Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Nunavut (home to the world's largest “triple island”—that is, the world's largest island in
remember as I paged through the atlas, was something much more than this casual weird-
ness. I was consumed.
Back then, I could literally look at maps for hours. I was a fast and voracious reader,
and keenly aware that a page of hot Roald Dahl or Encyclopedia Brown action would last
me only thirty seconds or so. But each page of an atlas was an almost inexhaustible trove
of names and shapes and places, and I relished that sense of depth, of comprehensiveness.
Travelers will return to a favorite place many times and order the same dish at the same
café and watch the sun set from the same vantage point. I could do the same thing as a fre-
quentarmchairtraveler,enjoyingthefamiliarityofsightsIhadnoticedbeforewhilealways
being surprised by new details. Look how Ardmore, Alabama, is only a hundred feet away
from its neighbor Ardmore, Louisiana—but there are 4,303 miles between Saint George,
Alaska, and Saint George, South Carolina. Look at the lacelike coastline of the Musandam
Peninsula,thenorthernmostpointoftheArabiannationofOman,anintricatefractalsnow-
flake stretching into the Strait of Hormuz. Children love searching for tiny new details in a
sea of complexity. It's the same principle that sold a bajillion
Where's Waldo?
topics.
Mapmakers must know this—that detail, to many map lovers, is not just a means but an
end. The office globe next to my desk right now is pretty compact, but it makes room for
all kinds of backwater hamlets in the western United States: Cole, Kansas; Alpine, Texas;
Burns, Oregon; Mott, North Dakota (population: 808, about the same as a city block or
two of Manhattan's Upper East Side). Even Ajo, Arizona, makes the cut, and it's not even
incorporated as a town—it's officially a CDP, or “census-designated place.” What do all
thesespotshaveincommon,besidesthefactthatnoonehasevervisitedthemwithoutfirst
running out of gas? First, they all have nice short names. Second, they're each the only
thingformilesaround.Sotheyneatlyfillupanemptyspotontheglobeandthereforemake
the product look denser with information.
But I also remember a competing instinct in my young mind: a love for the way maps
could suggest adventure by hinting at the unexplored. Joseph Conrad wrote about this urge
at the beginning of
Heart of Darkness:
Now when I was a little chap
I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours
at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of
exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I
sawonethatlookedparticularlyinvitingonamap(buttheyalllookthat)Iwould
put my finger on it and say, “When I grow up I will go there.”
When
I
was a “little chap,” there were (and are) still a few mostly blank spaces on
