Jerry Gretzinger's Amazing Map Project

For decades Jerry Gretzinger  has been creating “the map,”  a gigantic, evolving geography consisting of thousands of hand painted map tiles.

The tiles change over time, new cities spring up, and occasionally a force known as “the void” creeps in and wipes away bits of the map. The fantastic video below explains his  incredible game-like work process: 

The full video can be seen at Jerry’s Map on Vimeo.

This also reminds us of another fantastic alternative mapping project we love.  

Kcymaerxthaere or Kymaerica is a massive “parallel universe that intersects with much of our linear Earth.” Created by “Geographer-at-Large” Eames Demetrios” - the grandson of Ray and Charles Eames -  the project spans the entire globe in a system of 29 `gwomes` and bills itself as a “global work of three-dimensional storytelling.” Each place in the Kcymaerxthaere has a rich and complex history.

However, what makes the Kcymaerxthaere project really fantastic is that Demetrios actually goes to these places and installs historical informative markers there, creating real world intersections with his imagined universe. He has installed over 60 of them so far and hopes to install something on the order of 2000. Here he is showing off one of his plaques:

The Kcymaerxthaere site has a full list of markers and plaques for Kcymaerxthaere, along with a mind boggling amount of historical information about the Kcymaerxthaere. A more in-depth article on Kcymaerxthaere can be read over at the Believer. 

Let us know about other massive imagined world geography projects. We can’t get enough.