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
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
A mind map with the words hindi, hindi, hindi, hindi, hindi, hindi.
Strange Maps
The “Roof of the World,” in eight simple lines
This minimalist map unties Asia’s mountainous geography, centered on the “Pamir Knot.”
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
The loneliest roads in America
If you find yourself on one of these roads, it might be a while before you see another fellow traveler.
Frank Jacobs
A 3d image of a blue and red sphere.
Strange Maps
The Indian Ocean has the world’s largest gravity hole. Now we know why
Seventy-five years after the anomaly's discovery, scientists have finally figured out why sea levels are so much lower here.
Frank Jacobs
A map of a city with a lot of pink dots.
Strange Maps
Germany to legalize cannabis — but not here, there, or just about anywhere
Legally smoking joints in city centers will require alertness and a keen sense of orientation — two things stoners are not known for.
Frank Jacobs
A map showing the spread of the euphrates river.
Strange Maps
Study: The Indo-European language family was born south of the Caucasus
Though over three billion people speak an Indo-European language, researchers are not sure where the language family originated.
Frank Jacobs
Strange Maps
Umami: You never say its name, yet you taste it every day
Sweet, bitter, salty, sour. These are the four basic tastes we were taught in grade school. But there is a fifth: umami. And it's everywhere.
Frank Jacobs
A map of the world with a circle around it.
Strange Maps
Lemuria, the weirdest continent that never existed
To this day, one cult believes that Lemuria was real, and that its people left us the sacred wisdom to revive their advanced civilization.
Frank Jacobs
A painting of a man with a turban and a map.
Strange Maps
The medieval mapmaker remembered for the wrong map
The history of cartography might have been very different if the Latin version of Muhammad al-Idrisi's atlas had survived instead of the Arabic one.
Frank Jacobs
Cephalic Index World Map
Strange Maps
The skull maps that quantified racism
These landscapes — of geographical differences in head shapes — have vanished from acceptable science (and cartography).
Frank Jacobs
A map showing the location of the arctic ocean.
Strange Maps
No, the Gulf Stream isn’t going to collapse
If we're going to discuss oceanography and climate change, we should at least identify the currents correctly.
Frank Jacobs
America defeated
Strange Maps
Alt history: What if the U.S. lost a World War?
Opponents of America's entry into the looming Second World War believed the U.S. would be dismembered.
Frank Jacobs
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