Who Maps the Map Blogs? May 3, 2007
Posted by KG in Blog, Internet.2 comments
Perhaps it was the consumption of National Geographics my parents received, or the first pages of the volumes in my old Tolkein boxed set, or international travel at an early age. Put me in front of a map — real or fictional — and I’ll spend copious amounts of time staring, tracing my finger, imagining far-off lands and unseen places. Unfortunately, true maps of the Earth are by their nature limited by “geography” and “reality” (see Borges, On the Exactidude of Science). With satellites giving us “exact” depictions of the Earth, it takes a novel way of looking at the world (or political hubris) to make cartography more interesting than just arranging artifacts as they are. Which is why Strange Maps and The Map Room are such great sites. If you’re in the mood for content on how the world could look — or how others might imagine it looks now — I highly recommend them.
(image of the tetrahedral Earth via Strange Maps, and a whole lot of bad science from the early 20th century)
