39 Strange Maps For Anyone Who Appreciates Weird Geography

We wanted to know how Patrick, the founder, feels about the massive success of the subreddit, and that it's been around for nearly 12 years.

"It's crazy to think about how long the community has been around. I think that Reddit as a whole has become this massive social media presence," he shared his thoughts with Bored Panda.

"It's a useful site for sharing information and that has spread around the world," Patrick said that the community has "filled a niche" and believes it was started at "just the right time."

According to the founder, in the past 12 years, there's been a big shift to mobile-friendly content, which has changed how the subreddit is used.

"In the beginning, the users had desktop computers and the maps were the kind that you could zoom in on and study for hours. Now, many of the maps are made for quick consumption to show interesting trivia or geographic anomalies," he explained how the content has changed over the years.

Patrick is very passionate about traveling and is almost a modern-day adventurer in his spare time. In his spare time, he makes maps. We were curious about what he's been up to, recently.

"I've recently been traveling. I just finished a trip to Jordan and Israel and got to explore many historic sites. I've been doodling some casual maps from the trip. The geography of the holy land has inspired me to make more maps and I hope to post some soon," he told Bored Panda.

"Also, this summer I'm planning on visiting Finland for the International Map Collectors Society annual conference. Finland has been a historical country for cartography and I'm excited to visit the libraries and map collections there."

This May, the subreddit will be celebrating a whopping 12 years of educating and entertaining the internet. Created all the way back in 2011, the community has grown to over 2.2 million redditors in just over a decade.

If you happen to love cartography, statistics, or just plain good design, then odds are that you’ve stumbled upon the sub’s content at some point in time. Even if it was by accident. That’s how well-known the online group is.

The mastermind behind the awesome community is its founder, land surveyor Patrick—a big fan of traveling and creating maps. Over the past few years, we’ve spoken to Patrick a number of times and he shed some light on the community, map-making, and having an adventurous spirit.

"There are many different reasons one chooses to make a map. Sometimes for navigation, sometimes for showing statistical phenomena, and sometimes for fantasy. While artistic skill helps, it is not absolutely necessary,” he told Bored Panda earlier.

“The important thing is to make it easy for users to glean useful information. Most maps should have a thesis or a story it is going to tell and this needs to be told through the map," the founder of the subreddit, Patrick, told us during an interview earlier.

The founder works on a lot of maps in his spare time. "Lately, I've been learning Blender. It is more of a 3-D animation program used by video game developers, but I believe that there are ways to use it to display maps," he told us in late 2021 how he’s been trying out new tools.

"Blender has a great ability to show light and shadow patterns that are almost photo-realistic. I think there are ways to use this program beyond showing maps with realistic terrain. I'm still a novice now, but I'd like to explore other ways this program can visualize maps," he said at the time.

“I've noticed, especially as I've gotten older, that you only have so much time on this planet and every day that is wasted is a day that you'll never get back. If you want to get out and explore the world you just have to do it,” Patrick shared earlier.

“Some adventures will cost time and resources, but the real question I ask myself is can I afford not to do some goal I have my heart set on. There are so many opportunities in this world that it may be hard to choose, but if you wait too long those opportunities will be gone forever," he said.

"I think a great way to learn about an exotic place is to make a map of it and really give some hours and care into making the map look as good as possible. You really get a connection for a place as you're putting labels on and making decisions about what to include and where to lay everything out.”

Meanwhile, there will always be a need for new maps. “The world is constantly changing and accurate spatial data is a fleeting thing. Google Maps certainly gives the impression that everything is mapped, but there is selection and generalization in their data.” He added: “In a way, reliance on Google Maps has made us dumber. We let the navigation app do all the work for us and don't engage with making the decisions.”

We’re pretty big fans of the subreddit and maps in general, so we know which ones are our faves. But we’d love to know which ones you enjoyed looking at, too! Drop by the comments and let us know. Meanwhile, for some more utterly amazing maps from the sub, check out Bored Panda’s previous features here, here, here, as well as here and here.

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