Map Monday and a little humour (humor) all rolled into one

I haven’t quite landed on the theme for my next “serious” Map Monday, and while I was pondering this deep question it dawned on me that perhaps there are some jokes or cartoons floating around social media about maps. Or at least some fun maps. Lo and behold, I did find a very few jokes for your possible amusement (although most of them were too pathetic to even consider) … or maybe groans. Or some of each. Let’s give it a try.

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Got a bizarre email this morning, explaining how to read maps backwards.

It was spam.

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TEACHER: George go to the map and find North America.

George: Here is it!

TEACHER: Correct! now, class, who discovered North America?

Class: George!

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A helicopter with a pilot and a passenger was flying around above a large city when a malfunction disabled all of its navigation and communications equipment.

Due to the darkness and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position and course to get to their destination.

The pilot saw a tall building with a few lights on and flew towards it. The pilot had the passenger draw a handwritten sign reading “WHERE AM I?” and hold it up for the building’s occupants to see.

People in the building quickly responded to the aircraft; they drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. It said, “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.”

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to their destination, and landed safely a few minutes later.

Once they were on the ground, the passenger, still baffled, asked the pilot how the “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER” sign could possibly have helped determine their position.

The pilot responded, “Well, I knew that could only be the Microsoft support building, since they gave me a technically correct but otherwise useless answer.”

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All groans, right? And those are the only three I thought were worth sharing! Sorry, I couldn’t find any really good map-related jokes. Let’s see if some fun maps are any better. (As usual, you can click on any of the maps to see more detail.)

What do you suppose mad cow disease and desire to leave the EU can possibly have in common?!

We all know that the U.S. stands out in many ways. Here are two stellar examples.

There are lots of interesting maps showing various facts about animals (non-human ones, that is). Here’s a very small sample.

This map follows the journey of an Arctic Fox who was tracked walking from Norway to Canada in 2018. Wow, talk about endurance.

 

Here’s a map providing insight as how best to avoid bear attacks.

And a map that shows how many kangaroos there are to humans in each part of Australia. By my calculations from the numbers on this map there are nearly 2 kangaroos for every person. Kangaroos: 45.15 million, humans: 25.25 million.

Whie we’re stopping in Australia, it seems that the shape of that fair land stirs the creative juices of some map “artists”.

And finally, 3 simple maps that offer slightly unusual perspectives on our world and how we might think about it. 😉

 

OK, you can stop groaning now! 🙂