Alternative Maps

This is a blog post about some maps of places that we don't often see on maps in Britain. I've had these stashed away for a while, since late 2017 when I wrote a piece called 'Alternative Maps and the Future of Brexit Britain', which you can see below. I've been thinking a lot more about this recently as part of my role in the UK2070 Commission, and also because I'm going to Redcar this week. But really this is just some personal musing about maps and in particular maps of the kinds of places that often seem to be left off the map, particularly in conversations at a national level. Scroll down for the maps. There's not too much more to it than that, but I thought looking at some of the less mapped places, with a bit of label re-sizing, was a good way for me to re-think my mental maps of the country, and that's really why I did them. Nothing profound.

You can probably read the text if you click to enlarge

I'm not asking for too much, am I?

I deliberately didn't add inset/locator maps to these

Too often we're blinded by the sun

Only peripheral if you're not paying attention

It's not that far away

A long way from London? 

Part of London?

Limited labels

I've gone crazy with the labels here

The Kingdom of Fife

I always think this part of the world is overlooked

Quite a big garden

So often overlooked

Definitely pretty central

Quite a bumpy landscape

A bit more label inversion here

Technically, this is not Shetland in a box

Greater Trowbridge?

Stafford and Cannock megaregion

There aren't a lot of maps of this area

There are a lot of people here

Like I said, this is just a few maps of places that we don't often see on maps. Or at least we maybe don't think of them as being nationally 'important' in the same we we do about major cities. In some ways that is understandable but I think it can't to any harm to change our mental maps and re-think how we think about the UK, where stuff is and where stuff should be.