Comments on: "The Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City."

Question: "The Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City."

viewofdelft — Tue, 15 May 2007 08:50:20 -0800

I'm looking for maps "the same scale as the Empire."

Both Jorge Luis Borges and Lewis Carroll describe fictional 1:1 scale maps in which the map is as vast as what it represents.

What other 1:1 maps can be found in literature (or the real world, for that matter)? I'd also be happy if you point me towards other outlandish maps on par with the 1:1 map. Thanks.

By: fidelity

fidelity — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:04:01 -0800

Umberto Eco has a nice essay in How to Travel with a Salmon named "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1."

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:17:28 -0800

In a story in the recent collection Fragile Things Neil Gaiman describes a Chinese emperor ordering his underlings to build a large-scale map of China, then to rebuild it even larger, which ends up draining his kingdom's resources. Possibly reporting an earlier story about a real emperor?

By: one_bean

one_bean — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:21:01 -0800

Steven Wright (comedian) has a bit about having a huge map of the United States, so huge it's the size of the United States. It says "one inch equals one inch."

In practical terms, you, too, could have this map, if you just wrote out that scale chart for yourself.

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:23:21 -0800

This is also the same set up to a Stephen Wright joke. It goes something like, "I've got a map to actual scale. On the legend it says 'one mile equals one mile.' Last Summer, I tried to fold it."

on preview, damn you one_bean!

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:25:35 -0800

Does this help?

Outlandish maps... the four colour problem? Google maps oddities? XKCD's map of the internet? World's oldest map?

LobsterMitten: could that be inspired by the map in Qin Shi Huang's tomb?

Many wonders of the tomb were described by a Chinese historian, Sima Qian, writing less than a century after the emperor's death. He wrote of rare jewels, a map of the heavens with stars represented by pearls, and, on the floor of the tomb, a panorama map of China with the rivers and seas represented by flowing mercury.

By: L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:37:32 -0800

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants has a song on his solo album "State Songs" about a ship called the Arkansas which was built to "the exact dimensions and the shape of the state whose name she bore."

Highly recommended to TMBG fans, by the way.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:43:01 -0800

There is the Mapparium at the Christian Science Center in Boston. You walk through the center of a giant stained-glass globe. It's not at 1:1 scale, but it is pretty amazing.

By: jepler

jepler — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:45:05 -0800

lyrics to the song Arkansas, which I also thought of when I read the question

By: kimota

kimota — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:46:18 -0800

Which of the Hitchhiker's Guide books talks about a computer-based model of the universe being the size of the universe? (Would that count?)

By: djgh

djgh — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:48:25 -0800

One of my favourite scenes in Blackadder Goes Forth is where Colonel Melchett is going over how much land has been captured from the enemy. Transcript here. (Search for "scale" on the page)

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:54:02 -0800

Most cad file maps are drawn 1:1. Then you just scale it down to print them.

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:06:42 -0800

In one of the epsodes of Blackadder Goes Forth (the fourth season, set during WW1), Blackadder enters General Melchard's office, and Melchard is studying a tabletop diorama/model map of the terrain recently captured in yesterday's Big Push in the bloody trench warfare. Blackadder inquires as to the scale, and it's 1:1... and it's not a diorama.

By: malocchio

malocchio — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:15:16 -0800

Larry Niven's Ringworld contains 1:1 scale maps of the Earth, Mars, and other (mostly fictional) planets from his "Known Universe."

By: monkeymadness

monkeymadness — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:26:24 -0800

Since we're talking Stephen Wright, he also has expressed an interest in getting "a life-size tattoo of [himself], only taller."

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Tue, 15 May 2007 12:11:53 -0800

Also, since you mention wanting other kinds of maps, take a look at the lovely blog strangemaps. They have some great ones, and links to other map blogs.

By: signal

signal — Wed, 16 May 2007 07:48:00 -0800

Most cad file maps are drawn 1:1

CAD drawings are actually scaleless vectors. They're just printed out to a scale.