{"id":1833379,"date":"2024-08-02T12:40:25","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T16:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1833379"},"modified":"2024-08-02T12:42:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T16:42:22","slug":"null-island-as-easter-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/08\/null-island-as-easter-egg\/","title":{"rendered":"Null Island as Easter Egg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Stamen Maps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Null Island<\/a> is an inside joke among cartographers: an imagined island situated at 0\u00b0 latitude, 0\u00b0 longitude, where maps suffering from data glitches point themselves. If your map is centred on Null Island, something has gone wrong. So of course mapmakers have been having some fun with it\u2014after all, it\u2019s not something you could stumble across by accident. In a blog post, Alan McConchie of Stamen Maps delves into the lore and history of Null Island<\/a> and its status as an Easter egg on the Stamen Maps platform, where it takes the shape of the island from the Myst game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(As an update to my 2016 post on Null Island<\/a>: Alan reports that the buoy at 0\u00b0, 0\u00b0 has ceased to be. Also, the Null Island website, complete with flag, has moved here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Null Island is an inside joke among cartographers: an imagined island situated at 0\u00b0 latitude, 0\u00b0 longitude, where maps suffering from data glitches point themselves. If your map is centred on Null Island, something has… 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":[29,28,110],"tags":[311,310],"class_list":["post-1833379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-cartography","category-gis","category-map-errors","tag-geocoding","tag-null-island","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/null-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":0},"title":"Null Island","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Zero degrees longitude, zero degrees latitude is literally nowhere: situated in the middle of the open ocean, off the coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, the only thing to mark its presence is a weather observation buoy\u00a0[via].\u00a0But it's also a\u00a0significant set of coordinates, in that it's the location\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\/2016\/02\/zero-zero.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/weekend-read-eric-rodenbeck-on-his-favourite-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":1},"title":"Weekend Read: Eric Rodenbeck on His Favourite Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"6 February 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Over on\u00a0The Atlantic's CityLab, Stamen Design founder Eric Rodenbeck talks about some of his favourite maps. It's a diverse list that includes a modern cartogram and an old postcard, a fantasy map and the first Google Maps mashup. [via]","rel":"","context":"In "Mapping the Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Mapping the Personal","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/mapping-the-personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2391,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/07\/the-wsj-on-null-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":2},"title":"The WSJ on Null Island","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 July 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Here's another, more in-depth look at Null Island, a point at the\u00a0intersection of the equator and prime meridian that shows up\u00a0in the event of a geocoding error, this time from the Wall Street Journal\u2019s\u00a0Robert Lee Hotz. [WMS] Previously:\u00a0Null Island.","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1837813,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/03\/google-maps-has-a-lot-of-user-contributed-imagery-in-the-wrong-places\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":3},"title":"Google Maps Has a Lot of User-Contributed Imagery in the Wrong Places","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 March 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CMemCW8aDWs Geography Now was poking around northern Chad in Google Maps and came across a bunch of user-contributed 360-degree images of business interiors that had nothing to do with Chad: they were associated with businesses in Brazil, India, Hungary and so forth. I\u2019m inclined to think these were geocoding glitches\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/CMemCW8aDWs\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4141,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/04\/the-isle-of-bait\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":4},"title":"The Isle of Bait","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"1 April 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"The Future Mapping Company has announced the discovery of a new island 20 kilometres off the coast of Great Britain. They have naturally already produced a new map of this island. The Isle of Bait is a small, beautiful and untouched paradise, but there is a hitch\u2014it is only visible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/imaginary-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/isle-of-bait-990x1024.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1786342,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/10\/essays-on-literary-maps-treasure-island-moominland-and-the-marauders-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1833379,"position":5},"title":"Essays on Literary Maps: Treasure Island, Moominland and the Marauder’s Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 October 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Another excerpt from the forthcoming book The Writer's Map, this time in the Guardian, in which three authors talk about their favourite literary maps: Robert Macfarlane on the map in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Frances Hardinge on the map of Tove Jansson's Moominland, and Miraphora Mina on the Harry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Maps and Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Maps and Literature","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/maps-and-literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/the-writers-map-209x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833379","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=1833379"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833385,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833379\/revisions\/1833385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}