Design

A New Yorker's Delightfully Stereotypical Map of America

Pretty much nothing exists outside Manhattan.
David Rumsey Map Collection

How might a person who’s never left New York City view the rest of the world? Perhaps with Manhattan taking up 80 percent of the U.S., the other four boroughs 10 percent, the Midwest completely nonexistent, and foreign countries reduced to vague presences somewhere across the water.

That’s the view of this wonderful 1970s map lampooning a New Yorker’s self-centered geography. The snarky cartographer remains anonymous, according to the David Rumsey Map Collection. Here’s a wide view: