39 Bizarre And Brilliant Maps That Prove Geography Is Way Cooler Than You Remember

These days, maps are part of everyday life in a way we barely even think about. We open them to check where the bus is, find a nearby café, or figure out the quickest way home. 

Even after living in the same city for years, plenty of us still reach for our phones the second we need to go somewhere unfamiliar. More than 2 billion people use Google Maps each month, which gives you an idea of just how common that habit has become.

In fact, some of us may have become a little too comfortable with having directions available at all times. A 2019 survey found that 53% of millennials said they would struggle to find their way somewhere without their phone. 

Another 15% said they had never even read a traditional paper map. Take away the blue dot telling us exactly where we are, and apparently quite a few of us would be in trouble.

What we have now is quite a luxury when you consider how long people have been trying to make sense of the places around them. According to Smithsonian Magazine, one of the oldest surviving maps is the Babylonian Map of the World, created sometime between 700 and 500 B.C. 

It was drawn on a small clay tablet and showed Babylon at the center. It was not especially detailed or useful for getting from one place to another. Instead, historian Jerry Brotton told the magazine there was something almost “talismanic” about being able to hold a picture of the world in your hands.

Maps slowly became more precise, although getting there took centuries. One major step came in the second century A.D., when Claudius Ptolemy created a system using latitude and longitude and plotted thousands of locations. 

Interestingly, Smithsonian notes that his interest in accurate geography was partly connected to astrology. Ptolemy wanted to know exactly where someone had been born so he could create more accurate horoscopes. 

His work eventually became hugely important for mapmaking, even though it disappeared from much of Western Europe for around a thousand years.

By the Renaissance, accurate maps were becoming much more important. Ships were travelling farther, while rulers wanted clearer pictures of the lands they controlled. Better compasses helped sailors find their way, and old ideas from Ptolemy were rediscovered. 

Then, in 1569, Gerardus Mercator introduced the projection that still influences many maps we see today. It made navigation easier because sailors could plot straight courses across the map.

There was one major catch. Flattening a round planet onto a flat surface always involves some distortion, and the Mercator projection makes places closer to the poles look much bigger than they really are. 

That means countries in northern parts of the globe can appear enormous, while Africa looks much smaller in comparison. Once you see countries shown at their real relative sizes, it can be pretty mind-blowing.

As mapmaking became more detailed, people also started using maps to show much more than physical geography. By the late 19th century, some maps could show individual buildings with remarkable detail. 

Businesses quickly realized that being included could be valuable, too. According to Smithsonian, some American mapmakers even charged merchants to have their buildings featured more prominently.

Maps could carry much more serious messages as well. In the 1880s, social reformer Charles Booth created a map of London that color-coded areas according to income and supposed criminal behavior. 

His goal was partly to draw attention to poverty, yet dividing neighborhoods in this way could also reinforce harmful ideas about the people living there. Similar thinking later appeared in American redlining, when banks refused loans to people based on where they lived.

So, as fascinating as maps can be, it is still worth looking at them with a critical eye. Depending on who created a map and what information they chose to include, it can influence how we understand the world and even how we see certain countries or local communities. 

In the wrong hands, that kind of influence can become surprisingly powerful. It is something worth keeping in mind the next time a map catches your attention.