Festival of Maps

If you’re in the Chicago area around the beginning of November, be sure to check out the Festival of Maps.  Starting November 2nd at the Field Museum and running through January 27th, 2008, 129 maps will be exhibited.  The earliest map dates from 1500 B.C and originates from Nippur, a town in present-day Iraq.  Also included are maps of imaginary worlds such as Gulliver’s Travels, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Thomas More’s Utopia. 

George Shove, map of London on a glove created for the 1851 Great Exhibition Featured in Maps: Finding Our Place in the World.  Courtesy The National Archives of the United Kingdom