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."
featured
All Stories
A 19th century family portrait of comets
The thrills and horrors of strange heavenly bodies condensed into one attractive snapshot.
Why this Japanese seafood dish outrages both Koreas
Two mounds of rice and a tiny flag in a sea of curry is enough to re-heat an old territorial conflict.
What did Europeans actually discover? Not all that much
This map shows that the territories discovered by Europeans add up to an area no bigger than Utah.
Don’t even try to read “Moby Dick” without this map
This might help you make it to the end of Herman Melville’s 19th century classic.
Electricity generation by U.S. state
U.S. states vary radically in terms of electricity generation. Vermont is the cleanest, while Delaware is the dirtiest.
U.S. vs. Canada: five modern-day territorial disputes
All of these conflicts have a long history. They may also have a long future.
Did dark magic conjure up the British Empire?
Esoteric evidence points to a ritual performed by Queen Elizabeth's court magician John Dee.
Europe’s oldest map shows tiny Bronze Age kingdom
Discovered in 1900, the Saint-Bélec slab languished unrecognized in a castle basement for over a century.
Peak foliage map: where and when are leaves changing color?
Starting just about now, leaves start changing color from north to south, high to low, light to dark.
Here’s how early school begins – and why it is bad for students
In Louisiana, high school starts at 7:30 am. Research shows that is at least an hour too early.
Famous map of a woman’s heart tells only half the story
One of the best-known allegorical depictions of love has a rather pessimistic male twin.
Just four colors are enough for any map. Why?
The four-color theorem was one of the past century's most popular and enduring mathematical mysteries.
German street names still echo Nazi, Communist, and even Roman past
Even 1500 years after the fall of Rome, its western border can still be seen on German street maps.
One man visited all 2964 bus stops in San Francisco — for science
Americans don't like to ride the bus. There are ways to fix that.
Why the U.S. and Belgium are culture buddies
The Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural map replaces geographic accuracy with closeness in terms of values.
American imperialism: fat-shaming Uncle Sam
Opponents of 19th-century American imperialism were not above body-shaming the personification of the U.S. government.
Android has won the phone world war
A global survey shows the majority of countries favor Android over iPhone.
More than half the world is still unmapped — but not for long
By the end of this decade, Seabed 2030 wants to produce accurate maps for the remaining 80 percent of the ocean floor.
Free speech? Not everybody loves it, this map shows
In some countries, people want more freedom of speech. In others, they feel that there is too much.
How much does it cost to start a business? There’s a world map for that
UAE is the world's most expensive country to start a business, but it's free in Rwanda.
Mysterious dodecahedrons of the Roman Empire
The first of many dodecahedrons was unearthed almost three centuries ago, and we still don't know what they were for.
Why Africa’s newest super-bridge is in the continent’s weirdest border zone
The Kazungula Bridge connects Zambia and Botswana, barely missing Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Welcome to the United Fonts of America
At least 222 typefaces are named after places in the U.S. — and there's still room for more.
These 1,000 hexagons show how global wealth is distributed
A cartogram makes it easy to compare regional and national GDPs at a glance.
How a “flying circus” gave us the first aerial maps of Earth
Thomas Baldwin's Airopaidia (1786) includes the earliest sketches of the earth from a balloon.
Turn any place on earth into a New York street corner
ExtendNY stretches the Big Apple's gridiron all across the globe – with some bizarre effects
Sea cucumber crime is a thing, and this is where it’s happening
A "seafood mafia" is plying the waters between India and Sri Lanka to satisfy China's appetite for an increasingly rare delicacy.
Why Swiss maps are full of hidden secrets
Cartography is serious business in Switzerland — but once in a while, the occasional map gag slips through.
The ‘Lost Forty’: how a mapping error preserved an old-growth forest
A 19th-century surveying mistake kept lumberjacks away from what is now Minnesota's largest patch of old-growth trees.
Catacombs of Paris: The city of darkness finds its new raison d’être
Ancient corridors below the French capital have served as its ossuary, playground, brewery, and perhaps soon, air conditioning.