I’ve wasted enjoyed thousands of hours staring at maps – especially old maps.
Here are two of the best maps I’ve ever seen.
They are both in the public domain, and interesting both for the map part – and the info surrounding it.
Map of USA in 1844 (click to enlarge)
Observations from this map:
- The cities are tiny. Really tiny.
- Rural areas are really populated. For example, Oglethorpe County, Georgia (next door to Athens, GA) has a higher population than the urban Clarke County – and even has a higher population than it does now.
- Umm, where’s Atlanta?
- I always forget that West Virginia seceded from a seceding Virginia.
- Florida is “an extensive swamp.”
Map of World in 1794 (click to enlarge)
Observations from this map:
- Every crater on the moon has a name…but they couldn’t get the shapes of the continents close to correct. I reminds me how even now we are are crowdsourcing and naming millions of stars and galaxies…while we know very, very little about the oceans. Which creates the question – why are astronomers so good at getting funding?
- Old Greenland was “found again in the preceding century” – umm, what does that mean?
- At least the interior rivers of South America had been explored – but Africa? – a big blank. Ditto Australia.
- Apparently Hawaii was called the “Sandwich Islands”
- “Terraqueous Globe” is such as better term than “map of the world.” Why can’t the best words stick around?