Jennings, Ken - Maphead

[Ryan Scott]

This book is an exploration of the often crazy world of map-geeks - people who just love maps and geography. Written by Ken Jennings, famous for his record run on Jeopardy, it's full of wit and trivia, and really hit home with me, as a map-geek.

This is a book for people who get lost in maps for hours, even maps they've stared at for hours before. He explores subsets of map love: the national geography bee, travel clubs, highpointers, road geeks, geocachers, etc.

It's fairly well written, but thorough - a strong 250 pages. You have to really love maps to get through it, but I found myself pining to get back to it. I found out about all sorts of random facts (like a fake city google accidently added to maps or the gps coordinates for a triple island in Canada - an island on a lake on an island in a lake on an island).

[David Morris]

This book is an exploration of the often crazy world of map-geeks - people who just love maps and geography. Written by Ken Jennings, famous for his record run on Jeopardy, it's full of wit and trivia, and really hit home with me, as a map-geek.

This is a book for people who get lost in maps for hours, even maps they've stared at for hours before. He explores subsets of map love: the national geography bee, travel clubs, highpointers, road geeks, geocachers, etc.

It's fairly well written, but thorough - a strong 250 pages. You have to really love maps to get through it, but I found myself pining to get back to it. I found out about all sorts of random facts (like a fake city google accidently added to maps or the gps coordinates for a triple island in Canada - an island on a lake on an island in a lake on an island).

My head just exploded.

[Ryan Scott]

My head just exploded.

I posted it on Facebook a week or so ago. You can go to the google maps view and then pan out to see the whole thing. It's pretty cool.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=69.793...66052&t=h&z=14


Also, look up Baarle-Hertog Belgium. It's at least 26 separate tracts of land within The Netherlands, which are actually part of Belgium - even crazier, within some of these tracts of land are other smaller tracts of land, which are part of The Netherlands.

[Gina Stevenson]

Found it over on FB, finally. That is cooooool!

ETA: just realized you put the link here, duh!

[Katelynn Scott]

My head just exploded.

Imagine how his wife feels! ;o ) Ryan would try to read this book in bed at night and had to keep hopping out to go google something. I haven't read it myself, but I would recommend reading it with a computer near by.

[Jim Franklin]

Perhaps a revised standard version of Geographia. Count me among my brothers and sisters.

Now go back and read my last entry on the shape of the states.

When there are parts of nations separated from the main body of that nation within the borders of another nation it is called an exclave such as Kaliningrad, Russia between Lithuania and Poland or Cabinda, Angola separated from Angola by a strip of the Congo. I understand that the location of European Nazarene College is also an exclave of Germany within the borders of Switzerland.