My top 4 Map Men videos
Love maps and history? Then let me direct you to the Map Men!
Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones are Map Men — mild mannered media men by day, cartographical crusaders by evening and weekends, a few times per year. They joined us on our obscure history podcast Countries That Don’t Exist Anymore to talk about the Inca Empire and how they make their brilliant YouTube series.
While covering all kinds of mappy subjects — from French mapping triangles to the missing Berlin Wall — some of the stuff that makes us happiest is when they cover overlooked places and historical obscurites. As our whole podcast is based around often forgotten history, these vids strike a chord with us.
And if you’re an map-loving, obscure history fan, we think you’ll love them too…
1. Bir Tawil — the land that nobody wants
When the British Empire separated Sudan and Egypt with two different border lines, they probably didn’t know what trouble they’d cause. Or they did and were trolling on a massive scale. Either way, they created a bizarre situation where neither country wants to admit owning the Bir Tawil triangle.
2. Mappa Mundi — the worst world map?
We love Medieval stuff (listen to our episode on Mercia if you think we lie) so the Map Chaps’ episode on the 13th century Mappa Mundi ticks our boxes. Crap map or brilliant depiction of the Medieval mindset? Find out now! (It’s the second thing.)
3. Why do maps show places that don’t exist?
How could we resist a title like that? How to you foil a counterfeit cartographer? Easy! Include lots of fake places on your maps as a trap to foil copycats.
4. The world’s oldest border
Not only is the border between England and Scotland the world’s oldest, it’s also the one that has shifted around the most — much to the confusion of the poor residents of Berwick upon Tweed. But are they still at war with Russia? Only one way to find out…
Enjoyed that? Us too. Make sure to listen to the time we interviewed the Map Men.
Originally published at https://www.ctdeapod.com on October 12, 2020.
