{"id":1167,"date":"2016-03-10T08:59:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T13:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2016-03-10T08:59:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T13:59:01","slug":"when-maps-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/when-maps-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"When Maps Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Wiseman’s “When Maps Lie<\/a>” was posted on CityLab last year, but its importance is evergreen: it’s about map literacy, and how to avoid being fooled by confusing, misleading or simply bad maps. This is very much what Mark Monmonier did in\u00a0How to Lie with Maps<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(see my review<\/a>;\u00a0Amazon<\/a>,\u00a0iBooks<\/a>); Wiseman updates it for the social media age.<\/p>\n

Maps are big these days. Blogs and news sites (including\u00a0this one<\/a>) frequently post maps and those maps often go viral\u201440 maps that explain the world, the favorite TV shows of each U.S. state, and so on. They\u2019re all over Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, and news organizations are understandably capitalizing on the power that maps clearly have in digital space: they can visualize a lot of data quickly and effectively. But they can also visualize a lot of data inaccurately and misleadingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a must-read. [via<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Wiseman’s “When Maps Lie” was posted on CityLab last year, but its importance is evergreen: it’s about map literacy, and how to avoid being fooled by confusing, misleading or simply bad maps. This is… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[237,349],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-cartography","tag-map-literacy","tag-social-media","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1945,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/05\/how-to-circulate-a-fake-election-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":0},"title":"How to Circulate a Fake Election Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 May 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"BuzzFeed\u2019s Jim Waterson calls out a map making the social media rounds that purports to show the results of the 2016 local elections in the U.K. Only it doesn't. It's\u00a0apparently being spread by Labour supporters keen to defend their party's performance in the elections and convinced their party is\u00a0receiving unfair\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"fake-uk-elections","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/fake-uk-elections-211x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1844984,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/09\/how-maps-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":1},"title":"How Maps Lie","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 September 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/1qnTKEuWrbg Last week Andrew Middleton (he of The Map Center) gave a presentation at the Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield, Massachusetts. Titled \u201cHow Maps Lie,\u201d it\u2019s the kind of introductory talk that can never be done too much: about what maps actually do, and the distance that can exist between\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3811,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/01\/map-literacy-in-the-middle-ages\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":2},"title":"Map Literacy in the Middle Ages","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"30 January 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"When we talk about map literacy, we mean the ability to read a map. We can blithely talk about\u00a0how map reading has changed over the centuries while failing to interrogate whether\u00a0what we mean by map reading has changed as well. It's presentism to assume that people in the past did\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":978,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/the-social-life-of-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":3},"title":"The Social Life of Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Philadelphia Inquirer\u2019s Elizabeth Mosier reports\u00a0on a talk last Saturday by University of Delaware English professor Martin Br\u00fcckner. \"Using images from the exhibit he curated at Winterthur Museum (viewable online at\u00a0http:\/\/commondestinations.winterthur.org), Br\u00fcckner traced maps from production to purchase to public display and personal use, as they became fashionable objects in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History"","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"geographic-revolution","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/geographic-revolution-99x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6171,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/11\/fake-maps-very-dishonest\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":4},"title":"Fake Maps! (Very Dishonest)","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"24 November 2017","format":"video","excerpt":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/241238519 Here's a video of Steven Feldman's informative and entertaining talk at FOSS4G in Boston last August: \"Fake Maps, Very Dishonest\" looks at the ways in which maps, through ignorance, incompetence or deliberate intent, can mislead, misinform, misfire and miss the point. Very much in the vein of Monmonier's\u00a0How to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/fakemaps-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1844834,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/08\/reading-historic-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1167,"position":5},"title":"Reading Historic Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 August 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"Reading Historic Maps: A Practical Guide \u201cis an educational resource designed to help students and educators better understand historic maps. Focusing on depictions of navigation and conquest in world maps, the guide explains where to find these maps and how to analyze both common and unique cartographic details. The guide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}