United States and China. During the Cold War, it was the U.S. versus the Soviet Union. And in 1805, the year this cartoon was published, the main contenders were the British and the French.
Across the top, the title reads: The Plumb-pudding in danger: - or – State Epicures taking un Petit Souper. The pudding is of course the earth itself, steaming on a plate between the two 'state epicures'. Seated opposite each other and armed with an oversized knife and fork each, they are carving into the pudding, eager to indulge their insatiable geopolitical appetite.
On the left, we have William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. On the right: Napoleon Bonaparte. No longer content to be called First Consul of France, Napoleon had only recently crowned himself Emperor. Both are wearing their 'work clothes', i.e. military uniforms. Pitt is dressed in the red coat typical for the British army of the time. Napoleon is wearing the blue coat of the Imperial French Army.
And it's not just by these primary colours that the artist underlines their opposition. Pitt's hat is a tricorn, Napoleon's a bicorn (festooned with a cockerel-like plume in the French tricolor). And, perhaps most obviously, Pitt is tall and spindly, his French counterpart–true to the caricature already current at the time–short and stocky.
What they're doing to that poor pudding between them is also rich in symbolism. Clearly visible at the center of the globe are the British Isles – obviously, the most important part of the globe, at least to the cartoon's British audience.
Invade or reconcile
William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon, dividing up the world amongst themselves.
Credit: Public domain, via the British Library
Both Pitt and Napoleon are using a carving knife and fork to cut slices off the pudding. Pitt's fork is a trident, reminiscent of British sea power; Napoleon's knife resembles a sword, perhaps referring to French supremacy on land. Pitt is slicing off a big chunk of the ocean, while Napoleon is helping himself to continental Europe.
Napoleon's fork is sticking into a part of Europe labeled 'Hanover' – no doubt a reminder to the British audience that the French now occupied the ancestral home of the Hanoverian dynasty sitting on the British throne. Perhaps also to please his audience, the cartoonist shows Napoleon's piece as significantly smaller than Pitt's.
Pitt and Napoleon each have a golden plate in front of them to put their slice of the world on. Pitt's is emblazoned with the British Royal Coat of Arms, Napoleon's with the Imperial Crown. Pitt's chair shows a lion carrying the Cross of St George, the emblem of England. Napoleon's chair has an imperial eagle holding on to a Phrygian cap, the bonnet that came to symbolize the French revolution.
So, what's going on? The publication date, February 1805, marks a curious lull in the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15). A few months earlier, Napoleon had amassed a potential force for invading Britain in Boulogne-sur-Mer. But now he was making overtures for reconciliation with his enemy across the English Channel.
Spheres of influence
'Jack Tar' – the nickname for a British sailor – slugging it out with 'Buonaparte', back in 1798.
Credit: Public domain, via the National Museums Greenwich.
As the cartoon suggested, peace with Britain would entail both parties establishing a sphere of influence: for Britain, the seas and its colonies (the map shows the West Indies but not Britain's recently lost North American possessions); for France, the European mainland.
As it turned out, both the invasion and the reconciliation fell through. Later that same year, Nelson would defeat a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, establishing Britain's maritime dominance without having had to resort to political compromise with France.
For a while at least, Napoleon would continue his victorious streak on the mainland – meaning the cartoon was a prediction that came true. But in the end, Napoleon would be defeated – not once, but twice; at Waterloo in 1815 for the final time (see also #1050).
Sold in hand-colored prints, this is likely the most famous work by James Gillray (1756-1815), one of two contenders for the title of Britain's most influential caricaturist – the other being William Hogarth. Martin Rowson, cartoonist for the Guardian, calls it "probably the most famous political cartoon of all time."
Interestingly, it's a thematic elaboration of one of Gillray's earlier cartoons. In 1789, he depicted 'Jack Tar' and Napoleon sitting astride the globe, with the British sailor punching the Frenchman a bloody nose. At that time, Napoleon must have been an unknown in Britain, because he is depicted as a scrawny, full-figured person, not the "little corporal" of later times.
Perhaps this cartoon is less popular than the later one because the world is explained not as a delicious 'plumb-pudding' but as a less appetising 'dunghill'.
Both maps in the public domain, the first one found here at the British Library, the second here at the Royal Museums Greenwich.
Strange Maps #1076
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
In this Dutch town, the euro’s fictional bridges are now real
The European currency features buildings that didn't exist, until Spijkenisse made them in concrete
Frankfurt may be the Eurozone's financial capital, Spijkenisse is where you can walk through the money.
- The euro banknotes feature seven different bridges – all of them fictional.
- They represent periods instead of places, so as not to offend anyone.
- But one Dutch town has turned monetary fiction into monumental fact.
Wonderful subcategory
Go to the end of this street to find Heartbreak Hotel.
Credit: Google Street View
In topography, there's a wonderful subcategory of places that existed first in the imagination before they materialized on the map. Examples range in size from the New York landmark of Agloe, a tiny map trap that accidentally became real (see #643) to the huge country of Pakistan, one man's dream turned into a home for millions (see #647).
For an example at the intersection of lyrical and whimsical, book a stay at Heartbreak Hotel. It's in Memphis, right across from Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion. The King of Rock 'n Roll had a hit with that title back in 1956. Today, as in the song, you'll find the hotel down at the end of Lonely Street.
Brightly-colored bridges
The euro bridges were designed to be transnational – but now they're all Dutch.
Credit: Google Maps, ECB (Graphics: Ruland Kolen)
And then there's the otherwise unassuming Dutch town of Spijkenisse, where you can take a walk across seven brightly-colored bridges which until recently only existed on banknotes.
You might recognize those bridges. If you've ever handled euro notes, you'll have seen them on the reverse of each of the seven denominations. Those bridges, however, are not real. Unlike other currencies, which often double as patriotic pamphlets and/or tourist teasers, the euro notes do not feature real-life landmarks or real-dead Europeans.
That would have involved favoring some countries and leaving out others, and in a multinational endeavor like the pan-European currency, that was a definite no-no.
So, what to do? It's a problem that had to be solved relatively recently, as the euro is the youngest of the world's major currencies. The look of the euro notes can be traced back to a European Council meeting in Dublin on December 13, 1996, when the European Monetary Institute (the precursor of today's European Central Bank) announced the winner of its competition to design the euro notes.
44 contenders
The five-euro bridge: Classical, and dirt-grey.
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
The prize went to Robert Kalina, a designer with the National Bank of Austria. His 'Ages and Styles of Europe' was chosen from among 44 contenders. Mr Kalina had some form in the matter. All Austrian banknotes from 1982 onwards were by his hand, as were notes he later designed for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Azerbaijan, and Syria.
Mr Kalina's euro designs scrupulously avoided any allusion to particular people or places, referring merely to abstract, supra-national style periods. The obverse of each note shows a window and a doorway, symbolizing Europe's spirit of openness. Each reverse shows a bridge, exemplifying communication and cooperation, both between the countries of Europe and between Europe and the rest of the world.
The architectural style of each note progresses chronologically as the value of the denomination increases. Most also feature a color from the rainbow spectrum.
The Elements
The ten-euro bridge, Romanesque in style and red in color.
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
- €5: Classical (as this was to be the most widely used note, grey was chosen to mask the dirt)
- €10: Romanesque (red)
- €20: Gothic (blue)
- €50: Renaissance (orange)
- €100: Baroque and Rococo (green)
- €200: 19th century Industrial (yellow)
- €500: 20th century Modern (purple)
These euro bridges would have remained fictional, were it not for Robin Stam. The Rotterdam-based artist got the idea of turning financial fiction into architectural fact in a pizza place, while fiddling with a euro note. "Suddenly it struck me how amazing it would be if these fictional bridges came to life," he said.
Mr Stam found a willing partner for his idea in the city council of Spijkenisse, his hometown, a suburb of Rotterdam. The plan was to build seven euro bridges across a canal that almost entirely surrounds an area called De Elementen ('The Elements').
Letter of approval
Gothic blue: the twenty-euro bridge
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
But before he got started, Mr Stam felt he needed the blessing of the European Central Bank. The euro notes scrupulously avoid favoring one member state over the other, but Mr Stam's euro bridges would all be in one country – the Netherlands. Would the ECB mind? Mr Stam sent them a letter. But he needn't have feared: out of Frankfurt came a kind reply with an official letter of approval. "Their main concern is counterfeiting. And you can't pay with a bridge," says the artist.
And so, 'The Bridges of Europe' got underway. Funded by the city and aided by local contractors, all seven bridges were installed between October 2011 and September 2013. They all preserve the color and shape of the 'originals'. All were made of concrete except the two most recent styles (€200 and €500 notes), which were made out of steel. In all the project cost around €1 million to complete.
"Kitschy facade"
The fifty-euro bridge, in Renaissance orange.
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
However, the euro bridges of Spijkenisse are not as monumental as their depiction on the notes suggests. In fact, they're pedestrian in more than one sense. Mr Kalina, who first drew the fictional bridges, while amused by the project, has said he would have liked the bridges to be built in the style in which each was designed, instead of their appearance being used as a "kitschy façade." So, it's perhaps more appropriate to call them 'follies', but then many have said the same about the euro itself.
From 2013 onwards, a second series of euro notes was published. This 'Europa' series–named after the Greek goddess who is watermarked into the notes–is a redesign by the German banknote designer Reinhold Gerstetter, who wanted the notes to be "more colorful, so they would appear friendlier".
Useful to criminals
If it's Baroque/Rococo and green, it must be the one-hundred-euro bridge.
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
The basic design of the first series, including the colors and bridges, has been maintained, with one notable exception. The Europa series no longer features a €500 note, out of concern that it appeared to be more useful to criminals than to law-abiding citizens.
The reason is its exceptionally high value. True, Switzerland has a 1,000-franc note (app. € 900, or US$ 1,075), but the euro is the only major currency to have a note this valuable. Compare the US dollar, which has the $100 bill as its highest denomination.
Because it is so valuable and was so relatively widespread, the €500 bill is ideal for transferring large amounts of money in a compact volume of notes. Turns out that quality was greatly appreciated by money launderers, drug smugglers, and tax dodgers.
'Bin Ladens'
Industrial and yellow – the two-hundred-euro bridge
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
The notes soon acquired the nickname 'Bin Ladens' because, despite their notoriety, they were rarely seen in public. One examination by the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency noted 90% of the €500 bills distributed in the U.K. were in the hands of criminal organisations, who liked the note because it made it easier to launder money (the highest British denomination is £50). For that reason, the U.K. Bureaux de Change stopped trading €500 notes in 2010.
Old €500 notes will remain legal tender forever, as will other notes from the first series; but they will gradually be taken out of circulation. Spijkenisse for its part has as yet no plans to demolish the €500 bridge.
Strange Maps #1075
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Purple and modern, like the 'Bin Laden' note beloved by criminals: the five-hundred-euro bridge.
Credit: ScWikiSc, CC BY-SA 4.0
Mystery unsolved: ghost ships circling off California
Circle spoofing is an advanced form of GPS manipulation – but nobody knows exactly how, or why.
Not really there – and not moving in circles: 'ghost ship' patterns off the coast of northern California.
- 'Circle spoofing' is an as-yet unexplained version of GPS interference.
- It shows ships moving in virtual circles while they're somewhere else.
- Is this the cheaper, off the shelf version of a well-known cyberweapon?
Impossible journey
The Princess Janice, seen travelling from Point Reyes inland. Inset top right: moving around Utah, in circles. Inset bottom right: back home in Nigeria.
Credit: Courtesy of SkyTruth/Global Fishing Watch/Orbcomm/Spire
On June 5, 2019, the Nigerian crew boat Princess Janice made an impossible journey. Instead of ferrying crews to and from oil rigs in the Gulf of Guinea, it was somehow transported thousands of miles to the Pacific coast of northern California, just off Point Reyes. Even more amazingly, after a while it started to sail inland, ploughing across mountains and deserts all the way to Utah.
The Princess Janice was just one of a dozen ghost ships observed circling the seas off Point Reyes. And circling is the right word, as some ships seemed to ply the Pacific waters in mysteriously elliptical movements, at a constant speed of exactly 20 knots. Except that they didn't. The Princess Janice never left its home waters. Nor did any of the other ships, which all continued to sail the seas off Equatorial Guinea, Malaysia, Norway, and other far-flung places.
It wasn't the actual, physical ships that flew halfway across the globe, just their virtual positions, as reported by their AIS (1) transponders. Some ships were displaced for just a few hours, but the Princess Janice's virtual trip to North America lasted about two weeks. And not all hung around Point Reyes. Some showed up near Madrid or Hong Kong.
Malfunction or manipulation?
AIS tracks from five ships who 'jumped' to Point Reyes, from places all over the globe.
Credit: Courtesy of SkyTruth/Global Fishing Watch/Orbcomm/Spire
The Point Reyes incident, publicized by Bjorn Bergman, a researcher for environmental watchdogs SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, was the latest example of a phenomenon known as 'circle spoofing', a refined and as yet unexplained cousin of GPS (2) spoofing. It is unclear what–or who–caused these circles, and why: malfunction or manipulation?
Now, messing with GPS signals is not new. It's been part of the electronic warfare arsenal for decades. Russia, notably, has been singled out as a 'pioneer' in this area. A report by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) in Washington DC claims the Russians have a mobile electronic warfare team that jams GPS signals whenever and wherever President Putin appears in public.
One step up from mere jamming is spoofing: tricking someone that a GPS-geolocated object is somewhere else than it actually is. The AIS transponders of ships seem particularly prone to this.
Russia has used GPS spoofing in a number of places, notably Crimea, Syria, and the Black Sea, says the C4ADS report. For example, in 2017, 20 ships in the Black Sea reported a position 32 km inland, near Gelendzhik Airport. It's also been claimed Russia uses 'spoofing' to hide Putin's now-infamous Black Sea palace, the existence of which was revealed by controversial dissident Alexei Navalny.
Strategic implications
A world map of Russian GPS spoofing: not just in and near Russia, but also in Syria.
Credit: Above us Only Stars – Exposing GPS Spoofing in Russia and Syria (C4ADS, 2019)
GPS spoofing has obvious strategic implications. Iran in particular has proved a quick student and seems to have learned to use spoofing to its advantage.
- In 2011, Iran claimed to have used GPS spoofing to trick a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 'Sentinel' drone, operated by the CIA above Afghanistan, to land at an Iranian airfield. The capture helped Iran clone its own drone within a year.
- In 2016, Iran probably used GPS spoofing to lure two US Navy boats into Iranian territorial waters, where the Iranian Navy appeared to be ready and waiting for them.
- And in 2019, British intelligence warned merchant vessels in the Gulf that Iran might use GPS spoofing to lure them into Iranian waters, as a pretext to seizing them.
Circle spoofing came to light after July 2019 (3).That's when the American container ship MV Manukai, upon entering Shanghai harbor, experienced total failure of both its AIS transponder and its two GPS units. Just before all the alarms went off, its AIS display behaved in a very peculiar manner. It showed another ship approaching, disappearing, showing up docked, and then again moving towards the Manukai. All the while, a visual check confirmed, the other ship had been at dock.
A spoofing epidemic
When approaching the center of the disturbance, the AIS signature of the Chinese cargo ship Hua Hia Ji Hao (in yellow) jumps from the Huangpu River onto dry land. Red: positions of other vessels.
Credit: Courtesy of SkyTruth/Global Fishing Watch/Orbcomm/Spire
The crew of the Manukai reported the incident stateside, where analysts discovered an epidemic of spoofing attacks in Shanghai harbor which had started the previous summer and culminated on the day the Manukai was attacked, just one of around 300 vessels that were being 'spoofed' that day.
It's unclear who's doing the spoofing. Could it be the Chinese government testing out cyberweapons? Or perhaps criminals trying to confound the authorities? Illegal sand dredgers and oil smugglers are desperate to use any means to evade capture. The latter option would explain why one particular patrol boat operated by the Maritime Safety Authority, Shanghai's river police, was spoofed almost 400 times over a nine-month period.
But what was even more remarkable than the sheer volume of the spoofing was its cartographic shape: the ships jumped from one location to another in a circular movement, centered on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River.
Why? How? Those questions have yet to be answered satisfactorily, but C4ADS found an ingenious way to discount the possibility that the ships' AIS was somehow at fault. Analysts looked at anonymized location data provided by the Strava fitness app, used by a considerable number of Shanghai's 10 million cyclists.
Crop circles
The eye of the storm: a spoof circle about 200 meters in diameter. Most positions on the ring move at 31 knots, much faster than normal vessel speed, and appear to be going counterclockwise.
Credit: Courtesy of SkyTruth/Global Fishing Watch/Orbcomm/Spire
Turns out they too were apparently going in circles, when approaching the waterfront. This proved the spoofing attacks targeted all GPS devices, not just the ships' AIS transponders.
But that still did not resolve the mystery of the circular spoofs, which were quickly dubbed 'crop circles' – an allusion to the mysterious figures that regularly appear in the grain fields of southern England.
Do the positions at which the circles are centered offer any clue? One such circle is positioned exactly around the Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company. Does that suggest state involvement cloaked as private enterprise, or rather a rogue 'commercial' venture? Or are the circles themselves clever misdirections, activated by devices stationed elsewhere?
What does seem certain, is that circle spoofing is catching on. Following the incidents in Shanghai (involving vessels close by) and off Point Reyes (involving ships very far away), a report came in from Iran in March of 2020, where a GPS device was observed moving in a large circle in downtown Tehran (so nowhere near any coast), at a constant speed of 22 miles per hour.
Spoofing theories
Credit: Courtesy of C4ADS, MIT Review
The spoofing occurred near the AJA University of Command and Staff – the staff college for Iran's Army, also known as the country's 'War University'. Again, a Strava heat map showed local athletes running (or cycling) in circles in that same area, apparently oblivious to local roads and buildings.
Meanwhile, the mysteries of circle spoofing–who is doing it, how and why–have yet to be cracked. Reports of circle spoofing near various oil terminals in China suggests that it may be a way to defend these installations from attack – in fact, a Saudi oil facility suffered major damage in an attack by an unidentified drone (rumored to be Iranian in origin) in 2019.
Another theory is that circle spoofing could be a sign that GPS spoofing, once so complex and expensive that it must have required state involvement, has now been 'commoditised': it can now be used by low-power, short-range devices that can target single ships instead of having to cover a wider area.
And that's a scary thought: it could open up maritime traffic to a whole new kind of piracy – spoofing luxury yachts or ships with valuable cargo right into the lair of the 21st-century disciples of Long John Silver, armed with keyboards instead of cutlasses.
Many thanks to Dana Goward (President, Resilient Navigation & Timing Foundation), Bjorn Bergman (Project Manager, SkyTruth; analyst, Global Fishing Watch) and Thomas Ewing (Chief of Analysis, C4ADS).
For more information, see:- GPS Jamming and Spoofing Reported at Port of Shanghai (The Maritime Executive, 13 August 2019)
- Ghost ships, crop circles and soft gold (MIT Review, 15 November 2019)
- Systematic GPS Manipulation Occurring at Chinese Oil Terminals and Government Installations (SkyTruth, 12 December 2019)
- AIS Ship Tracking Data Shows False Vessel Tracks Circling Above Point Reyes, Near San Francisco (SkyTruth, 26 May 2020)
Strange Maps #1074
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
Follow Strange Maps on Twitter and on Facebook.
(1) AIS stands for Automatic Identification System, which supplements radar as a means to avoid collisions and determine locations of ships. It uses GPS (or similar positioning systems) to transmit information on a ship's identity, position and movements to nearby ships and monitoring facilities in a range of 10-20 nautical miles. Mandatory for most seafaring vessels, AIS is fitted on around 300,000 passenger and cargo ships worldwide.
(2) GPS is short for Global Positioning System. It's a system for radio navigation based on a network of (currently 31) US satellites, operated by the US Space Force. The network sends exact geolocation and time information to any GPS receiver on earth (if within an unobstructed line of sight of at least four GPS satellites). Started in the 1970s as a military project, it was opened for civilian use in the 1980s. In 2000, restrictions were lifted, allowing accuracy to within 5 meters.
(3) The Point Reyes incidents were discovered later.
This map of Europe is good for only one thing
Topologists can't tell donuts from coffee mugs, but their maps are revelatory nonetheless.
The countries on this topological map are bent out of shape and size, but it does show precisely who borders whom.
Rubber-sheet geometry
Euler's seven-bridge problem: the origin point for topology, and now also a board game.
Credit: Puzzling Pixel Games
Here's an ology you might not have heard of, despite its deceptively familiar-sounding name: topology. And if you have, well done you. But even then, you've probably never considered its cartographic implications.
Topology is the mathematical study of the properties that objects preserve even as they are deformed, twisted and stretched – but not broken or glued together. Because of all that twisting and stretching, topology is also often called 'rubber-sheet geometry'.
For example, since a circle can be stretched to an ellipse, this means that both objects are topologically equivalent. The same applies in three-dimensional space: a sphere can be stretched into an ellipsoid, so both are topologically equivalent.
To clarify further, a counterexample: a figure 8 cannot be deformed into a circle without 'breaking' it, so both objects are not topologically equivalent.
The theoretical malleability from one object to another that topology presupposes is at the basis of the first topology joke you've ever heard, and the last one you'll ever need.
Q: What is a topologist?
A: Someone who can't distinguish between a donut and a coffee mug.
(tumbleweeds)
Spacetime topology
Now it's a coffee mug, now it's a donut. To a topologist, they're the same anyway.
Credit: Lucas Vieira, public domain.
All this seems a bit pointless, so what is topology actually for? The point of it is that some geometric problems depend not on the shape of the objects involved, but on the way they're put together.
This issue first came up in the mid-18th century, in Leonhard Euler's so-called 'seven-bridge problem' (see also #536). Euler proved you could not go around Königsberg by using all of its bridges just once – but this had nothing to do with their inherent properties; only with how they were placed.
Despite being a relatively young branch of mathematics–topology only really took off in the early 20th century–it has already sprouted several branches of its own, including general, algebraic, and differential topology.
Topology also has a wide variety of applications: it informs the study of biological nanostructures, it's relevant for computer programming, it serves as a tool for string theorists, and it's even used to describe the very shape of the universe (in what is called spacetime topology).
Global standard for metro maps
Washington DC's Metro Map, designed on the same topological principle as most other metro maps the world over.
Credit: Montrealais, CC BY-SA 3.0
Fortunately, the intersection of topology and cartography involves a lot less rocket science. Simply put, a topological map is a diagram from which unnecessary detail has been removed so that only the relationship between the various points is shown.
Perhaps the most famous example is the schematic map of the London Underground, which represents the network of Tube stations with the simplicity of an electrical grid, ignoring actual distance and routes between the stations, showing only how they interconnect. (See also #119). That representation has now become global standard for metro maps.
Peter Staub is a spatial data engineer and map geek who has taken topology above ground. He recently produced this Topologist's Map of Europe, and it's a delight.
Spatial relationships
The outline of Europe is still vaguely recognisable, but most of the the countries are bent and twisted right out of shape.
Credit: © Peter Staub, Mollis GL/Switzerland – CC BY SA
As per the definition above, this topological map is a diagram from which all details have been removed, except the spatial relationship between the various countries. So we see exactly which other countries they border. To show those relationships, the countries' actual shapes and sizes have been totally sacrificed.
Take Italy, for example: boot-shaped on any normal map, here the country looks like the figure 8, to accommodate the two countries enclaved inside of it: the Vatican and San Marino.
Poland still borders Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, as it does in real life; but to do so, the country has had to change from a block into a squiggle.
France now looks like a long-bottomed chair with Andorra and Monaco between its legs, and Belgium for a headrest.
Countries are denoted by their internet TLDs (Top-Level Domain names). Some of the less familiar ones are Isle of Man (IM), Jersey (JE), and Guernsey (GG) – all dependencies of the British Crown.
The map also painstakingly reflects Europe's most controversial territorial disputes, hence the dotted lines across Cyprus (for the almost universally unrecognised breakaway republic of Northern Cyprus) and in Ukraine (supposedly for Russia's unilateral annexation of Crimea – or are these the breakaway areas in the east controlled by pro-Russian rebels?)
Europe without borders
The weirdness that is Lake Constance – topologically speaking.
Credit: © Peter Staub, Mollis GL/Switzerland – CC BY SA
Small dotted areas indicate disputes between Slovenia and Croatia, and between France and Italy (about whether the border between them crosses the summit of Mont Blanc or not).
Kosovo is recognised by many countries, but not yet by Serbia, from which it broke away. It doesn't get its own block, but its TLD (XK) is mentioned below the dotted line.
And what about that little area in between Germany (DE), Switzerland (CH), and Austria (AT) that looks like there's something wrong with your television? That's Lake Constance, on the border between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. According to Switzerland, the border runs right down the middle of the lake. Austria claims the entire lake is a condominium between the three countries, and Germany's position is ambiguous.
As such, Lake Constance is the only area in Europe where neighboring states have never managed to agree on a border. Now, that's something you wouldn't have learned if this wasn't a topological map.
Map found here on Peter Staub's Twitter, which also contains topology maps of Germany, Switzerland and the Americas.
Strange Maps #1073
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
