Queens World Fair Map 1964
Where is the largest physical map in the world?
Guinness World Records lists the largest printed map as 6m x 11m (19ft, 8 in x 36 ft, 1 in). That map was created in 2007 by Igor Vilus, for Croatia. There is very little information on this map; it’s not clear what is being mapped, where this map is, why it was created and what it looks like.
While Vilus’s map is undoubtedly quite large, it is by no means the world’s largest map. Perhaps this is the world’s largest map? This 200-square-meter aerial photo of Switzerland on display at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne dwarfs Vilus’s 66-square-meter map. This map is so large that in order to examine it you have to put on big fuzzy red sandals over your shoes to walk on it!
But, believe it or not, even larger maps have existed! The 1964 World Fair in Queens, New York, had an enormous 130ft x 160ft highway map of New York State (2005 square meters). Sadly, this map has fallen in to disrepair.
The Guinness book of world records holds this 565 m2 map of British Columbia as the largest relief map in existence, although even Guinness may sometimes be wrong.
Perhaps the largest map of them all is one that we
Landscape Recreation in China
know little about in terms of why it was created and what it is used for. Some have suggested that this 1:500 scale map in China is likely for military purposes or to clarify the border dispute between India and China. This map is enormous: 700m x 900m (a whopping 630,000 square meters).
DeLorme's Eartha
This 1:1,000,000 scale map holds a record of a different kind—it is the largest 3-dimensional scale model of our planet. Eartha, the name of the globe, is located in Yarmouth Maine at the DeLorme headquarters.
This 5,600 pound globe is tilted at 23.5 degrees and completes one full rotation every hour.
Notable Mentions:
This map finished on November 17, 2010 promotes the 350 movement. It is 3,130 square meters, and holds the record for largest painting by numbers, but is more than just a map and not very detailed.
The San Francisco Bay Model is the largest hydraulic model, measuring in at 320ft x 400 ft (just under 12,000 square meters).
Do you know of any large physical maps that we missed?
2 comments
pkelley says:
Apr 25, 2011
My favorite large map is described by Jorge Luis Borges’, in his (very) short story “On Exactitude in Science.” Here it is, in its entirety:
…In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
-Jorge Luis Borges
Kim Traynor says:
Jul 11, 2012
I suggest you take a look at the Mapa Scotland (uses that as the search term) featured on Wikipedia. It’s a terrain model measuring 50m by 40m.