The London Underground Map

For those of who don't know the London Underground map it is a thing of wonder and beauty and, at the same time, it is a revolutionary piece of cartography. It was created in 1933 by a Harry Beck and the special thing about it is that it was the first map that didn't attempt to accurately portray the geographical position of things. Instead it focused on clarity for the user and so attention was paid to legibility of station names and distinction between the different lines, particularly in congested areas. All this caused the layout to change from the normal geographical presentation to this stylised version. Now most of us think that the map represents the actual layout of the city - but it doesn't. Embankment is not due south of Charing Cross, like it is on the map, it is actually due east.

There is a nice presentation of this at the London Transport Museum site. You can morph between the original 1933 map to the current map to the true geographical map. It was all quite a radical thing considering the norm for cartography in the 1930s. And the web site presentation is pretty cool too.