Roads to nowhere

The Map Realm is a collection of maps of fictional countries created by professed "avid map collector and roadgeek" Adrian Leskiw. There are even multiple iterations of the same territories mapped through time, from the seventies into the mid-21st century. Meticulous and absorbing.

The Garden of Noisy Roses and other attractions

Radiant Copenhagen. An expansive alternate reality of future Copenhagen, as created through Google mapping and Wiki fiction.

Via io9.

Here there be trolls

Information Architects is the creator of the Web Trend Map series, the latest and greatest of which is Web Trend Map 3. (For the best view, try the adaptive Startpage.) Modeled on the Tokyo subway map, it envisions the web as a network of stations and exchanges linked by common lines like Technology, Video, eCommerce, and Politics.





Because they're still beautiful, here's the Web Trend Map 2007 Version 2.0 (below), and the Web Trend Map 2007 Version 1.
Via Strange Maps.





Xkcd presents a Tolkien-style Map of Online Communities, which handily situates social groups along the axes of "pratical—intellectual" and "focus on real life—focus on web".





There's also xkcd's nifty Blogofractal, which helpfully distills all the output of the Internet and crystallizes it in visual format:





In more practical maps, this one at Strange Maps is a world map showing all of the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), weighted by population.





Here's another xkcd Map of the Internet showing the distribution of IP addresses.

Souvenirs of imaginary nations

Antarctica Dream-Dollars are the currency of Nadiria, the lost colony of Antarctica, a utopian community founded in the mid-nineteenth century by visionary Dream Prophetess Constance Brundt and her husband Samuel Brundt in order to realize a society of "moral and intellectual bliss". After an industrious period of construction and development, Nadiria was plagued by internal divisions and power struggles and shortages of its sustaining element, the heat- and life-giving substance known as Heaven's Fire. In 1899 the colonists mysteriously vanished, but explorations and investigations into the controversial nation kept up interest in Nadiria and its culture, and the recovered currency of the vanished Antarctic colony has held a particular fascination for the world at large up to the present day.

A complete timeline of these events, plus a wealth of history and stories of Nadiria, can be found at the above-linked site; there are also wallpapers, samples of the currency to be purchased, and a book in the works. As an exercise in world-building, Nadiria emerges as fanciful, immersive, and exquisitely realized.
Via Brass Goggles.











One of my favorite posts from the regrettably retired blog Giornale Nuovo explores artist Jerry Crimmins's Republic of Dreams, a fascinating city-state revealed through a collection of ephemera -- pamphlets, train tickets, maps -- included in the exhibition catalog for an show on imaginary lands. (How I would have loved to have been there!)







While Misteraitch shares his little trove of treasures from this fascinating otherworld, the best avenue for exploring it now appears to be the book: The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie. (Some juicy excerpts are available for perusal.)

Rêves (pronounced rev) is an island republic located in the Mid-Atlantic, somewhat south of Bermuda, between the Sea of Clouds and the Sea of the Unseen. By a majority vote of its citizens, the Republic can render itself visible or invisible, accessible or inaccessible, to the rest of the world.

Each district of Polis Poeton has its own flavor, particulars, and erratic spiritual features. It is a city of contrasts, the old and the new, the familiar and the exotic. A walk through the city can take you from the charm of a Victorian neighborhood to the mystery of a North African bazaar. Paris and Berlin, not in replica but as they actually are in the imagination, are there to be found by those who seek them.

Sign me up for the tour package.





Capolan: Travels of a Vagabond Country is an artbox by the excellent Nick Bantock, containing an enchanting a collection of postcards and stamps issued from the fictional nation of Capolan, which has no fixed home and moves from place to place.

When the Capolanian government wanted commemorative stamps and postcards created in honor of their 650th anniversary, they turned to Nick Bantock. The result is a sumptuous treasure box of history, legend, and fantasy. Inside you will find postcards and stamps Mr. Bantock created along with a book—not much larger than a passport—in which he introduces the history, philosophy, customs, and traditions of this mysterious nomadic tribe.








There's now a sequel, Windflower -- not an artbox, but an illustrated novel about a Capolanian dancer named Ana.

(Interesting discovery: there's also a Capolan wine, complete with a teasing placeholder for the doesn't-exist-yet Capolan Winery website. Intriguing. A nomadic vineyard?) [Update: the actual website is now up, so you can learn all about this unusual landless wine made with grapes not grown on any particular patch of earth, but purchased from all over and blended together in the true Capolanian spirit.]

Capolan.org is a community of fans and artists inspired by the work of Nick Bantock who gather to share paintings, collages, books, card decks, and other artworks and ephemera belonging to the shifting, borderless Vagabond Country. Riffing on the themes and styles found in Bantock's oeuvre, these artists serve up a delightful visual infusion that is both recognizably Bantockesque and refreshingly original.

star map by Amy McClure

page from "Portraits of Purgatory" by Chris Angelucci

page from "Seeking the Face of One's Intended" by Lynne Perella

Moon Day

Today is Moon Day, the 36th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

To commemorate the day, Google has adapted its Google Maps system to create Google Moon, a map of the moon's surface using NASA imagery, with the sites of the Apollo landings marked out. Pretty limited, but cute. Now when do we get a full map of the moon to play with? And all the planets? C'mon, Google Solar System...

You can read about Moon mythology or the colonization of the Moon at Wikipedia. Or you can read about the Moon and missions to the Moon at Uncyclopedia. You can also read about the Moon at h2g2.

If Google Moon has only whetted your appetite for lunar exploration, try Moon Base, a 3d chat environment where you can bounce around the moon, ride moon buggies, and, if you like, exchange chatter with other bouncing astronauts.


Boing Boing shares ideas for Moon Day celebrations, most of which involve Tang.

The moon, by the bye, will be almost but not quite full tonight...the full moon is tomorrow. Ah, well. Go out and look at it tonight, anyway. Happy Moon Day.