Explore Maps

The Museum Collection

Explore the world through interactive maps.

Move through places, stories and ideas at your own pace. Every exhibit opens directly in your browser and invites you to explore the world through geography, data and visual discovery.

 
Forty-five interactive exhibits
All maps · Free access
New collection

Cringe Maps

World maps can look authoritative while their geometry, centre, orientation or data changes the world they appear to describe. These experiments make those choices visible.

CRINGE 01 · PROJECTION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Projection Experiment

The Mercator Horror Show

Mercator turns familiar geography into a sharp demonstration of how dramatically a world map can enlarge places near the poles.

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CRINGE 02 · ORIENTATION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Orientation Experiment

The World with South Up

Place south at the top and watch a familiar planet become strange, even though every country remains in the same geographic position.

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CRINGE 03 · ORIENTATION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Orientation Experiment

The World Tilted 45° East

Rotate the world 45 degrees east and see how quickly north, balance and geographic familiarity begin to feel unstable.

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CRINGE 04 · ORIENTATION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Orientation Experiment

The World Tilted 45° West

Rotate the world 45 degrees west and examine how orientation influences the visual hierarchy of continents and oceans.

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CRINGE 05 · OCEAN-CENTRED PROJECTION→
Cringe Maps · Ocean-Centred Projection

The Spilhaus World Ocean Map

See the connected World Ocean as the central geographic space, with the continents arranged around its edges.

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CRINGE 06 · INTERRUPTED PROJECTION→
Cringe Maps · Interrupted Projection

The Butterfly World

An interrupted world projection opens the globe into a butterfly-like form and reduces distortion by dividing the oceans.

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CRINGE 07 · POLYHEDRAL PROJECTION→
Cringe Maps · Polyhedral Projection

The Dymaxion World

Fuller’s Dymaxion map unfolds the globe across an icosahedron and presents the continents as a nearly continuous island.

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CRINGE 08 · PROJECTION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Projection Experiment

The Mercator Size Illusion

Compare apparent and actual country sizes to see why Mercator makes Greenland, Canada and Russia look far larger than they are.

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CRINGE 10 · OCEAN PERSPECTIVE→
Cringe Maps · Ocean Perspective

The World According to Fish

Reframe the planet through connected marine space, where oceans form the main geography and continents become interruptions.

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CRINGE 14 · GEOMETRIC PROJECTION→
Cringe Maps · Geometric Projection

The World in a Square

Force the spherical Earth into a square and inspect the distortion required to make the planet fit a simple frame.

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CRINGE 15 · GEOMETRIC PROJECTION→
Cringe Maps · Geometric Projection

The World in a Triangle

Reconstruct the world inside a triangle and make the geometry of projection impossible to overlook.

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CRINGE 17 · TOURISM CARTOGRAM→
Cringe Maps · Tourism Cartogram

The World Sized by Tourism

Resize countries according to international tourism and see which destinations occupy the largest space in global travel.

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CRINGE 19 · ORIENTATION EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Orientation Experiment

The World with No North

Remove the privileged upward direction and explore a world whose orientation changes as freely as the globe itself.

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CRINGE 20 · POLITICAL EXPERIMENT→
Cringe Maps · Political Experiment

The World Without Borders

Remove state borders and examine how coastlines, relief and settlement patterns shape the world without political outlines.

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Explore the full collection

All Maps

Continue through the complete collection of interactive maps, spanning culture, history, science, society, transport and the changing Earth.

22 · MUSEUM MAP→
Culture · Museums

Museums of the World

A global atlas of museums, collections and places of memory. Filter by theme, wander across continents, or simply choose somewhere unexpected.

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08 · MEDIA MAP→
How the World Works · Media

World News Media Map

Explore hundreds of official, national and public news media outlets across the world and open their websites directly from the map.

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11 · PERSPECTIVE MAP→
Different Worlds · Perspective

Earth Upside Down

Turn the familiar world map upside down and reconsider how orientation shapes the way we picture the planet.

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12 · DATA MAP→
How the World Works · Connectivity

Global Cell Tower Density

Explore the uneven density of mobile communication infrastructure and the human geography visible through cell-tower networks.

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13 · SATELLITE MAP→
Earth from Space · Human Geography

Earth at Night

Follow the glow of settlements, roads and economic activity across the planet using nighttime satellite imagery.

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14 · INFRASTRUCTURE MAP→
How the World Works · Digital Infrastructure

Submarine Internet Cables

See the submarine cable network that carries most intercontinental digital communication beneath the oceans.

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