The Onion World Atlas and Other Funny Maps

For some map-related humor, I highly recommend Our Dumb World, The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth. As the cover notes, it comes with a free globe inside! ;)

Anyone know of any other humorous or fantastical atlases?

Hey! I have a book with a globe inside: The Earth in Three Dimensions.

In the spirit of fun or funny maps, I recently accidentally located a map of Chicago done in 1931 that focuses on Chicago based gangs (Capone, et al) in a humorous way (If "Scarface" Al Capone, et al can be said to be humorous?). The map is tongue in cheek beginning to end.

It's called "A Map of Chicago's Gangland from Authentic Sources, designed to inculcate the most important principals of piety and virtue in young persons, and graphically portray the evils and sin of large cities." Whew!

It's available From the Seminary Coop store at Newberry Library for under $20 (a poster or print) including shipping; see review. It isn't the most straight forward online purchase you will ever make (I called...).

If you try to copy the map file to your computer as, say, a jpeg and blow it up, it's tough to read the small print. You will get some idea of the scope and detail of the map, however.

I've often suspected mapmakers of having a warped sense of humour, especially the people who produce "Cartes des itinéraires de randonnées pédestres" for local tourist offices. But I think the only openly fantastical map I have is a railway map of the Island of Sodor acquired while I was going through a Thomas craze about 40 years ago.

There's always The New Yorker's famous World as seen from 9th Avenue.