Obsessions with maps?

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My mains obsessions r maps especially road maps n i spend a lot of tym readin the A-Z map aswell as readin a road atlas i also memorise different countries in the world so im also in 2 world atlas i had this interest as young as 8 years old now im 21.

I like to go to mapquest.com and find a location near water, like Duluth, MN or New York. Then I go to the arial view and pan out to level 3 and move the map over the Great Lakes or the oceans. You can see the continental shelves and underwater ridges. In the Pacific you can see the Marianas Trench around Guam. If you cross-reference Wikipedia's map, you can find Challenger Deep.

It's pretty awesome to see how deep Lake Superior is compared to the oceans.

Ok. The Great Lakes have to be viewed at level 13, not 3. Also, they reloaded the database with pics taken on a partly cloudy day, so you can't see as much as before.

Bummer.

There is an AMAZING Swiss guy I used to know who spent most of his time mapping imaginary countries immaculately...

Not dx'ed but so obvious WHO NEEDS IT?

M

Does anyone else love Google maps? I love to look at maps of places, then satellite images and compare. Maps of places near where I live, maps of places I've been, maps of places I've never been to. With the smooth scrolling sometimes I'll just scroll along the map on some long interstate route and see what roads there are and what cities they run through.

I would like to add myself to this list of wonderful map lovers

Would study my primary school and library atlas every day - loved the political and geographical maps, and imagined I travelled to all of these far away places and made up whatever sort of people I would meet after remembering what TV and film documentaries I could recall about that country

Then went through a phase of collecting many topographical and even old army ordnance maps going back as far as the 1940's

Also went through a phase of orienteering for fun and did many years of hiking. Have nearly every hiking topographical map of my State.

Friends noticed my shills and told me I am good with maps and have a great sence of direction. I really felt that maps helped me make more sence of my world.

These days, using the internet with it's ability to search the world and track down even remote villages and towns, yet alone buildings in major capital cities, it is a great game I love playing in my spare time.

Oh YES

maps

plans

Google Earth

I am very accurate with being able to recall countries and the cities within them, I know every country within europe and the countries which border them.
I can picture the size and shape the countries and I have knowledge of their language and cultural differences, this of course is all thanks to wikipedia, you know we shouldn't mock it.
You know it is shocking to know that some people don't know some of the neirbouring cities within europe, I once told a women twice my age that I was travelling to Prague or Praha, her reply was, where is it? I told her which countries share the czech country and the language they speak, including some key words and phrases. :x
How often do brits travel abroad to a country that they don't know where in the world it is?
I like to sneak my GPS receiver on board the aircraft and track the route through the various countries whilst keeping up to date on the altititude and airspeed and any changes and progress in the flight.

I have always been fascinated with maps. When I was a kid, I would pore over maps, atlases, globes, etc. I also loved the map in the Lord of the Rings -- I obsessively returned to it as I read the book to figure out exactly where the characters were in their journey(s). I also used to invent imaginary worlds by drawing similar maps where I would make up names for all the kingdoms, territories, bodies of water, and mountains. When I was a teenager and I became obsessed with golf, I liked to design golf courses (with topographical lines indicating changes in elevation). (I remember doing this in a highschool classroom, and I caught a female classmate staring quizzically at my drawing -- I think she thought I was drawing something obscene!) I now have a navigation system in my car -- I couldn't stop fiddling with it when it was still new. Also, when I travel, I spend a lot of time studying the local maps and trying to place everything in it -- kind of like figuring out a giant jigsaw puzzle, except it is in my head.

Nothing turns me on like a good map!! !

I Love maps too!

I use ArcView 3.2a, Microdem, Global Mapper and Landserf

I became obsessed with projections, datums and geoids when I was doing my PhD - geodesy (measuring the Earth)

The fact that the Earth is not a sphere, that it is a geoid (wonky messed up sphere) and that its wonky shape can be described mathematically to the centimeter/inch level of accuracy is amazing (they need to measure the Earth accurately so they can measure sea level rise and other things)

They measured th Earth's size to an accuracy of 0.5 cm recently and 0.5 cm smaller then the last measurement in 2000. This does not mean the Earth has shrunk, its just a better measurement. Diameter of the Earth is - 12,756.274 kilometres

Link: Honey, we shrunk the Earth - New Scientist

Also, anyone hear of Neil Adams? The comic book illustrator who is OBSESSED!! ! with the expanding earth theory? He believes that the Earth is growing and that this growth explains sea floor spreading. He implacably denies any logical counterargument opposing his "Growing Earth" paradigm. Even the "Honey we shrunk the Earth" article did not convince him.

The true shape of the Earth (exaggerated)

Fascinating thread, though my childhood obsession was chemistry and space exploration. Map reading was no problem I could read Ordnance Survey maps and compass from the age of 10.

And I Google Earth and Google Maps!

Its an oblate spheroid - a rounded shape with a bulge around the equator.

http://bse.unl.edu/adamchuk/web_ssm/web_GPS_eq.html

Equatorial radius of the Earth is a = 6378137 metres