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Ian Wright is a little bit obsessed with maps. But not the geographical kind. The cartophile and founder of Brilliant Maps tells Bored Panda he’s been interested more in the political, historical and economic sides of maps for as long as he can remember.
“My adult interest was really rekindled when I decided to walk London's Tube map, above ground of course. I found it was a really unique way to better get to know the city. And I also started looking more into what makes the Tube map unique,” he revealed.
Wright says this sparked an idea to start sharing maps he’d found on Twitter, the former bluebird app now known as “X”. Today, his account has more than 129,000 followers and over 16,000 posts. He’s branched out and built a successful business around his passion for maps.
“I initially started sharing maps on Twitter as a way to learn about the platform. At the start it was just fun sharing cool maps I'd seen,” he said during our interview. Wright tells us that after a few posts went viral, he realized that the platform wasn't the best place to include more data or nuance about the posts.
“So I started the Brilliant Maps website as a place to better explain the maps and put them into a wider context,” he said. And that led to him releasing the Brilliant Maps book in 2019.
Wright says besides the obvious getting us from point A to B, maps are a really useful tool to help quickly explain the world in ways that other forms of visualizations lack. “Unlike charts, graphs, or tables, maps inherently connect data to a place,” he explained. “This allows you to quickly see the difference between places today or the same place over time.”
Wright adds that maps are a great tool for visualizing the world and a great tool for learning about the world. “My kids have both learned about maps at school as a way to better understand the differences between our neighbourhood, city, country and world,” he revealed.
While some believe the digital age might lead to the death of traditional maps, Wright disagrees. “In terms of navigation it's tough to beat Google Maps,” he told us. “However, there's nothing like holding a paper map in your hand. I'm especially fond of historical maps. I recently purchased an original Booth Poverty Map of London and a 16th century map of Brugge, where I lived for a year with my wife.”
Wright says he’s also a big fan of atlases “as you often spot something you never knew you didn't know (unknown unknowns).”
So where does Wright see the future of maps heading? "I think the sort of maps I publish on Brilliant Maps aren't going away anytime soon, although if AI gets a bit better it may be the one making them!" he told Bored Panda.
"In the real world, I think it's likely we'll likely get some sort of Augmented Reality, where you can ask an AI agent about what you're seeing in real time, better optimize your route based on certain criteria, etc."
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Maps are generally seen as pretty reliable. But you might be surprised to know that cartographers (the people who make maps) sometimes insert fake towns and streets onto them. They aren’t doing this to confuse travelers but rather to catch anyone who tries to forge the map, or infringe on copyright.
The fake places are known as “paper towns” and “trap-streets”. And in a super bizarre turn of events, one of the phantom towns became real for a short while, before swiftly disappearing again.
In the 1930s, Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers from General Drafting Co. were making a road map of New York state. They decided to make up a fictitious hamlet called “Agloe”, and marked it on a dirt road, somewhere between Rockland and Beaverkill. The duo came up with the name by combining letters of their own names. The map was printed and that was that… or not.
As it turns out, a well-known map company called Rand McNally created their own New York state map a few years later. They seemingly fell straight into the trap, placing "Agloe" on the same spot as General Drafting Co. had.
Naturally, when Lindberg got wind of this, he mapped out his revenge and took the matter to court, but his rivals warned that he wouldn't win the case. The defendants claimed that “Agloe” did in fact exist. And they had grounds to prove it.
McNally pointed out that Agloe had a general store, and if Lindberg and his team visited the area, they'd find the shop at the intersection marked on the map. They weren't wrong. Strangely, a shopkeeper had spotted Agloe on a map, and decided to start a business there. This is despite a lack of any surrounding houses or signs of life. Nevertheless, that shop provided enough proof for General Drafting to avoid being sued for copyright infringement.
Agloe's general store didn't last long. We'd hazard a guess it had to do with a lack of demand. But the whole ordeal certainly put the town on the map, so to speak. Author John Green even mentioned it in his novel Paper Towns. "When its protagonist Margo disappears, she leaves oblique clues as to her whereabouts. The trail leads to somewhere and nowhere – Agloe," reported the Guardian.
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Some maps still feature the little hamlet of "Agloe." It was even visible on Google Maps, until it was removed in 2014. Despite its non-existence, people flock to visit "Agloe", intrigued by the back story of this mythical "paper town". And maybe today, a general shop would be useful commodity on that deserted dirt road after all.
