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
“This map makes clear the Nazi design, not only against South America but against the United States as well”, said FDR
Texas and Tennessee are the two states most mentioned in country lyrics
Chicago would have been in the state of Assenisipia, north of the state of Illinoia
n One could call it cautionary cartography, this map of a thoroughly germanified New York – something that might have happened in an alternate universe, where the Nazis not only […]
The pessimist mourns the glass’s half-emptiness, the optimist rejoices that it’s semi-full and the engineer just thinks the glass is twice the size it should be. What would a space […]
n “I used to work in a library and an old gentleman came in with it”, is about as much info as Jayson Emery can offer up about this map […]
Cuius Regio, Eius Religio – this Latin saying applies to Europe, and to the principle that ended religious warfare: “Whose region (it is), whose religion (shall predominate)”. But it sprang […]
n Here’s a map reminiscent of the Bruceville map – another piece of musical cartography treated earlier on this blog (entry #134). This one charts the haunts of Tom Petty, […]
n Egyptians one generation more ancient than the ones we usually call Ancient Egyptians perhaps thought the pyramids to be detestable eyesores on the desert skyline, and Greeks old enough […]
n For cartophiles, the main problem with this map is not that interviewer Larry King‘s head covers most of Europe, or that the bulky figure of his guest, moviemaker Michael […]
5,000,000 Hits n Thirty hits – that’s how many this blog accumulated for the whole of September 2006, the first month of its existence. The numbers for October were a bit better – […]
As most news bulletins prove, the world is not, alas, an harmonious place. The same point is proved, if inadvertently and on a more symbolical level, by this stunning musical […]
There is a 'precious' level to this map, and a naughty one.
What if New York had somehow managed to remain New Amsterdam?
… But some are more insular than others. Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry, according to this disputed article on Wikipedia “best known for his ceramics and his cross-dressing”, is the […]
The famous and not-so-famous dead of Pere Lachaise
Ebenezer Howard's utopian plan to blur the line between gardens and cities produced a number of depressing 'new towns'
Praise the Lord and pass the dictionary!
Madonna should love this map, having both gone all British and jewish-mystical. This map, in the style of the London Underground(*), depicts the Kaballah Tree of Life. Sephiroth (Hebrew for […]
n Not many people know that the epithet Windy City was bestowed on Chicago not for meteorological but political reasons – apparently, Chicago politicians at one time were known for […]
n Five years have past; five summers, with the lengthnOf five long winters! And again I hearnThese waters, rolling from their mountain-springsnWith a soft inland murmur (…) n So begins […]
n There are three Christmas Islands in the world. One is a small community on mainland Nova Scotia (Canada) named after a nearby island, which is presently called Ghost Island […]
One of the few best-in-class lists topped by PNG
Vital statistics of Napoleon's deadliest campaign
Everybody was getting ready for conflict, but at least they all agreed this map was funny
 n “Geographical manuals in US schools show an amputated Brazil, without the Amazon and the Pantanal. This is how students are taught that these are âinternationalâ areas, in other […]
According to Genesis 4:16 (KJV), “Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” According to this map, […]
Lost is not only the title of a popular American tv series, it also describes the exasperated feeling of those viewers looking for a semblance of a plot in the […]