This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars

The only truly accurate map of the world would be a map the size of the world. So if you want to make a map useful something that you can hold in your hands, you have to start making choices.

You have to choose what information you're interested in and what you're throwing out.

These choices influence how the person reading the map views the world.

But a map's influence doesn't end there.

Maps can actually shape the place they're trying to represent,

and that's when things get weird. I love a good map and today we have three

short stories about how maps have changed the real world in big and small ways. Okay so Kurt Kolestead is in the studio with me and he also loves maps and you've

written a ton of articles about maps and map projections and even you did an article

about the design of pins on maps.

Oh yes.

So the love is deep.

It's real.

So we're going to talk about actually one of your favorite geographical oddities and that's ex-glaves and enclaves.

And these are bits of land cut off from their home countries in various cool ways.

Yeah, and they take a lot of forms and it gets complicated pretty fast.

So I just wanted to start with something simple that, you know, listeners out there might recognize.

When you look at a map of the United States,

there's this little bump up in the middle,

and it's called the northwest angle,

and it sticks up from Minnesota into Canada.

Right.

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