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	<title>Strange Maps</title>
	<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com</link>
	<description>collecting cartographic curiosa</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:50:31 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>424 &#8211; Accidental Geography, the Long-Overdue Sequel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[1. Asphalt Maine

Looking down upon the patched-up surface of an unnamed street, J. David Lovejoy couldn&#8217;t help noticing a remarkable example of accidental geography. The patch bears a striking resemblance to Maine, imitating its slanted, almost-straight northwestern border with Quebec, the flat-top border in the north, and straight down again along the border with New [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1534&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/424-accidental-geography-the-long-overdue-sequel/</link>
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		<title>423 &#8211; Flow-Charting the Ring Trilogy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
Designed by J.R.R. Tolkien&#8217;s son Christopher and included in most editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the map of Middle-Earth is one of the best-known examples of fantasy cartography. The iconic map shows the fictional continent in which the action of the three books takes place, from Forodwaith in the north to Haradwaith [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1525&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/423/</link>
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		<title>422 &#8211; Cartozoological Specimens</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Cartozoology, the discipline dedicated to the discovery and study of animals outlined paradigmatically by street layouts as they appear on maps, took almost three decades to mature from idea to reality. It was conceived in 1974 on a plane between Oslo and Reykjavik; but the Norwegian Cartozoological Society was founded only in 2003. It seems [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1521&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/422-cartozoological-specimens/</link>
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		<title>421- Faith, Science and the Flood</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Faith and reason, usually jostling for primacy over one another, unite on this map to describe [t]he Earth-sphere after the Deluge in its broken state, shown with Mountains and valleys, great Sea-Bosom and Islands and Shallows of the same. The map was produced for Willem and Jan Goeree&#8217;s (1) immensely popular book Introductions to Biblical Knowledge (2), and [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1513&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/421-faith-science-and-the-flood/</link>
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		<title>420 &#8211; The Afro-Latinosaurus Rex</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Is there a name for the obscure, but strangely alluring hobby of spotting animal shapes in geographic features*? Previously discussed examples on this blog of the as yet unnamed pastime are the Animals on the Underground (#119) and the Ontario Elephant (#340). Here is one that I would like to call the Afro-Latinosaurus Rex.
It is no coincidence [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1506&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/420-the-afro-latinosaurus-rex/</link>
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		<title>419 &#8211; France, Reconstructed from Apparently Inadequate Data</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
How little information do you need to be able to draw a map? This zen-like question provided the basis for a short article in the May 21st, 1971 issue of Nature, intriguingly entitled Construction of Maps from &#8220;Odd Bits of Information&#8221;.
The article, according to its author David G. Kendall of Cambridge University&#8217;s Statistical Laboratory, starts from [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1502&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/419-france-reconstructed-from-apparently-inadequate-data/</link>
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		<title>418 &#8211; The Turkish-Islamic Empire</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Like Russia or the UK, Turkey is the successor state to a once dominant world power. And much as in those other countries, nostalgic memories of Empire (the Ottoman one, in Turkey’s case) compare unfavourably with today&#8217;s status as merely a ‘normal’ country.
All former superpowers must deal with a world that is decidedly less impressed [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1499&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/418-the-turkish-islamic-empire/</link>
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		<title>417 &#8211; As It Might Have Been: Hexagonal London</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
It takes aspiring London cabbies two to four years to acquire &#8216;The Knowledge&#8217;. Only if they know their way around the 25,000 streets in a 6-mile radius from Charing Cross (and along 320 main roads within Greater London) will they be licensed to drive one of London&#8217;s iconic black cabs. The London Taxicab Examination System [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1492&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/417-as-it-might-have-been-hexagonal-london/</link>
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		<title>416 &#8211; Iceland Crushed by Europe</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
With a society prospering in splendid isolation and a population smaller than one-thousandth of the EU total (1), Iceland until recently had little incentive to be subsumed by the Brussels bureaucracy, an institution judged by many to be like the bus in Speed: racing towards an undesirable outcome, but unable to stop.
Then, in the second half [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1486&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/416-iceland-crushed-by-europe/</link>
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		<title>415 &#8211; Gagauzia, Land of the Straight-Nosed Turks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
If the saying is true that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, then landlocked, frigate-less Moldova is only halfway there. The Eastern European republic, celebrated for its obscurity, has struggled with its national identity ever since breaking free of the Soviet bear-hug in the early 1990s.
Formerly known as the Soviet [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=strangemaps.wordpress.com&blog=407396&post=1479&subd=strangemaps&ref=&feed=1" />]]></description>
		<link>http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/415-gagauzia-land-of-the-straight-nosed-turks/</link>
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