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35 Unusual Maps That Might Change How You See The World, As Shared In This Online Account
There’s something about maps that keeps capturing our imagination again and again. Maps not only tell the stories in the most subtle and informative ways, they put things into a unique perspective we may not have ever thought of before.
So today we present you with a treat for your inner cartographer–the Twitter page dedicated to sharing “maps that keep you updated.” The creators of the page with a 36.1K-solid fan base also run a super popular Facebook page by the handle @IFLOVEMAPS. Here more than 757k people follow their content on a daily basis, which includes “keeping them updated about global events via maps,” “sharing maps developed by others” and providing them with “a new perspective on the world every day.”
Below we wrapped up some of the most interesting and informative maps shared on this page, so scroll down below and upvote your favorite ones!
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To find out more about the team behind the IFLOVEMAPS Facebook page and Twitter account, we reached out to the creators, Pablo Izquierdo and Lars Erik, who have been developing maps together for over a decade. The duo lives in Oslo and Madrid and they have a company called Mapographics that delivers services in the GIS-space (GIS = Geographical Information Systems).
Pablo explained that the main goal of Mapographics is to make maps that are informative, educational, and hopefully also nice to look at. “We have developed a lot of maps and analysis in the sustainability domain, and lately we have also started to sell maps for decoration. We love to merge scientific data with design,” he told Bored Panda.
I remember doing Technical Drawing in high school, such a lost art now.
The birth of IFLOVEMAPS was ten years ago, when Pablo and Lars Erik talked about making a social media page where they could share their love for maps. “It started with a Facebook page, and then moved on to Twitter and Instagram. We’re super happy to have several hundreds of thousands of followers, which to us is only a testimonial that many people share our love of maps,” Pablo said.
When asked if it’s true that more and more people are interested in maps, Pablo explained that we live in an ever more globalized society, and the distances between us are getting smaller due to cultural exchange and technology. “In addition, themes such as those that relate to environment, climate, sustainability, man-build-environment and more, nurture more interest in the spatial dimensions of things. Maps can represent how things are tied together in the spatial dimension, or geographical sense.” He added that “we experience a much higher interest in maps, more advanced spatial analysis, and more lightly, storytelling.”
Pablo explained that “from a social media point of view, people love maps that are spot-on in conveying a message of stereotypical characteristics and differences between countries. From a more professional point of view, the interest in sustainability related topics in maps has skyrocketed in recent years, such as maps showing degradation of nature or the effects of climate change. But more generally speaking, what we see is that maps, as a way to represent data or tell a story, are increasingly used in media, by the government, NGOs and even in the business community.”
I wish there was a key to see how many people each height equates to
But making a good map that is based on advanced data, that tells a story and that looks good (or at least tries to) is a process of trial and failure, Pablo argues. “To put it simply, the process starts from the idea on what story/data the maps should express, to identification of data source, quality assurance, data processing, GIS processing, and working to ensure the final print has crisp and flawless details when it turns into a final product.”
This is really lovely. Too bad their habitat is being destroyed daily.
but yet the standard of living is lower in the US. I woudl rather have lower income than go bankrupt after a cancer diagnosis or be one of the 56% of homeless people who have full time jobs. -American living abroad
If you are born in France and live there until 18, you are automatically French.
Ah, I see the Maritimes have been remembered! Finally. (I'm joking, everybody knows the Maritimes)
Not true! In today Romania was the Dacian language, which was Not Slavic and then it was combined with Latin -> Romanian language. It is a big part of the Eastern Europe!
I've never been to Italy, but now I believe it's better to not go, since the rest of the world is already there.
Kinda surprised it’s all Italy. Italy’s not even on my top 10 destination list.
whaaaaaat? it's basically the source of western civilisation post the greeks, it's like mandatory dude. Florence? Vatican? Rome? Venice? Come on!
Load More Replies...I had no idea Italy was so popular. When I first went there, decades ago, it was beautiful, but I got really tired and angry about being catcalled by men and having them grab my ass on the regular. The last time I went, there was none of that, but now all the tourist areas have been taken over by non-Italian vendors, restaurants, etc, and there's con merchants everywhere.
I don't understand why it's popular either. I could not wait to leave. Classism is disgustingly obvious. I saw men spit on homeless children in Rome. I was sexually assaulted by the owner of the hotel I stayed at in Positano.
Load More Replies...for Serbia it is wrong, we prefer Greece over the Italy for the most part.
The Australian one surprises me. I would have thought it would be Bali or Thailand, that seems to be what everyone talks about going to and are the most common tourism ads (plus NZ) we have on tv.
I feel like this map was made by the Italian tourism board lol
Actually surprised by this map - Italy has never crossed my mind as a vacation destination.
I LOVE ITALY IVE BEEN THERE LIKE 20 TIMES AND I SPEAK A TINY BIT ITALIAN BUONGIORNO IO AMO ITALIA PERCHÉ È MOLTO INTERESSANTE E FANTASTICO!!!!!
I don't want to go to Italy. I would love to go to Greece one day though.
Ah... click on the little username in gray above the voting buttons and you can see a MUCH bigger version. And yellow is Greece.
Load More Replies...Italy must be popular... I wonder were People who live there want to go, I can't see the map
italians from north go to the south and the ones from the south stay home. Never come in august, as you can't step on the beach from the quantity of people. Also, beaches aren't that fascinating as in the photos, eccept Sardinia.
Load More Replies...Used to go to Italy (and other European countries) a few weeks a year in an old job. Was known in our team as "Shitaly". Wasn't actually that bad, it was more the ratio of how short it fell of its reputation - the food is good (and some places great), but people bang on about it so much. The fashion is terrible, so many people dressed the exact same. Still, would much rather spend a few weeks there than the absolute cesspit of Europe that we called "Shitzerland". Awful place.
Wait, wait, wait. You say Italian fashion is horrible (with Milan, the fashion capital) and Switzerland is awful? Do elaborate, because the one time I visited Switzerland I was in awe by its beauty.
Load More Replies...I’m going to start calling Ferraris “Smiths” and nobody will understand but me
Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek. -Gus Portokalos
This is country perspective based. Didn't see squat about western tragedies or news when living in China, found out about them from western sources. My relatives in Malaysia don't hear any either unless we tell them; get lots of "omg world is inbdanger!" stuff when it's in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India, China, Thailand, or Vietnam though. Lots about coups and stuff in Thailand and Myanmar get reported there as terrible for the world.
So everyone went to pretty much the same places? (Except looks like the Dutch weren't that much interested in North America)
Note: this post originally had 113 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
I could probably spend the rest of my life looking at these and still forget all of it three minutes later.
Yeah these are always nice facts to look at, never remember anything after I close the page though :D
Load More Replies...I could probably spend the rest of my life looking at these and still forget all of it three minutes later.
Yeah these are always nice facts to look at, never remember anything after I close the page though :D
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