#1 Lithuania Has Made A Map Of Magnets In Which Each Magnet Can Only Be Found In A Specific Area, To Boost Tourism, Specifically Local Tourism. (Credit To Demilked)
The creator of this online group, Patrick McGranaghan, described himself in a previous Bored Panda article on the subreddit as a "Denver-based techno-geek with a focus on all things geospatial and cartographic and a coding hobbyist with an emphasis on geospatial applications."
He is a land surveyor and a member of #maptime Denver, Rocky Mountain Map Society, NACIS, PLSC, Charles Close Society, and Open Street Map Foundation, just to name a few. He decided to share his passion with the world and start the project in May 2011 while living in Taiwan, and the rest is history.
Patrick revealed that while the community was pretty stable in the past, everything changed the morning when Russia invaded Ukraine.
"The subreddit usually has between 2,000 and 4,000 users at a given moment on a normal day. That number spiked to a peak of over 20,000 users looking for ... maps of the situation there," he told us.
#6 Mediterranean Sea Fits Inside Australia - Should Be A Much Better Image Than Last One
#7 Someone Here Posted A Map Of Earthquakes Since 1900(Top One) Now Watch It 1by1 To The Map Of Actual Tectonic Plates(Bottom One)
When it comes to the way people think about cartography, the founder of the subreddit believes it's currently going through a period of change.
"The previous generation was accustomed to paper maps that they used to navigate. This required skills in orientation and awareness that are no longer necessary with digital maps on mobile devices. Whilst there are lots of articles that eulogize the loss of these skills, I don't think it's necessarily all bad," he explained.
#11 Number Of Ukrainian Refugees Displaced In Europe In February 2023
#13 Estimated Migration Of Early Homo Sapiens Out Of Africa To The Rest Of The World, In Thousands Of Years Ago (Kya)
"The digital generation has a heightened awareness of how maps can visualize data," Patrick pointed out.
"The tools to make maps have been democratized. This has increased interest in finding new and clever ways to see spatial data."
#15 All Shootings vs. Shootings With Officer Involved In Chicago (2014-2022)
#17 The Largest Towns In 1050 In Europe, North Africa And West Asia (Population Over 40 Thousand)
In another Bored Panda interview, Patrick said that moderating the subreddit has always been about finding the right balance.
"It is impossible to please everybody. If you are too laissez-faire you get a lot of low-effort and ugly submissions and the users complain. If you are too strict, then you risk alienating those who supply the content for the sub. I try to find a balance between these two extremes. Overall, I'm satisfied with the moderating and I don't foresee any changes in the immediate future," he said.
