Frank Jacobs

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Frank Jacobs

Journalist, writer, and blogger

strange maps

Frank Jacobs is Big Think's "Strange Maps" columnist.

From a young age, Frank was fascinated by maps and atlases, and the stories they contained. Finding his birthplace on the map in the endpapers of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings only increased his interest in the mystery and message of maps.

While pursuing a career in journalism, Frank started a blog called Strange Maps, as a repository for the weird and wonderful cartography he found hidden in books, posing as everyday objects and (of course) floating around the Internet.

"Each map tells a story, but the stories told by your standard atlas for school or reference are limited and literal: they show only the most practical side of the world, its geography and its political divisions. Strange Maps aims to collect and comment on maps that do everything but that - maps that show the world from a different angle".

A remit that wide allows for a steady, varied diet of maps: Frank has been writing about strange maps since 2006, published a book on the subject in 2009 and joined Big Think in 2010. Readers send in new material daily, and he keeps bumping in to cartography that is delightfully obscure, amazingly beautiful, shockingly partisan, and more.

Everything Videos Articles
Strange Maps
Do you prefer subs or dubs? Here’s a map for that.
Europe is divided on whether films should have subtitles or different audio tracks.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
The periodic table also is a map – well, kind of
Can't memorize all those elements? If you're more into geography, perhaps this will help.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Why are these borders so weird?
New book focuses on some of the world's most peculiar borderlines.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Why the U.S. has had more vice presidents than presidents
Trump is #45 but Pence is #48 – and other strange consequences of the curious office of vice president.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Perhaps all atlases should be this subjective
To get a sense of faraway places, these 'atlases' let the locals give you their perspective.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Meanwhile, Antarctica’s snow is turning green
Penguin poop and climate change are fuelling the spread of 'snow algae' down the Antarctic Peninsula
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Austria like you’ve never seen it before
And after these 10 surprising maps, the Alpine republic will never look the same again.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
London is a forest, and this map explores its trees
TreeTalk finds rare arboreal treasures among London's common foliage.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Hey, methane leakers: Now we know where you live
A European start-up uses satellite data to pinpoint individual sources of abnormal methane concentration.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Map provides first glimpse of post-apocalypse states
Across the land, state-driven pacts, partnerships, councils and task forces replace a coordinated federal response.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Exactly 75 years ago, time was up for the Nazis
U.S. Army maps show how Western and Eastern Fronts met by May 1, 1945.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
New lunar map should help U.S. return to Moon
USGS's 'Unified Geologic Map of the Moon' is the definitive blueprint of the lunar surface.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Are these the fracture lines that will break the EU?
Europe's border closures due to coronavirus go against a fundamental freedom enshrined in the Schengen Agreement.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Each map is worth a thousand pictures
The Data Atlas of the World specialises in simple yet revealing maps of the world.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
19th-century atlas offers glimpse of North Sea’s fish-rich past
O.T. Olsen's gorgeous 'Piscatorial Atlas' (1883) describes a world now destroyed and forgotten
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Why science took a slow dinosaur to Pangaea
From the mid-19th century, fossils were used as evidence for continental drift – but mainstream scientists didn't buy it until the 1950s.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Headed for heaven or hell? This roadmap will help
'The Broad and Narrow Way' helped 19th-century preachers explain the consequences of virtue and vice.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Urine survey reveals Europe’s favorite drugs
Coke, meth, ecstasy, amphetamines: each drug has a different 'capital'
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Will COVID-19 kill off flat Earthism once and for all?
One silver lining of the pandemic: The value of common sense, facts and rational decisions increases.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
​Find over 3,000 witches on this map of Scotland
Edinburgh University project geo-locates victims of Scottish 'witch-prickers' in the 16th and 17th century.
Frank Jacobs
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