Terrible Maps: The stupidly funny illustrated gift book perfect for geography lovers

by Michael Howe

Have you ever wondered about the average jean colour across the United States? Or what ‘pedestrians’ look like in Denmark? What unites Brokenwind, Upton Snodsbury, and Crackpot? Have you ever tried to take a train in Antarctica? Well, Terrible Maps is the book for you!

Put together by the creator behind the tremendously popular social media feed, this is the ultimate humour book for the budding geographer in your life. From countries that eat their national animals to nations that have declared war on birds (and lost), Terrible Maps celebrates pointless cartography in all its glory.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Geography, Maps, Comedy, Travel, Art

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name

Reviews

[J]

Does this count? Ehhh not really
Am I massively behind my reading challenge and in desperate need of a completion? Absolutely
Is this a lovely farewell gift from the planning team? Without doubt 😊

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick fun 'read'. If I'm remembering the forward correctly, this book came about because the author formerly had a social media presence for creating or finding "Amazing Maps" but he was constantly getting nitpicked and criticized for imperfections or inaccuracies in the maps, so as a joke he started throwing out terrible maps and that caught on big (supposedly his follower count is now larger than the population of some not small countries).
Anyway, these maps are completely useless and hilarious for being so. Want to see how many died while texting in 1960? Or what the largest airfields in Europe were in 1570? How about what pedestrian crossing signs look like around the world? Or maybe what countries have the moon on their flag vs countries that have a flag on the moon?

[Anton Bystedt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It becomes slightly repetitive.

[clau · Rating 5 out of 5]

bestial 10/10

[nai · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfecto para una tarde en waterstones

[Mike Bloom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some maps were Good-lahoma. Others were just Oklahoma.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned/the content of this book made me feel…

…wonder of the world through comedy! Some interesting stats along the way too

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has its moments and worth a browse.

[Lizzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This feels like this would have maybe been funnier in 2010. Repetitive, old jokes. Legitimately nothing here in any way felt fresh or original or funny. Also not sure why anyone would want an expensive physical copy of this book. These kind of jokes feel like they’d be better experienced individually while doom scrolling on your preferred social media platform.

[Magnus Briar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Howe's Terrible Maps is exactly the kind of stupid I didn't know I needed. It's a collection of maps that are so useless they become surprisingly useful at making you laugh.

This book isn't trying to be smart or meaningful. Which, honestly, is probably pretty good because cartography can be a dense, mathematical subject. Nah, this little guy is just pure, unapologetic silliness. The kind of book you flip through when your brain needs a break from actual thinking and you watched all the standup specials on Netflix.

Most of the jokes do land, which honestly surprised me. Quirky comedy books can be pretty hit or miss. Maybe it's the creative delivery of these bits in map form or maybe they are just more clever than they seem on the surface. Hard to say.

I have two main complaints -
1. It's pretty American-centric. Ironic as it's about geography. Like, I get that Florida jokes are easy comedy gold to Yankees, but sometimes I felt like I needed a red, white, and blue translator. The Canadian in me was occasionally lost. In America. Quite a scary prospect these days!

2. Some of the jokes are... just fine. Not bad, just predictable. You'll see a few punchlines coming from a mile away. Puns on state names, stuff that has been circulated around the web for years.

But honestly? Who cares about a couple blips. It's short, it's funny, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Perfect bathroom reading or something to leave on your coffee table when you want guests to think you have a sense of humour.

If you're looking for scholarly analysis of geography shaping human behaviour or cutting social commentary on distortions in the Mercator projection, you're gonna wanna look elsewhere. If you want to have a cheeky chuckle at cartography jokes, you've found your book. No map required.

[The Book Squirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of maps is chiefly an infographic of statistics which uses maps to illustrate the data.
There's the "The world is a cat playing with Australia" map, a map of train routes in Antarctica (ie, the map is blank), a map of the translation of 'coma' (being in an unconscious state) showing every country except Poland says 'coma'/'koma' (Polish is śpiączka), and a map of which countries have declared war on birds - and lost (Australia and China).

While well done, this is a book you might flick through once or twice, have a laugh and move on. One for a public library 'just for fun' collection more than anything.

[Marius Bancila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been watching the @TerribleMaps Twitter account for some time. I decided to buy the book to support them. I have probably seen all the maps in the book on Twitter already. However, it's nice to have them collected in a printed book. It's a funny book. Some maps are surprising, some maps are brilliant, some are terrible, but they are all amusing. You can even spot recurring themes, such as the lack of data from Greenland, which is another amusing element. You can browse it all in 15 minutes. But then you probably want to start over again and have one more laugh.

[Leo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Big disappointment! I was hoping for new maps, or at least new joke commentary on maps, but it's just a collection of existing tweets, and a rather short one at that. Save yourself some money and just read the Twitter feed.

The Kindle edition is very unpleasant to read: the images are small and low-resolution. On some maps, this makes labels hard to read, ruining the joke.

That would be fine if it only cost a few dollars, but it's sold at full price (even the e-book): definitely not worth it.

[Uuttu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hauskoja karttoja eli karttoja, joissa on aikalailla oikeaa tietoa, mutta väärästä kulmasta. Esimerkiksi valtioiden kehityksen arvioiminen villien pigniivien määrän kautta.

Ihan hauska, mutta toimii varmaan Twitter/Insta-viesteinä paremmin. Vitsit alkavat toistaa itseään nopeasti, joten ne eivät toimi täysin hyvin näin isona yksittäisannoksena. Pari kertaa tuli naurahdettua, joten ei tämä hukkaan mennyt.

Toimii ehkä parhaiten odotusaulassa tai vastaavassa tilanteessa luettuna.

[David Meiklejohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coming from a Twitter page, Terrible Maps is just what it says, maps of the world, of America, of Europe, generally with colour coding for ridiculous reasons. For instance, countries coloured blue are “Indonesia” and countries coloured red are “Outdonesia”. There’s also a running joke of Greenland being marked as “no data”.
Good fun, we’ll presented, but you’ll get through it quickly.

[Jim White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short humor book which has amusing map-related puns, etc. It will probably take you less than an hour to browse through it, but a lot of the pages are amusing. From turning Oklahoma into likes and dislikes to a map of Roman air bases in the 2nd century, this has something for everyone.

It makes a great gift for friends who like maps or humor (and preferably both). I enjoyed it.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing read or browse, seeing that beyond the introduction and headings there is nothing really to read.

It is literally a picture books of maps, some are amusing and other just very corny. Not a book I would be happy to have bought for full price but for 99p it was alright and passed a few minutes.

[The Kawaii Slartibartfast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever had a hankering for a truly wretched map? Well, have I got the book for you! From a map of South America to a map of countries that declared a war on birds and lost, this book is an absolute delight.

[Budd Margolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good fun here. I never would have imaged an outdiana?
Maps are critical to our understanding of geopolitical, climate and navigational issues but this book of maps takes a swipe at logic and common sense and produced some goof comic relief.

[The other John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly little book from a silly little Twitter feed that I've been enjoying. It uses maps to make bad puns and/or poke fun at the way we use maps in our society. I definitely recommend it if you want to have a bit of silly in your life.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very goofy, fun, and witty take on internationals maps and cultural norms. Some of the jokes weren’t to my taste, but very happy this exists. An excellent coffee table book for anyone with a sense of humor

[TheVampireBookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very cool idea for geography lovers because it's hilarious. I don't like the format though so that's why there's one star down. Especially Europe is divided in half and you can't read what's in some countries because of binding, I don't wanna crack the spine.

[Melanie]

Man I'd love an ARC.

[Stephanie Erb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hilarious

Some "dad jokes", but mostly just fun. And some new ways to see geography. Humor can sometimes provoke thought. Except Greenland. ( No data).

[Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was actually kinda fun reading these maps but some jokes are kinda meh. And there aren't a lot of content tbh.

[Harrison Large · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novel. Got this as a Christmas present. Would recommend having a look at the library or in a charity shop but couldn't justify this at RRP.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very funny maps. I have loved this on Twitter (X). I’m sure there will be more to come. A quick and easy ‘read’

[Jojo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I'm amazed.

[Tc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever, despite one map totally irking me (which way screws tighten). Have loved following them on social media and was excited to support the publication of this book!

[Nathan]

Fun!