In a world where we get from A to B by following the shortest route on our phones or satnavs, are cartographers mapping their way back into our national psyche?
Rather than ignoring what is around us, we appear to be increasingly fascinated with locations and their significance, whether it is through a viral tube map game, YouTube videos or books about geopolitics.
According to the software developer Benjamin Tran Dinh, his online game Metro Memory – which requires players to name as many of the 416 London TfL stations as they can – has had more than 400,000 plays since it was launched two weeks ago.
“The game was much more popular in London than in other cities,” the 32-year-old, who has also made versions for Paris and Berlin, said. “I did not expect it to grow this much across the Channel.”
When making the game, Tran Dinh, who is based in Paris, said he was drawn back to memories of studying in London a decade ago, when he was a regular user of South Kensington tube station and the Circle and District lines, and would sometimes go climbing at Latimer Road. This sentiment, he believes, is behind Metro Memory’s popularity.
“Maps tell different stories depending on the reader’s location,” he said. “They are also a visual way to anchor those stories in the real world. In the case of Metro Memory, I have seen people zoom in on the map, remember a specific moment they have spent in a certain neighbourhood and suddenly link that memory to a station name.”
Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency for Great Britain, said 2022-23 was the first time that digital consumer mapping overtook paper in revenue.
Nick Giles, OS’s managing director for leisure, added: “Last year we sold over 1.5m paper maps and we are seeing a huge rise in demand for curated guidebooks with route information contained within them, such as our Pathfinder series [curated walking routes].
“On digital, OS Maps app has now been downloaded approximately 6 million times and we are seeing an average of 1 million users per month. We are finding that people like crossing over between physical and digital maps – they like planning and using through different media.”
Three of the paperbacks on the Sunday Times top 10 bestsellers list at the moment have been authored by one man – Tim Marshall, whose books The Future of Geography, Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography have proven a hit with readers.
The former Sky News diplomatic editor said he became interested in geography as a young reporter covering the Bosnian war in the 1990s, when he “realised how knowing the geography of the terrain would help me understand both what might be possible militarily and politically”.
He said people were drawn to his books because they were “rediscovering that understanding the geography of certain situations is as important as understanding the history and politics”. According to Marshall, all three are linked.
“This is not ‘geographic determinism’, it’s an acceptance that geography has a role in what happens,” he said. Maps, according to the writer, help you assess what is and is not possible, and therefore what might or might not happen in a region.
“Geographical and ideological faultlines can been seen everywhere. Current examples are Armenia/Azerbaijan, Ukraine/Russia, and of course Palestine/Israel.
“Demographic ethnic faultlines seen in human geography also play a role in many conflicts, for example in the Ethiopian civil war, the insurgency in Mali, and in Myanmar. Of course there is much more to the roots of conflict than geography, but it should not be overlooked.”
Whether it is because Britons are suddenly keen to determine future conflicts or just want to stock up on information, it is safe to say cartographers are having their moment.
The Horrible Histories-style “edu-tainment” videos by Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman, the so-called Map Men, have become a YouTube sensation. The pair – one a former geography teacher and the other a fellow self-confessed geek – have said they are even stopped in the street by fans asking for selfies.
Their videos on subjects such as “The world’s worst border” and “How did triangles shrink France?” regularly attract 1m to 5m views, and are shown by teachers in the classroom.
According to Michael Howe, whose book Terrible Maps: Hilarious Maps for a Ridiculous World was released by HarperCollins this month, people “look to maps to help them quickly understand complex data and spot interesting patterns”.
Howe’s book is based on his popular Terrible Maps social media feed, which has 1.7 million followers on X. It “celebrates pointless cartography in all its glory” – from the average jeans colour across the US to what unites the villages of Brokenwind, Upton Snodsbury and Crackpot.
“There’s always been a sense of adventure associated with maps, for obvious reasons,” he said. “Even within any given map there’s a feeling of exploration as your eyes scan around taking in information. Ultimately these days I think people just want everything in an easily digestible format and don’t have the attention span to read long sentences.”
But while maps can tell a story through the data they display in a way that feels familiar and fun, Howe issued a word of caution. “Just be wary, because they may also be intentionally divisive and amplify bias. Or they may just be plain terrible,” he said.
