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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Europe is the continent where you are most likely to be killed by Liam Neeson.
Only in 1992 was science able to calculate the remotest part of the ocean
The nearest exoplanet ever has been observed, but not yet seen. Is this what the ‘Earth Next Door’ looks like?
The sender didn’t have a name nor an address for his letter. So he drew a map instead.
As this stark map shows, domestic violence against children is still legal in most of the world.
Years of war in the Middle East have erased old borders. Here is what the map currently looks like.
Once the emergency is over, maybe it’s time we drew a different map of Louisiana – however shocking it may be.
The Global economic midpoint is returning to Asia – at increasing speed.
Did you know the Metro to Embarcadero Station passes through a buried Gold Rush ship?
Like most data produced on social media, online bigotry is geotagged. Meaning that hate speech can be mapped. That is exactly what this newest map has done.
The map of Spain is tattooed into the Catalan landscape, as indelible streets and avenues
While nobody was paying attention, Germany took over a bit of Czech territory
Among many others, Britain’s new Foreign Secretary has managed to offend the previous, current and future presidents of the U.S.
For Renzo Picasso, could it be that sharing a last name with last century’s most famous painter pushed this visionary architect deeper into obscurity?
Most maps are directional tools, but some are their own destination, like this fun narrative-driven map from the New Yorker.
In a referendum on 23 June, British voters will decide whether or not to leave the European Union, and Americans will decide in November between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Shakespeare never visited America, yet the map of the U.S. is dotted with references to his work.
Not every butcher’s map has a Tenderloin District
Buckle up – you’re about to find out which US states have the same GDP as entire countries. Frank Jacobs’ latest installment of Strange Maps shines a light on the 51 countries that fit within North America’s GDP.
Passport specifications are regulated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the relative power of your country’s passport says a lot about its standing in thew world.
Mass migration is nothing new; the ancestors of modern Europeans themselves came from the Middle East.
These maps show the best and worst qualities of all fifty states in the US, and all European countries.
The arrogance and ignorance of American presidential candidate Donald Trump come alive in these three maps, which continue cartography’s wonderful history of satirical takedowns.
Take all the Christians out of the United States and these are the biggest religions for each state: a Buddhist West, a Muslim crescent across the South and Midwest, and a Jewish Northeast.
Celebrating Hispanic culture, the map-shaped fountain is one of Zaragoza’s more curious attractions
World’s biggest island? Up for discussion. The next 25? See this map.
Depending on where you do your shopping, it could be a sac, a pochon or even a nylon.
The Shipping Forecast is quite possibly the most British thing ever.