Strange Maps — July 23, 2010

Australia, a World Leader in Bigness

Don’t think of it as the smallest county, but as a huge island.

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We could rattle off some statistics, about size and distance. But sometimes a picture is more eloquent than a thousand words. Here are two postcard maps. That’s two thousand words right there.

Many thanks to Anna Chlebinska, a collector of cartographic postcards, for sending in these beauties.

Strange Maps #439

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Aerial map view highlighting the Humongous Fungus in red within Malheur National Forest, with labeled sections "Genet D" and "Genet E." A scale bar indicates 2 kilometers.

Strange Maps

This fungus is so humongous that it can be mapped

A member of a species that kills trees, this mushroom is not the first to be called the Humongous Fungus — and perhaps not the last.

A map showing a proposed power transmission route from Darwin, Australia to Singapore, spanning 4,300 km, with sites for electricity supply, battery storage, and solar generation indicated along the route.

Strange Maps

World’s largest solar project will send Australian energy to Singapore

Australia’s AAPowerLink boasts three global superlatives: largest solar farm, largest battery, and longest power cable.

A map with various yellow and brown faces showing different emotions, representing different regions.

Strange Maps

Chernoff faces: The data-rich maps that stare back at you

50 years ago, Herman Chernoff proposed using human faces to represent multidimensional datasets. It was a good idea in theory — but a disaster in practice.