Article created by: Justinas Keturka
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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