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
World map illustrating various countries color-coded by their happiness levels with symbols indicating the most and least happy countries in each region.
Strange Maps
Mapped: The highs and lows of the world’s happiness landscape
The Gallup World Poll reveals regional peaks and valleys of happiness across all of the continents.
Frank Jacobs
A graphical representation of network connections superimposed on a dark map, highlighting major nodes with bright orange and yellow lines.
Strange Maps
The Enlightenment had its own internet: The Republic of Letters
Digital analyses of Enlightenment-era letters are teaching us a thing or two about Locke, Voltaire, and others.
Frank Jacobs
A composite image of the milky way galaxy showing colorful interstellar dust and gas with star fields.
Strange Maps
New map reveals the Milky Way’s magnetic heart
This first-of-its-kind image offers a detailed look at the magnetic fields within the Central Molecular Zone.
Frank Jacobs
Do you live in a new desert?.
Strange Maps
America’s news deserts are growing
Most counties in the U.S. have only one local newspaper, often one that publishes weekly instead of daily.
Frank Jacobs
Map of the united states indicating earthquake epicenters and areas where people reported feeling at least weak shaking, highlighting a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in central california on september 28, 2004, and a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in central virginia on august 23, 2011.
Strange Maps
East Coast quakes are felt farther than West Coast ones. Here’s why.
Across the subterranean United States, not all rocks were created equally.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Dewey Decimal: The sorting system that revolutionized libraries
This map samples some of the digits that make up the DDC system, invented by the brilliant but flawed Melvil Dewey.
Frank Jacobs
Historical map illustration depicting a planned city layout with a circular central area and radiating streets.
Strange Maps
Ohio’s Circleville ditched the grid system. Then it got squared.
A small Ohio town tried to escape America’s addiction to rectangular grids. It didn’t last long.
Frank Jacobs
A map showing the route of a voyage from sweden to norway.
Strange Maps
Was the “Odyssey” originally set in the Baltic?
The Trojan War was fought in Finland and Ulysses sailed home to Denmark, says one controversial theory.
Frank Jacobs
A map of antarctica with the word west antarctica.
Strange Maps
Westarctica: The micronation with a real-world purpose
The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 prohibited nations from making new land claims on the continent. But it never mentioned claims from private individuals.
Frank Jacobs
A map with a circle and a circle in the middle.
Strange Maps
CERN proposes accelerator 3 times as long as Large Hadron Collider
The $21.5-billion project could involve tunneling hundreds of feet under Lake Geneva.
Frank Jacobs
A map of the united states showing the number of abortions.
Strange Maps
Why are America’s oldest and youngest states 13 years apart?
Economics and religion help to explain the gap.
Frank Jacobs
A graph showing the death rate on everest.
Strange Maps
Mapped: The deadly geography of Mount Everest
The world’s highest mountain is also the world’s highest cemetery, with some bodies serving as creepy landmarks for today’s climbers.
Frank Jacobs
A map showing the location of the arctic sea.
Strange Maps
In case you missed it: America just effectively got much bigger
No shots fired. No flags raised. And no dry land gained. Still, the U.S. effectively grew by the size of about two Californias in December.
Frank Jacobs
A map of europe with many orange dots.
Strange Maps
Europe’s busiest airport? Heathrow and Istanbul battle for the title
London’s busiest airport seems to be rebounding well from the pandemic — but Istanbul has better prospects in the long run.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Mapping Middle-earth: The lopsided demographics of Tolkien’s universe
Fantasy, meet statistics: The census comes to Middle-earth!
Frank Jacobs
derinkuyu
Strange Maps
Derinkuyu: Mysterious underground city in Turkey found in man’s basement
A basement renovation project led to the archaeological discovery of a lifetime: the Derinkuyu Underground City, which housed 20,000 people.
Frank Jacobs
Places that do not exist infographic.
Strange Maps
Why Wyoming doesn’t exist, but Bielefeld does (again)
In a remarkably similar way, conspiracy theories around the world cast doubt on the existence of real places.
Frank Jacobs
A map of europe with pink dots on it.
Strange Maps
The surprisingly relevant history of royal summits, in three maps
Thanks to protocols established centuries ago in Europe, world leaders no longer need to worry about having their heads bashed with an axe.
Frank Jacobs
A graph showing the number of different countries in the world.
Strange Maps
Warmer climate, spicier food. But which country is the spiciest?
Scientists don't understand why the correlation exists.
Frank Jacobs
A map showing the world's major cities.
Strange Maps
You can drink the tap water in these 50 countries — maybe
According to the CDC, 50 countries worldwide have drinkable tap water. But look closer, and the picture is more nuanced.
Frank Jacobs
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