Brilliant Maps

Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time

Where Are All The Toilets On The London Underground? This Tube Map Has The Answer

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Toilet London Tube Map

Click on the map for a full size version, part of TFL’s Accessibility guides

Locating a working loo in London is not always easy, especially on the Tube.

The lack of toilets on the London Underground, is just one of many complaints Londoners have with the network that celebrated it’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 2013.

Looking at the tube map above it’s easy to see why. In zone 1 (central London), only Baker Street (men only), Shoreditch High Street and Hoxton have any toilet facilities within the gateline and none have baby changing facilitates. Only when you get outside of central London do you start finding stations that actually have toilets in them.

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The 26 Largest Islands In The World Compared

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relative size of the 24 largest islands in the world

The relative size of the 24 largest islands in the world, map by reddit user evening_raga

The map above shows the relative size of the world’s 26 largest islands. Combined they cover 7.7 million square km (roughly the size of Australia) and have 540 million people living on them (behind only China and India).

If you’re curious to learn a bit more about them, below you can find their names, what country (or countries) they belong to, their areas and the population of each island (data from Wikipedia):

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What Country Is Across From You, If You’re On A Beach In Britain or Ireland

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Across the shores from Britain

Map by reddit user TheWinterKing

Inspired by the popular map of Which Countries Are Due East And West Of The Americas, this version looks at the same for British Isles (UK + Ireland), with North and South added in too.

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California, Sweden and Madagascar Are Surprisingly Similar in Size

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California vs Madagascar

California vs Madagascar, by Reddit user Mattho via mapfrappe.com

Did you know that California, Sweden and Madagascar are all quite similar in size? Don’t believe me? Well look at the map above comparing California and Madagascar or the one below comparing Sweden and Madagascar. Here are a few comparisons between the 3 based on data from Wikipedia:

In terms of total area:

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Why The United States Is A ‘-Stan’ Country Like Kyrgyzstan

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Map places ending in -stan aka Stanistan

Why are there so many countries that end in -stan? In total 7 countries: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan include the suffix -stan in their names.

These countries have a combined population of nearly 280 million people (fewer than only China, India and the United States) and cover an area of 5.45 million square kilometers (7th largest in the world).

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Which European Country Has The Lowest Drinking Age?

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Drinking Age In Europe Map

Drinking Age In Europe Map by reddit user correiajoao

This is actually a bit of a trick question, as several European countries including: Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Russia have no formal laws on what age people are allowed to consume alcoholic beverages. However, the map above (with a few errors) shows what age people have to be buy various types of alcohol.

According to Wikipedia these are the ages you’re allowed to purchase alcohol by country in Europe:

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The Pacific Ocean is Larger Than All Land On Earth

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All land on earth compared to pacific ocean

Map by Chris Stephens, from naturalearthdata.com

While I’m sure you know the Pacific Ocean is big, I’d say there’s a good chance you hadn’t realized how big, until you look at the map above. As difficult as it may be to believe, the Pacific Ocean is larger than the landmass of every single continent and island combined.

In numbers:

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U.S. Counties Where Schools Close for Jewish Holidays

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U.S. Counties Where Schools Close for Jewish Holidays

Map by reddit user jonross14

The map above shows where schools close for Jewish Holidays. Reddit user jonross14 explains more about how he created the map:

My wife and I created this map. A colored county means that at least one school countywide closes for Jewish Holidays, not necessarily all schools in the county. We also designated a county if they only closed for one Jewish holiday, for example Yom Kippur but not Rosh Hashanah, or if a district consistently gives a PD (teachers-only) day on a Jewish holiday. TL;DR if any district in a county closes school to students for any Jewish holiday they are included in this map. Enjoy!

If, like me, you’re not familiar with the major Jewish holidays they are:

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Average Colour Hue of Country & US State Flags

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Average colour hue of world flags

Map by reddit user delugetheory

Here’s the last post for awhile about flag colours. Previous posts have looked at The Shade of Red Each Country Has On Its Flag and Countries Whose Flags Contain Red and/or Blue. The map above looks at what happens when you blend all the colours from each country’s flag proportionally.

Somewhat surprisingly there is a relatively large variety of colours, given that red and blue so often appear on flags.

Below you can see what happens when you do the same thing for individual US state flags:

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Countries Whose Flags Contain Red and/or Blue

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Countries whose flags have either red and/or blue in them

Map by reddit user PieJesu, edit by will_holmes

As we saw in a previous post, the vast majority of the world’s countries have at least some red in their flag. The next most popular colour is blue, with only a handful of countries having neither colour in their flag.

The following countries have neither red or blue, but do all have green:

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