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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The fans supporting their teams at the World Cup in Russia are overwhelmingly white. Their teams? Not so much.
Virtually all young Danes have left the parental home by the time they’re 34. Yet in Slovakia, almost 57% of young adults still reside in the Hotel of Mum and Dad.
The heatwave scorching Britain is revealing the outline of ancient buildings – some previously unknown to archaeologists
There’s a reason why all the world seems to be hiding within the borders of Maine.
America is the world’s #2 exporter – and that makes trade wars everything but “good and easy to win”
Three years after the Charleston massacre, the ‘Lost Cause’ is still honoured throughout the South – and beyond
Name one French coastline. Great. Now name another. Can’t? Here are all 36.
Are you a ‘Big-Endian’ or a ‘Little-Endian’? Swift’s satirical take on religious wars gave us the jargon to describe our different date and address formats.
All big cities have rats, but Paris seems to have a more serious rodent problem than most.
Soccer is not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that. And the FIFA World Cup even more so.
The world’s newest land, created by Hawaii’s volcanic outburst, already has an owner.
This is what the world will look like, 250 million years from now
In most countries around the world, some jobs are by law reserved for men only and forbidden for women.
Each year, lightning kills 24,000 people around the world. These maps show which regions get hit more than others.
Could social graphing be a way to find the ‘Holy Grail’ of successful movie writing?
West Virginia and Mississippi are at the bottom of the educational attainment table and Massachusetts is the state with the highest share of Bachelor’s degree holders – beaten only by the District of Columbia
For urban exploration with an ironic twist, go ‘bag’ all 32 London Borough Tops
Just how equal in size are the populations of Europe and North America?
A rare counter-example to the flood of Temperance maps, this Prohibition-era chart celebrates alcohol in its many forms
Thought experiment: What if you graft Israel’s borders onto the San Francisco Bay Area?
You can get a pizza even in Pyongyang. But is it Italian?
What’s Eminem doing in Missouri? Kanye West in Georgia? And Wiz Khalifa in, of all places, North Dakota?
The ‘Great Polish Map of Scotland’ is the coolest map story you’ve never heard of.
These sober maps have a chilling topic: the prevalence of lynchings throughout the U.S. from 1930 to 1938.
A map of the coming divorce between Left and Right America.
The Saudi blockade of its tiny neighbour Qatar could soon change the very geography of the region.
You think the collapse of the Soviet Union was chaotic? You should have seen the start.
Three-quarters of tree species common in the eastern U.S. have moved their population centres westward over the last 30 years – an effect not predicted by assumptions about global warming.
Do you enjoy ‘non-traditional sexual relationships’? Then mind where you travel.
From La Rinconada in Peru to South Africa’s deepest mines: the quest for gold drives people to the greatest heights and depths on Earth.