Cartography aficionado Naomi directed me this morning to Strange Maps, a blog featuring all kinds of… strange maps.
The most recently posted map is by far the most arresting, if not the strangest. It replaces all fifty states with the names of countries, according to their equivalent GDPs. So technically, I’ve lived in the economies of Brazil, Finland, and Canada.
The “guilty pleasure” map is the Map of Online Communities. There are a couple maps of the blogosphere floating around, but this one is more clever than technical. The Bay of Angst borders LiveJournal country, and off the coast of the gaming region the map declares, “Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons.” I’m planning to summer on Boing Boing’s island and take pleasant day trips to Cory Doctorow’s Balloon.
Of course, Google’s been a pioneer in the cool map field for some time now, and they recently premiered Google Street View, which lets you walk down the middle of city streets and sightsee from the safety of your computer. You probably won’t run into anyone you know, though. There’s only a few cities available on the map right now, but you might want to consider a vacation to Las Vegas that’s a lot cheaper and a lot more pixelated.
I love the Strange Maps website. This one - Europe’s Climate in 2071 - is another good one.
If you like that, surely you’ll love this global warming mug: Add hot water and watch the coastlines vanish.
Just what you need first thing in the morning.
Unfortunately, it’s out of stock right now.
Odd but cool.
From my summer home on Boing Boing, here’s another cool/strange map.
It accompanies this article, which shows the shrinking area children are allowed to roam over generations.