Hi, I'm Frank. I collect Strange Maps
Joined January 2009
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45 Photos and videos
Jun 12
#StrangeMaps #1294 - Cathedral of bones: Inside the world's largest, deepest, and oldest whale graveyard. bigthink.com/strange-maps/wh…
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May 29
#StrangeMaps #1292 - Follow the money: Mapping millionaire migration across America. bigthink.com/strange-maps/mi…
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May 27
During the Boer War, did a British Field Marshal conduct a military campaign to form the name of a beef extract popular at home and with the troops? See the full post at tinyurl.com/yad39jwz
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#StrangeMaps #1291 - The Irish language is having a moment - and running out of time. bigthink.com/strange-maps/ir…
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Apr 23
#StrangeMaps #1290 - The Strait of Hormuz is today's energy chokepoint. China is tomorrow's. bigthink.com/strange-maps/th…
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#StrangeMaps #1289 - How the modern world turned gray (and why color may be coming back). bigthink.com/strange-maps/gr…
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#StrangeMaps #1288 - Ghost map: Europe’s first glimpse of Tenochtitlan shows a city already destroyed. bigthink.com/strange-maps/az…
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#StrangeMaps #1287 - We saved the world once — we can do it again. bigthink.com/strange-maps/oz…
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Mar 27
#StrangeMaps #1286 - Militarized snowflakes: The accidental beauty of Renaissance star forts. bigthink.com/strange-maps/st…
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Feb 19
#StrangeMaps #1285 - Welcome to McKinley: How the U.S. almost colonized a chunk of Cuba.
bigthink.com/strange-maps/mc…
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Feb 11
Does all of Europe hate Donald Trump? You could be excused for thinking so, but no.
The American president has a net positive approval rating in four countries: Kosovo (27 points), Romania (11), Moldova (10) and North Macedonia (2).
Why do Kosovans love Trump? Well, maybe it’s not so much the current occupant of the White House, as any occupant of the White House.
Kosovo’s positive view of the U.S. dates back to the 1990s, when U.S.-led NATO bombings on Serbia halted the oppression of the Albanian-majority population in Kosovo, then still ruled by Serbia.
That’s why the Kosovan capital Pristina boasts a Bill Clinton Boulevard (plus an 11-foot-high statue of the former president).
And why is Trump relatively popular in those other three Eastern European countries?
In large part because Trump’s blunt “America First” rhetoric resonates with local opposition against further integration with the European Union, which is seen by many on the right as too liberal, too internationalist; and because the U.S. is considered as an ally, or at least a counterweight, against Russian encroachment.
Those arguments also play out to a lesser extent in Hungary, led by Trump ally Viktor Orban: Trump’s net approval rating may be in the red, but by fewer points (-9) than in any other European country.
If Trump is doing relatively well in Europe, it’s in neighbouring countries like Czechia (-21), Slovakia (-29), Croatia (-27) and Greece (-29). We did say *relatively*.
Oh, but also in the UK, where the U.S. president is under water by only 21 points. Could we put this down to the cultural affinity between Brits and Yanks, or to the growing support for the right-wing Reform Party, led by another Trump ally, Nigel Farage?
Trump is doing very badly in four of Europe’s other Big Five countries: France (-41), Italy (-48), Spain (-51) and especially Germany (-72).
But the U.S. president’s worst scores are in the Nordics, where he gets a net negative approval rating of -79 in Norway, -80 in Sweden, and -84 in Denmark.
The Danes have long been one of the most U.S.-positive countries on the Continent, yet their current hostile attitude comes as no surprise. It’s hard not to be offended when the leader of a supposedly allied nation threatens to take over part of your territory by force.
Just a word of clarification: net approval is positive views minus negative views, ignoring undecided responses. For example, if 45% of Kosovans have a positive view of Trump and 18% disapprove, while 37% don’t have an opinion, that would result in a net approval of 27 points.
Denmark’s extremely lopsided negatives leave less room for undecideds. Let’s say no Dane is undecided on Trump. A net approval of -84 points would require 92% to disapprove of Trump, while 8% approve.
So, even among the Danes, there is a small cohort of Trump fans. Given the circumstances, it is unlikely they go about their day wearing MAGA hats.
Data for this map from the Gallup International End-of-Year Survey. Map seen here on Roman Sheremeta’s X feed: x.com/rshereme/status/202119…
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Jan 30
#StrangeMaps #1284 - Memorizing London’s 25,000 streets changes cabbies’ brains — and may prevent Alzheimer’s. bigthink.com/strange-maps/th…
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Jan 12
#StrangeMaps #1283 - 7,000-year-old underwater wall raises questions about ancient engineering - and lost-city legends. bigthink.com/strange-maps/su…
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12 Dec 2025
#StrangeMaps #1282 - America’s post-apocalyptic maps reveal eerily familiar fault lines.
bigthink.com/strange-maps/am…
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1 Dec 2025
This September, 97.7% of all new cars registered in Norway were battery-electric vehicles (BEVs).
That makes the Norwegians best in class when it comes to adopting full-electric, zero-emission cars - both worldwide, and of course also in Europe.
No other European country is in the same league, and quite a few are doing considerably worse. We’re looking at you, Eastern Europe. Slovenia (15.1%) and Lithuania (13.6%) are the only two markets in that region that manage a BEV registration score higher than 10%.
The lowest score in Europe is for Croatia (3.8%). Italy, one of Europe’s Big Five economies, only slightly improves on that figure (5.7%).
Most of Western Europe is doing better than embarrassing, but worse than great. Germany, France, and the UK, Europe’s three largest economies, are all hovering around 20%. Spain, the fifth of the Big Five, barely breaks 10%. Quite a contrast with its neighbour Portugal, which is close to 30%.
Belgium and the Netherlands are both close to 40%, almost on a par with the slowest Nordic BEV adopters. Third position is for Iceland (72%), second place is for Denmark (73.4%). That’s still almost 25 percentage points behind Norway.
Note that these are new vehicle registrations, which only form a small part of the total vehicle fleet in each market. The average EU car is well over 10 years old, and high prices for new vehicles are constantly pushing up that average.
Consequently, those total markets are electrifying at a much slower rate than the figures on this map would suggest. Some projections put the year in which zero-emission vehicles will outnumber petrol and diesel cars on European roads a full decade after 2035, when the EU is banning the sale of all petrol and diesel cars.
Which means that in 2045, half of all cars on European roads - the older half - will still be powered by petrol or diesel.
Map found here
x.com/tc_thrane/status/19934…
on Troels Christensen’s X account
x.com/tc_thrane/
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1 Dec 2025
For more strange maps, check out Strange Maps on Big Think (bigthink.com/strange-maps) and on Facebook (facebook.com/VeryStrangeMaps).
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27 Nov 2025
“Baseball on valium, with a tea break”: to the non-initiated, that definition of cricket, by the late American comedian Robin Williams, is as useful as it is funny.
For at least it defines the contours of a game, so beloved throughout the British Commonwealth, that to the rest of the world seems to revel in its arcane impenetrability.
That sense of bewilderment was caught perfectly in a five-minute sketch by legendary Dutch comedy outfit Jiskefet (youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBB…).
Only slightly less hilarious is this map of cricket positions. The sheer density is mind-boggling, as are the names - ‘deep backward square leg’, ’straight long off’, ‘silly point’.
Wait, there’s actually a position called ‘silly point’? The game is up, literally. Cricket’s not real. You’ve been having us on, haven’t you?
Map found here at Terrible Maps:
facebook.com/photo/?fbid=563…
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27 Nov 2025
For more strange maps, check out Strange Maps on Big Think (bigthink.com/strange-maps) and on Facebook (facebook.com/VeryStrangeMaps).
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