50 Fun And Surprisingly Insightful Maps Shared By ‘Amazing Maps’

We were curious how the idea for 'Amazing Maps' came about in the first place. Georgi, the founder of the project, was kind enough to shed some light on this.

"In reality, I started the account primarily for fun, as a joke, inspired by other similar accounts on Instagram," he told Bored Panda in an email that this was "nothing special" at the time.

However, now, he's been focused on running 'Amazing Maps' for 5 years, an entire quarter of his life!

"What keeps me passionate [about map-making] is the fact that I see people actively engage with my content, the fact that I know I'm contributing to education and improving people's knowledge. I don't get paid anything for this hobby," he said.

"In the future, I'm planning on creating more reels and content in the form of videos, because sometimes just a map/post is not enough to convey all the necessary information in an engaging way," he told Bored Panda about his plans for 'Amazing Maps.'

We also wanted to get Georgi's perspective about the fundamental things that make a map truly great. "A great map is one which is easy to understand, conveys information in the most efficient way possible. There is a very fine balance between generalising too much, which results in a well-looking map but doesn't convey enough information to form a reasonable opinion on the subject," he said.

"It is always difficult to ensure that the maps you create are accurate. Some of the rules I go by are to not use sources older than 5 years (or 10 depending on the subject), always list the source (Wikipedia isn't as bad as people think), make sure to use accessible and good-looking colors and never put too much information on a single map, because you risk the viewer missing it out or being overwhelmed."

Media literacy has always been essential for becoming an educated, well-rounded, skeptical, critically thinking individual. However, in this day and age, its importance is greater now than ever.

What with the vast pace of information and misinformation in your social media feeds, biased and fake news stories floating everywhere, and the veritable flood of artificial intelligence-powered slop. Knowing what sources (not) to trust is vital.

If you’re anything like the average person, then you’ve got tons of daily responsibilities, from work and school to chores and parenting. All of those must-do activities eat up a ton of time and energy.

So, you don’t necessarily have the space to double-check and cross-reference every single fact, claim, and opinion you see or hear on the news and on social media.

A much better approach is to figure out what sources are reliable and then to trust them to get things right (most of the time).

Trustworthy outlets will back up their claims, provide links to the sources they used, and have proper editorial standards. They won’t ever present opinions as facts. And if they ever make a mistake (even the best journalists do from time to time), they’ll fix the mistake.

The best of the best will even mention that they’ve made a correction, so that they’re fully transparent. Furthermore, trustworthy sources will also disclose any conflicts of interest they might have.

You should definitely be wary of believing anything said by a source that you’re unfamiliar with.

If a fact or claim sounds too good or too bad to be true, search for it elsewhere, and see what other sources corroborate the story.

If there’s only one or two unknown sources claiming something, then it’s a good rule of thumb to assume that they’re either wrong, have an agenda they’re pursuing, or a narrative they want to push.

Take a look at the other news stories that the outlet and its journalists cover. Think about what their goals and biases might be, and how this is reflected in the headlines and photos they use, the angles they write about, and the facts they stress or omit.

‘Perfect’ neutrality and objectivity might be a pipe dream, but reliable news sources do their best to provide a nuanced, contextualized picture of events.

Real life is complex, messy, and much more gray than purely black-and-white.

Repetition, while great for building healthy habits and learning new things, is also one of your biggest foes if your goal is to uncover the truth. The reality is that human beings are more susceptible to believing that a claim is right the more it’s repeated.

This is known as the illusory truth effect. In a nutshell, the more exposed you are to a piece of info, the more you believe it. Even if those ‘facts’ go against what you’ve learned previously.

According to Investopedia, the fact that people are more inclined to see repeatedly encountered ideas as valid contributes to the spread of misinformation on social media.

“Faced with this informational overload, we don’t have the mental capacity to process everything in depth. Instead, we rely on a variety of cognitive shortcuts, known as heuristics, to simplify our decision-making process. One of the ways that our brains compensate for our limited cognitive resources is by processing things on a simple, essentially automated level whenever possible.”

The fact is, even if you’re super analytical and highly educated, you can still fall prey to the illusory truth effect, Psychology Today notes. However, you can make others more immune to constantly repeated false claims and counter lies by:

1. Using the so-called ‘truth sandwich,’ where you mention the truth, then the falsehood that’s spreading, and then describe the correct info
2. Pre-bunking, where you ‘inoculate’ others by preemptively explaining the flawed argumentation techniques that misinformation uses to distort scientific facts
3. Focusing on fact-checking, including homing in on accurate rather than entertaining headlines, and asking yourself how truthful statements are

The Bulgaria-based ‘Amazing Maps’ account was created all the way back in May 2020, by Georgi Pamyatnih. It mainly focuses on sharing educational facts about the world, in map form. So far, over the years, the curators of the Instagram account have shared over 800 posts! The account has attracted a sizeable following of 154k followers.

The team running ‘Amazing Maps’ doesn’t just love maps, they actually make them, too. “Amazing Maps was born with the motivation to incorporate geographic and historical identity that you can proudly display on your wall,” the team writes on their website, noting that they hope to “put the world on your wall,” wherever you might be.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions, dear Pandas. If you have a spare moment, share yours in the comments below! Which of these maps surprised you the most and why? Were there any that challenged your assumptions about how you see the world?

What is the best map you’ve ever encountered, regardless of the source or when it was made? Let us know below!