Maps, Maps For All

One of your more strangely fun blogs out there is the Strange Maps blog at Big Think. Strange Maps collects, well, strange maps, which show something or other in an unusual way. I highly recommend it for at least a couple binge sessions.

In fact, while I thaw out from my latest bout of awful winter weather that caused my car window to roll down and then not want to roll back up again aaaaaaaaaaagh, I'm gonna have you binge right now.

*Map #334 advertises The Atlas Of True Names, in which geographical locations are traced back to their etymological roots, and renamed as such.
*Map #398 is a map of the Golden Gate Bridge, showing the number of suicides that took place at each location along the bridge from its opening until the time of posting in 2009. The bridge is the world's most popular spot for suicide attempts.
*Map #490, posted in 2010, showed what would happen if countries were rearranged in such a way that the country with the largest population were moved to the largest country in size, the second-largest population were moved to the second-largest country, and so on. So the population of China would be moved into Russia's land, for instance. The United States, at least at that time, didn't actually have to relocate. (Neither did Brazil, Yemen or Ireland.)
*Map #522 is one put together in 2011 by MIT and IBM, showing America split into zones within which people were more likely to call someone within that zone than someone outside of it.
*Map #553 is the map of John Steinbeck's route for the book Travels With Charley, compared with map #90, Jack Kerouac's route for his book, On The Road.
*Map #578 is a layout of Disney's infamous It's A Small World ride, showing what nations and regions and stereotypical cultural elements are placed at what sections of the ride.
*Map #614 is a map of the world, depicted in terms of human tissue: specifically, the human tissue most closely associated with each region's most common cause of death.