35 Informative And Unusual Maps That Might Change Your Perspective On Things, As Shared On This Online Group (New Pics)
Interview
For me, maps are the perfect fusion of art, information, insight, and entertainment. They help us navigate both physically and in the realm of ideas. What separates a good map and a great one is that the latter doesn’t stop with just mapping the territory: it expands the borders of our imagination.
There’s hardly a better place to see original, unusual, and interesting maps than this subreddit right here. Though we can’t mention the name (thanks, internet police!), it’s a veritable treasure chamber for cartographers, amateur and professional alike! Having celebrated its 10th birthday this spring, the online group now boasts more than 1.6 million members, pulling in thousands of new ones on a steady basis. Content is king and these redditors, including the founder, land surveyor Patrick McGranaghan, make some truly marvelous maps.
Featured here you’ll find some of the freshest and greatest new maps. Pack your bags, put on your safari hats, and let’s go on an adventure, Pandas! Just remember to upvote the maps that you enjoyed the most, the ones that taught you something new, and the ones that gave you a fresh perspective on the world.
Patrick, the founder of the subreddit, revealed to Bored Panda what makes a good mapmaker and whether we all need to be tip-top artists. A lot depends on the purpose of the map itself, however, the main goal is to make it as informative and easy to understand as possible. Art skills? Not as important. (Though certainly a plus!)
"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. 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," he said.
Hungry for more magnificent maps? Then you’ll want to have a scroll through Bored Panda’s previous articles about map-lovers and their creations here: [Unrolls 5 parchments with ancient symbols and drawings] Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
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The Journey Of An Arctic Fox Who Walked From Norway To Canada In 2018
I was curious to find out what personal projects Patrick has been working on recently. "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 spoke about the innovative way of using the program.
"You might have seen some beautiful maps by Sean Conway and Scott Reinhard showing old maps with digital elevation terrain underneath. These are often made in Blender. 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," Patrick spoke about his ongoing adventure to learn Blender. If you Pandas haven't already, you really ought to take a look at Sean and Scott's work as well.
The Baltic Way. On 23 August 1989, Two Million People Joined Their Hands To Form A Human Chain Spanning 675.5 Km Across The Three Baltic States. The Protest Was Against The Soviet Occupation, And To Support The Independence Movements Of The Three States
A Map Art Piece I'm Working On Of Paris' Latin Quarter
The founder also told Bored Panda about the current state of the subreddit and how Reddit as a whole has changed recently. Changes in tech are also driving changes in content. "The subreddit is doing well. Reddit overall over the last few years has shifted towards mobile-friendly content. Reddit used to be only for desktop users. In the early days, the content was mostly large files that were wallpaper-sized. They were great for zooming in and exploring in detail."
However, these days are long gone. Nowadays, "Reddit is overwhelmed" with users who only use it on their smartphones and other mobile devices. "For better or worse, that is how it is and that's the trend for the future. The subreddit contains a lot of bite-size Instagram-style statistical maps. The community upvotes this content and if that's what they want, that's the direction the sub will take."
No One Lives In The Green Part Of New Zealand,the Population Density There Is 0 People Per Km And That Is About 78% Of New Zealand Land
And plenty of space for sheep! 26 million grazing sheep compared to five million people haha
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Ummm, no not right. According to this map, where I am from is supposed to be uninhabited and I can assure you there are people there.
Lets hope that our human race doesn't destroy the beautiful place, with climate change or over population as we seen to do to lots of other natural beauties. Thank you for listening to my rant.
Since a good part of South Island is mountainous it's not particularly surprising. A beautiful country led by an inspirational Prime Minister.
Best ever. Google her being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Humble, polite, friendly. Never seen a politician like it.
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I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Yeah, earthquakes are awful, but other places have forest fires or frequent shootings or have to live in gated communities to feel safe, etc. Bad earthquakes are infrequent and we build to survive them. Christchurch was a bad one because they'd never really had big ones there so weren't all built for it - and one building was responsible for 62% of the deaths in that one.
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I wonder if this is just playing with numbers, because I live in some of that green and I'm definitely not the only one. Firstly, there's technically a big difference between one square kilometre and one kilometre square. One square kilometre is a thousand square metres, so technically that's a square that is about 31.62 metres a side. The land my house is on is over 8,000 square metres, so by the rules of this map my wife and I don't exist. Actually, that would explain a lot. Edit - the agreed definition of a square kilometre seems to 1 km per side, so I stand corrected there. That said, I still live in one of the green bits.
I'd be interested to see a similar map of the US states of WY, MT, ID, SD, and ND.
And no one ever will. Because it belongs to my people. The New Zealand government has been giving us back the land that was stolen from us just like it was stolen from indigenous people all around the world. I'm one of the lucky ones because our land had been surveyed and their were records showing the land is rightfully ours. I live in the US but first and foremost I am a Maori woman. I am Ngāti Whātua. The land belongs to me and all of my whānau by birth right.
Here in the US we'd give a couple of Senators to every uninhabited political area and call it a red state so that the extreme right party could keep power.
A lot of the green space is farm or forestry, not empty. A lot of it is also mountains or national parks, so not possible to build on.
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That is rubbish ! Incorrect. It is mostly farms and it isn't 0 per square kilometre - it will be above zero. Some of that land is indeed un inhabitable as New Zealand is has many mountains, ranges and the like. I mean real mountains, not hills. But, my point is that the majority (approx 40%) of this map should not be green as there is more than 0 per square kilometre - it may be 0.1, but that is NOT zero.
Why does the population map at population...nd_1-2.jpg 
not agree with the Nobody Lives Here map above?
The population map at population...nd_1-1.jpg 
does not match the Nobody Lives Here map above.
That's because most of that is vertical, and almost impossible to get to!
Every country should have the same ratio. Human encroachment is out of hand due to the population doubling since 1970.
I'm from NZ and yes we do have large national parks and farm land but not as many as depicted there
the problem with the human mind in a nutshell oooh so few people i want to move there but if we all do it would be a s**t place to live lol
TO ME THAT BULL I'M A NEW ZEALANDER ITS ALL I HABITTED I KNOW HIS WEBSITE SAYS .CO.NZ BUT HE STILL MIGHT NOT BE A NEW ZEALANDER 😤😤😤
I heard that in New Zealand there is a rapid degradation of the natural environment. Is this true?
No worse than many other places as far as I can tell. When National were in govt they lowered the number of rivers considered unswimmable by changing the rating system. Thankfully we got rid of those idiots or they would have killed us all during covid but putting their business buddies above everything else.
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The only reason it’s somewhat nice is because it’s not overly populated. Don’t go there.
Ah..no. By that same measure, Antarctica would be nicer.
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Thinking back to "the beach" movie and maybe it's for the best to don't go there.
Yep. And we take them too. They can't travel here by boat, too far away. Not many want to go to nz as it's so far away. But we welcome them with open arms, even groups with welcome signs at the airport (except the nz racists, as of course sadly racists are everywhere. The only thing I have no patience/tolerance for is intolerance). But even in my wee south island town we have had a good few bunches come over, the town looks more diverse, the food diversity is rising and I love it ^-^
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You haven't heard about the Refugee Quota Increase Programme, have you? Do a little research next time https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/what-we-do/our-strategies-and-projects/refugee-resettlement-strategy/rqip. Watch the recent doco on the kiwis pushing the govt to go even further and do more. Then try again.
Load More Replies...Zealandia, The 8th Continent That's Almost Entirely Submerged
Rivers Of Italy
Patrick, the founder of the subreddit, was kind enough to go into detail about the online group, map-making, and his passion for maps on a number of occasions.
“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 previously told Bored Panda about seizing the day and starting your adventure today, instead of putting these things off indefinitely.
“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," Patrick said that we have to seize opportunities to live (really live) as they come.
Territories Where Married Gay Couples Can Buy Rifles To Protect Their Marijuana Plants
Wolf Distribution In Italy Since 1900
Reported UFO Sightings Map. Last 115 Years
UFO means unidentified flying object. It does not mean alien most are probably military from earth.
Recently Patrick had been working on pixel maps that are bound to get the attention of anyone who’s got a penchant for video games, retro items, or pixel art. "This spring, I was making a lot of pixel maps that looked like old video game graphics. I picked some exotic places like Botswana and Mongolia to make these maps," he revealed a bit about his projects.
"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,” the founder told Bored Panda.
The Easternmost Point Of Brazil Is Closer To Africa Than To Its Westernmost Point
The Longest Possible Train Travel In The World
Existence Of Pangaea Proven With Evidence Of Similar Fossils Across Continents
As a child I always thought this was easy to prove by just looking at a world map, the countries separated by oceans all fit together like jigsaw pieces.
According to Patrick, moderating the subreddit is all about keeping a delicate balance and staying realistic: the fact is that you can’t keep everyone happy all the time. Nor should you try to when questions of quality are involved. “Moderating is always a delicate balance. It is impossible to please everybody. If you are too laissez-faire you get a lot of low effort and ugly submissions and the users complain,” he said.
Closer To Paris Or To London?
Countries That Have Yet To See True Temperature Extremes
After Tokyo 2020 This Map Remains The Same. All Men’s Water Polo Gold Medal Winners Since 2000 Were Born Inside This Circle
However, being too strict is also not an option. “If you are too strict, then you risk alienating those who supply the content for the sub. I try to find a balance between these two extremes. Overall, I'm satisfied with the moderating and I don't foresee any changes in the immediate future," Patrick explained.
Variations Of The Given Name “Paul”
Land Reclamation In The Netherlands
During low tide, you can walk from the mainland to the islands in the North as our country is flat as a pancake :)
Butter Or Olive Oil? Based On Actual Per Capita Consumption
Some people are naturally more skilled at navigation and using maps than others. Though, of course, navigation is a skill and you can get better at it so long as you’re patient, dedicated, and spend enough time honing it. “The older I get, the more I realize that spatial awareness just comes naturally to some people, and for others, it's a struggle," Patrick said. “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.”
The Strait Of Gibraltar
Europe If The Sea Level Rose 100m
Eh, the Dutch would survive. We'd just build a giant dome over the Netherlands and continue on as if nothing happened
Share Of Young People Aged 25 -34 Living With Parents
The founder had some advice for everyone about how we can develop our navigation skills in our local area. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door before moving on to bigger adventures.
"If you live in a place with a tall hill or some viewpoint, go up there some time and look around. Try to identify as many landmarks as you can. Notice where they are in relation to each other. Look for new landmarks that you've never noticed before and keep them in mind as you navigate your hometown.”
Number Of Prisoners Per 100 000 People In European Countries
Traditional Hats Of Europe
Sun Tanning vs. Skin Whitening
Patrick continued: “If there are rivers or other features that cause chokepoints on bridges or highways, memorize all the bridges and where they go. In this way, you'll know the layout of your city and how to get around.”
Languages Of Europe Using Lemon And Citrus
Percentage Of People Who Trust Climate Scientists, 2020
How Do You Sneeze?
As for the idea that ‘everything has been mapped,’ Patrick thinks it’s a bunch of baloney. “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 said that there will always be a need for new, fresh, updated maps.
Percentage Of Indians With Toilet 2014 vs. 2017
That's one of the few decent things Modi has done right for India-toilets and electricity nationwide. Didn't do anything about the slums though, like idk, HELPING them
Countries That Are Obligated To Defend The United States And Vice Versa
North America Compared To Jupiter
Countries Where It's Illegal To Smack Children!
Sweden: in ten years of teaching at middle and high schools with 30% immigrant kids, never had a fight that drew blood. First week in US kid was put in the hospital. Don't have to do school shooting drills either
Countries Whose Local Names Are Extremely Different From The Names They're Referred To In English
Nearly Half Of American Will Have Obesity By 2030
Number Of Cigarettes Smoked Per Smoker Per Day In European Countries
Percentage Of Obese Population Per Country In Europe
Note: this post originally had 56 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
So...when I compare the mappings...Is it safe to say that living with parents at high age causes criminal behavior? :)
I encourage everyone to look at Our World in Data. There are some pretty fascinating maps and graphs on there.
Most of these maps are false regarding North Africa in particular Algeria. The white skinning, the hat, the names..etc. I guess they don't have the right info so they just put what they find on Lybia although these 2 countries have nothing in common. The hats map was also wrong regarding France. That's not a French beret and it's only in Paris that people used to wear berets. The south and the north of France had different sorts of hats. That's the 2 countries I lived in and I know most so I guess that it maybe mistakes about others countries that I don't know about. I know it's not important like COVID disinformation but it gives people wrong informations and make them believe they learn something on a country when it's wrong.
So...when I compare the mappings...Is it safe to say that living with parents at high age causes criminal behavior? :)
I encourage everyone to look at Our World in Data. There are some pretty fascinating maps and graphs on there.
Most of these maps are false regarding North Africa in particular Algeria. The white skinning, the hat, the names..etc. I guess they don't have the right info so they just put what they find on Lybia although these 2 countries have nothing in common. The hats map was also wrong regarding France. That's not a French beret and it's only in Paris that people used to wear berets. The south and the north of France had different sorts of hats. That's the 2 countries I lived in and I know most so I guess that it maybe mistakes about others countries that I don't know about. I know it's not important like COVID disinformation but it gives people wrong informations and make them believe they learn something on a country when it's wrong.
