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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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.
This map is alive with the beauty of lighthouse signals
The unique light signatures of nautical beacons translate into hypnotic cartography.
The Christian church so holy that Muslims hold its keys
Six denominations share the Holy Sepulcher, but not all between them is peace and love.
How Europe will beat China on batteries
Map shows Europe's imminent Great Leap Forward in battery cell production
How the Yazoo Land Scandal changed American history
Without the now-obscure land investment affair, Georgia might have been a "super state."
How Atlantic City inspired the Monopoly board
The popular game has a backstory rife with segregation, inequality, intellectual theft, and outlandish political theories.
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.
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."
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
Mystery unsolved: ghost ships circling off California
Circle spoofing is an advanced form of GPS manipulation – but nobody knows exactly how, or why.
This map of Europe is good for only one thing
Topologists can't tell donuts from coffee mugs, but their maps are revelatory nonetheless.
Too loud? In Japan, they’ll map-shame you
'Dorozoku' map crowd-sources the whereabouts of noisy kids in Japan – but who's being anti-social here, exactly?
China’s most important border is imaginary: the Hu Line
First drawn in 1935, Hu Line illustrates persistent demographic split – how Beijing deals with it will determine the country's future.
‘Cockeyed’ map shows both glamour and margins of 1930s Hollywood
Legendary cartoonist John Groth's pictorial map captures LA's film factories in their Golden Age.
Norway has highest share of women scientists and engineers in Europe
Despite overall increase over the past 20 years, share of women in science and engineering falls in some European countries
In France’s Red Zones, World War I never ended
More than a century after the end of hostilities in 1918, some battlefields of WWI are still deadly enough to kill you.
Why do ‘Kevins’ vote for far-right parties?
In Germany and France, having an Anglo-Saxon first name is a good predictor of extreme voting behavior.
Where in the world is Portsea?
This map of Europe's 20 most populous islands holds a few surprises and unlocks a truckload of trivia.
Here’s the view from humanity’s furthest spacecraft
Already 14 billion miles from the Sun, Voyager 1 is speeding away at 38,000 mph.
Four scenarios for the next supercontinent
The arc of geological history is long, but it bends towards supercontinents – so, what will the next one look like?
Why East Germany is a map zombie
Three decades after the demise of the GDR, its familiar contours keep coming back from the dead.
How young is the oldest building in your state?
Map shows oldest buildings for each U.S. state – but also hints at what's missing.
How Europeans wear wedding rings, and what it says about them
For a purely binary choice, wearing a ring either on the left or right hand can say a lot about the wearer.