Monthly Archives: June 2009

  The Bir Tawil Triangle is a desert of sand and rocks on the border between Egypt and the Sudan. It is also officially the most undesired territory in the world. Bir Tawil is the only piece of land on … Continue reading →

A rug, to quote The Big Lebowski, can really tie a room together. The Dude (or El Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) opted for a pretty run-of-the-mill carpet – a classic Persian or Oriental design, if … Continue reading →

Irrespective of whether it’s entirely mythical or merely missing, the ‘lost’ island of Atlantis is one of the most sought after pieces of real estate in history. The oldest source for the stories of a once mighty land now vanished … Continue reading →

How long does it take to travel from London to elsewhere? The answer is provided by this map, showing a set of expanding circles centered on the British capital, each bigger one delineating two extra hours of travel time. The … Continue reading →

Fixing her regional loyalty in indelible ink on skin, Julia had a map of Portland, ME tattooed on her shoulder. A comparison with the more conventional map on the right indicates that her tat clearly shows the Portland peninsula, the Fore … Continue reading →

If there were only 100 people in Ireland, 55 of them would be speaking only English, 39 of them would be speaking mainly English, and occasionally Irish, 2 of them would be speaking mainly Irish and one would be speaking … Continue reading →

  Portugal, on the southwestern periphery of the European continent, is a medium-sized EU member state. Its population clocks in at 11th place out of 27 (10.59 million, in between Belgium’s 10.66 million [10] and the Czech Republic with 10.40 … Continue reading →

The mean centre of US population is “the point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the US would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location … Continue reading →

At last, the worlds of cartography, vexillology and population statistics meet! This map was inspired by earlier maps of the US, with its states renamed for countries with a similar GDP (see posts #131 and #135). It shows each US state covered … Continue reading →

I had never heard of Fagunda. A 17th-century map places it in the North Atlantic, not far from Estotiland, Bus and Frislant. These and other so-called phantom islands were a by-product of the Age of Discovery. They started out as … Continue reading →