Top 10 greatest maps that changed the world

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By Peter Barber, Head of Map Collections at the British Library:

From the USSR’s Be On Guard! map in 1921 to Google Earth, a new exhi­bi­tion at the British Library charts the extra­or­di­nary doc­u­ments that trans­formed the way we view the globe forever.

If I get to choose a favorite from this col­lec­tion, it would be the London sub­way map above. For me the map is one of those very few that are still shap­ing our cur­rent trend in design aesthetics.

Dismissed as too ‘rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ when it was first sub­mit­ted in 1931, Harry Beck’s Underground map solved the prob­lem of how to rep­re­sent clearly and ele­gantly a dense, com­plex inter­weav­ing of train lines.

Placing the sta­tions at sim­i­lar inter­vals regard­less of their true loca­tions ampli­fies the area of cen­tral London, increas­ing its clar­ity, while the straight lines and inter­change sym­bols con­fer a sim­plic­ity and order on the net­work. A car­to­graphic icon.

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via Jason Kottke