The Bad Maps Thread

[Kyng]

Another thread continued from the old forum. Post maps which are poorly-drawn, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise terrible . 

I'll start with this map, from Chris Sawyer's Locomotion: 



I guess the eastern half of the map isn't so bad. The spelling of 'Cincinnati' needs fixing, and I have to quibble with the two inclusions from North Carolina (which is a little bit off the edge of the map) - but, rename 'Greensboro' to 'Lexington' or 'Louisville', and re-name 'Charlotte' to 'Nashville' or 'Knoxville', and the eastern half becomes a decent approximation of the Midwest and the Upper South. 

However, the western half of the map is terrible. El Paso, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City are all in completely the wrong places !

So, any more that you'd like to share?

[Detective Osprey]

Does this count? It's so stupid, it makes me laugh.



Found via Vox.

[Jarkko]

[ACBlackJ0ck]

[Kyng]

Well, had The Proclaimers walked 500 miles north-east, they would have ended up in Bergen. So, they could well have woken up next to me !

[Detective Osprey]

This one looks really stupid:

Source: https://sites.psu.edu/swabmaps/2014/03/2...-bad-maps/

[Kyng]

Just re-hosted it because your link wasn't working  

But, yeah, I agree. I like the idea of the raised states, but without any kind of scale, it's just confusing in practice .

[Kyng]

Here's one I found today during my random browsing: 


(Source: https://people.uwec.edu/ivogeler/w188/ut...-mapUT.jpg)

Three things wrong with this: 

1) It lacks a consistent colour scheme. Better to use shades of one colour (or, at least, a gradient between two colours). 
2) The categories are completely arbitrary. Why do they have "40-63", and then "64-73" ?
3) Comic Sans = DIE

[Kyng]

Okay - so, a couple of days ago, America voted on its new representatives, senators, and governors - and now, as the results continue to come in, they're being compiled into maps like the following: 


(Click to enlarge; Source: CNN - Kansas - California)

The Kansas map is fine. Even if you have no interest in politics, you probably have no problem understanding it: the blue counties were won by the Democrat, the red ones were won by the Republican, and deeper shades of red and blue indicate bigger margins of victory. All very clear and simple, so this map doesn't deserve to be in a "Bad Maps Thread". 

The California map, on the other hand, does deserve to be in a Bad Maps Thread. Both of the candidates in that election were Democrats, so the counties won by Feinstein are coloured in blue, and the counties won by de Leon are coloured in....blue . This is an incredibly confusing map: you can't tell who won a particular county from looking at it. Couldn't they at least have put one of the candidates in a different colour - or, at the very least, a different shade of blue ?

[Kyng]

Some more bad maps in here: 

https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/29/how-brexi...t-8189415/

As with the Utah map from a couple of posts up, they don't use a sensible colour scheme. The "Norway-style deal" is the worst: the colours (in descending order) are: medium blue, teal, lavender, dark blue, pink!

Seriously, how hard is it to come up with a sensible colour scheme ?