A couple of great mapping projects I have found recently in my poking around research for Deadpan.
First is the Antipodes map. As I am in Australia the term Antipodes is almost a derogative, stemming from an era when Europe was the centre and Australia was “on the other side of the world. Nowadays it is just the truth that we are on the other side of the world. And here is the map to prove it.
When I look at the map it makes me think of the idea that if you dug in your backyard and kept digging you would ‘end up in China’. Well according to the site (and the physical reality, unless you are a member of the Flat Earth Society) this urban childhood myth is not true.
So here is the street in Hobart in which I grew up and the antipodal location is a patch of ocean in the middle of the Atlantic. So if I had started digging I would have drowned as the ocean would have collapsed the tunnel OR the water would have rushed in putting out the molten core at the centre of the earth thus rendering the planet dead and lifeless. So in a way it is lucky I didn’t try it, because either I would be dead or everyone would be dead.
The other map which i love just for its sheer scale is this one;
It needs Google Earth installed to make it happen but it basically logs each coalition death in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. whilst being a little bit jingoistic and not as sobering as the Iraq Body Count which has a focus on the civilian deaths as well, it is nonetheless visually fascinating to see how many people have died in specific regions inside the two countries, and then the golden lines which take you back to their places of residence.
