Atlas of Imagined Places: from Lilliput to Gotham City

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From Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot to the superhero land of Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver’s Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, this is a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. Londonist editor-at-large Matt Brown, and co-author Rhys B Davies, have taken the concept to the entire planet in their Atlas of Imagined Places. The maps also include fictional infrastructure, such as the great sea wall round LA from Blade Runner 2049, and the anti-Kaiju wall of Sydney from Pacific Rim. You'll also find the routes of fictional car chases, speedboat pursuits in Venice, the pilgrimage path of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and much more. Fictional London mapped Inner London A map on this resolution, though, can only scratch the surface of fictional London. For that, you can always browse our map of the Unreal City, which contains hundreds of fictional places in the capital.

The book includes interesting discoveries including George Orwell's Animal Farm being located right next to Winnie the Pooh's 100 Acre Wood. From Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot to the superhero land of Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver's Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, this is a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps.They pictured this in the dreamy pastels that evoke softness and other-worldliness. The drawing are whimsical with an ethereal loveliness. From Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot to the superhero land of Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver's Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, this is a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. From the Ghostbusters HQ in New York to Nemo’s fish tank in Sydney, from the Phantom of the Opera’s Parisian lair to scenes from Grand Theft Auto in LA, this is an amazing atlas of imaginary locations in real-life cities around the world. Locations from film, TV, books, computer games and comics are ingeniously plotted on a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. The 14 cities covered are Berlin, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Paris, Rio, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, Venice and Washington DC.

A stunning map collection of invented geography and topography drawn from the world’s imagination. Fascinating, beautiful and an essential book for any popular culture fan and map enthusiast. From volcanoes that spew bubble gum to animals that change their coats whenever someone sneezes, this book is full of imagination. The dreamy illustrations are soothing and yet full of mystery. Imagine your child climbing to the tallest lighthouse and drawing out new galaxies with their finger. That is the kind of magic you can imagine by reading this book. Yes, we have. The master file of this map goes all the way out to the M25. It doesn't look the prettiest at the moment, because much of it is blank space, but we'd love to fill that in. Please do send us your best suggestions for Bromley, Sutton, Bexley, Havering and the rest, and we'll get mapping. Who helped? What happens when someone simply lets their imagination conjure up places to see that have never been seen? What about plants or animals never seen? What would your drawings of a mapping of these places, plants, and animals actually look like?

from Lilliput to Gotham City

On the negative side, the art is kind of flat and not particularly interesting, and done in a color palette that I don't find particularly appealing. In places there repeating images that are so regular they must have been copy/pasted and the overall effect of some images is rather like wallpaper. Likewise, the imaginary places just aren't that interesting or exotic seeming. And I don't really think it is an "atlas", which to me implies maps. There is a map in the endpapers, but it feels more like an afterthought. In the beginning, there seems to be some effort to link the locations together, like taking a tour of the imaginary lands, and that is neat, but it is pretty much abandoned after the fifth location and they just skip around at random.

From Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot to superhero Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver's Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. If such thoughts have kept you awake at night, then the Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City (Batsford Books; 2021) is just the book for you. Written by Matt Brown, editor-at-large for Londonist, and co-authored by Rhys B. Davies, this gorgeous book builds upon Mr Brown’s idea to map approximately 1,000 fictional British places, earlier depicted in Londonist’s ‘Fake Britain’ map ( more here), which now is expanded in this volume to include more than 5,000 fictional locations around the world. A map like this can never be complete. London's fictional space is all but infinite. We've started the map with over 700 locations, but much remains to be added. Special thanks to Tyler McChantelle who, as on previous maps, has provided many locations. Ditto Amanda Oliver, who continues to fill in blanks.

Typical bloody Londonist, ignoring the outer boroughs. They have fiction too, you know. Never heard of Peep Show?

Yes. We've put together a public spreadsheet listing every location, with notes on why we chose the given location. Access it via Google Drive. Wait, you missed the home of that incidental character from Season 21, Episode 4 of Doctor Who. Please can you add it? Matt Brown is author of 11 books for Batsford, including eight titles in the popular Everything You Know... series of mythbusting books. He has served as editor and editor-at-large of Londonist.com for many years, writing on topics as diverse as street art, politics, map-making and science. With a deep love of trivia, he's written and hosted hundreds of quizzes, including events for the Museum of London, London Eye, Royal Institution, Royal Society and Manchester Science Museum, among many others. All of his books use humour and playfulness as tools to explore the world. He is tweeting at @mattfromlondon. Atlas of Imagined Cities: Who Lives Where in TV, Books, Games and Movies. by Matt Brown, Rhys B. Davies and Mike Hall is out now from Batsford.

And on the far side of Costa Rica, we discover Isla Nublar, and the nearby island cluster known as Las Cinco Muertes – the Five Deaths – well named indeed, for here are the lost worlds of Jurassic Park, where genetically re-created dinosaurs once again rule the Earth! The maps feature fictional buildings, towns, cities and countries plus mountains and rivers, oceans and seas. Ever wondered where the Bates Motel was based? Or Bedford Falls in It's a Wonderful Life? The authors have taken years to research the likely geography of thousands of popular culture locations that have become almost real to us. Sometimes these are easy to work out, but other times a bit of detective work is needed and the authors have been those detectives. By looking at the maps, you'll find that the revolution at Animal Farm happened next to Winnie the Pooh's home.From Stephen King's Salem's Lot to the superhero land of Wakanda, from Lilliput of Gulliver's Travels to Springfield in The Simpsons, this is a wondrous atlas of imagined places around the world. Locations from film, tv, literature, myths, comics and video games are plotted in a series of beautiful vintage-looking maps. Nevertheless, this fascinating book is essential for any map enthusiast or devotee of popular culture. I am already eagerly awaiting the extra large pull-down classroom version of these maps so I can use them as blinds in my office. The map was created by Matt Brown and Rhys B Davies. We'll list the names of anybody who suggests a fictional location that we decide to use.