Easter eggs on Swiss maps (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Easter eggs on Swiss maps (2021)

bigthink.com

199 pointsBrajeshwar45 comments

Looks like a safe (and fun) way to introduce fictitious entries [1] while hinting the careful map reader that there's something fishy on the map. Wrong map data on maps can be dangerous after all, especially in a landscape like the alps.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry#Maps

https://map.geo.admin.ch/

Herewith the map site.

I have to admit, the maps (at any zoom levels) are quite beautiful. Much much better than the likes of Apple or Google!

I don't like them - but they're the best you can have when you're in the woods.

The maps on that website have some very cool features including "Journey through time" which allows you to see the maps going back to 1864.

That's not a very high bar.

The style in the same as all pre-Internet paper maps I've seen, but with much higher fidelity. So it looks nice to me, but it's not the most readable, mostly the names do not stand out in the dark green background.

Fellow map nerds might also enjoy these:

The new "Light Base Map":

https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/web-maps-light-base-map

Demo (Light Base Map):

https://cms.geo.admin.ch/fmc/lbm.html

This is a modernized version of a base map (used to overlay topical maps over it) that they have been working on for the past few years. Available as vector tile. It's very clean and crisp, and IMHO much more readable than e.g. the Google Maps style, or OSM.

---

Highly customizable 3D map viewer (under development). Performance is a bit choppy, and navigation feels somewhat clunky. But you can overlay any of the hundreds of topical maps (pick from geocatalog menu, or search via search bar).

Example with hiking trails overlay: https://test.map.geo.admin.ch/#/map?lang=en&sr=3857&center=8...

Light Base Map look very early 2000s. Washed out and low contrast with pastels.. It's very pretty. I'd use it as a background image. But I feel you can't see anything really without really straining yourself. You don't get an immediate sense of the terrain or road network without taking a minute to look at it in detail.

Maybe b/c it's what I grew up with, but I've always found AAA maps (do they still print them?) had the best colors and contrast. I've never found any other map app that looks anywhere nearly as good

Looks a lot like France's IGN vector layers.

The "spider" on the Eiger might be a reference to the feature of the same name on the Eiger's north face?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Eiger_no...

btw, the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo) has lots of cool open geo data: https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/maps

Nice! Is this open as in free for private users, or actually open data? If so, I wonder if this has been imported into OSM.

It's actually open data: https://shop.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/free-geodata

  > New conditions of use apply to swisstopo's official geodata.
  > The geodata may be used free of charge, in particular also for commercial purposes.
  > Reference to the source when publishing the data is the only condition.
  > Authorizations and licenses are therefore no longer required.

This is based on a change in federal law that happened on 1 March 2021.

One of the (IMHO) most interesting datasets is the extremely detailed digital elevation model / DSM (swissSURFACE3D):

https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/height-model-swisssurface3...

Lidar scanned terrain model, with a grid size of 0.5m and vertical resolution of ~10cm. Available as a tiled raster or the "raw" classified point cloud (ground, vegetation, water, ...).

Raster:

https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/height-model-swisssurface3...

Point Cloud:

https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/en/height-model-swisssurface3...

Demo (Shaded Relief based on that surface model. Those stair step patterns are not artifacts, but the natural terracing of vineyards):

https://map.geo.admin.ch/?lang=en&topic=ech&bgLayer=ch.swiss...

Nice article!

Reminds me of a non-Swiss example that's older than any in the article, a British-made map which featured fake contour lines depicting an elephant: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/670-nil-how-to-hide-an-ele...

For us Dutch people it is obvious why they would add an in-joke like an airplane at an airport near a town called "Kloten". Feels obligatory and rather mild really.

Can you explain the joke for non-Dutch speakers?

In Dutch the word 'kloten' means testicles. The word has some connotations too: it can be used when something unpleasant happened, written as 'klote!' in that case. In English one would say 'shit!' in that case. 'kloten' can also be a verb for doing something in an unskillful way.

The naked lady of Künten, from the original article, would appear to be as obvious a joke in English.

Only if you ignore the pronunciation of the Umlaut.

In English, "balls!" is also used as a frustrated interjection.

Doing something in an unskillful way, but by accident as well as purposefully (so - messing around). In this case I was hinting towards the latter meaning.

There's quite a few real places in Switzerland that sound equally salacious to an English speaker. For example, I've cycled through Frick: https://www.google.com/maps/place/5070+Frick,+Switzerland/@4...

Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22407413 - Feb 2020 (1 comment)

This being HN, I thought this was going to be about SwissTable.

I'm going to go touch grass now.

Original unedited article: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/swiss-maps/

Thanks! We've changed to that from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/swiss-map-secrets above.

This joke, that the Germans or the Swiss have no sense of humor, I never found it funny. But maybe that's just because I'm Swiss.

Not only is it not funny, it isn't true at all. Disclosure: I am Swiss too, albeit a naturalized one.

Like joining a huge HOA, no?

I’m sure a Swiss person will be along shortly to inform you how that is an inaccurate comparison, and furthermore, Switzerland is better than an HOA for several reasons, firstly the trains, secondly the efficient civil service, thirdly…

For reals though: at least in the French side I feel that there's a decent comedy scene, notably with the Montreux Comedy Festival. Two of my favorite humorists (Marina Rollman and Thomas Wiesel) got nicked for a time as panelists for some well known French radios (can't argue with the bigger exposure).

I went to see a recent swiss comedy film - "Bon schuur Ticino" - and it was hilarious. Granted, a lot of the humour might go over the heads of people who haven't lived in Switzerland, but there's definitely comedy

@PetitPrince: the French part is on the civilised side of the Röstigraben. You can't extrapolate from there to the rest of Switzerland.

Those are fighting words, mon ami.

Not really my fight, though. I’m an American with Swiss heritage, but German-Swiss. Bankers, not diplomats.

I proudly eat proper rösti. And I pronounce it properly too, much to chagrin of my spouse.

From https://www.amazon.de/Lexikon-St%C3%A4dtebeschimpfungen-Bosh...:

"Zürich ist doppelt so gross wie der Wiener Zentralfriedhof, aber nur halb so lustig."

(translated: "Zurich is twice the size of Vienna's Central Cemetery, but only half as much fun.")

Swiss people are extremely humorous, at least if you don't do laundry 1 minute past your allowed slot. Light-hearted fun is something that is taken very seriously around here.

It’s also nicely segregated to designated times and places: Fassnacht, and…well, Fassnacht!

I have read that in Switzerland, everything is either mandatory or prohibited.

Things like this are actually done for very valid reasons, but these easter eggs are a really neat way to do it.

The reason? making an accurate map from a territory is (or used to be) difficult and takes time. Introducing fictional stuff in a map is a way to:

- figure out which of your cartographer competitors are copying you

- bring the case to court (factual data isn't protected by copyright, fictional data is).

Even Google Maps add a few fictional elements, but they're much more boring, like adding ghost streets in rural areas.

Tangental:

This is why Golf Courses and Land Art Designs are uncopyrightable but media created in the process of their development are

Yes, usually boring. OpenStreetMap collected some examples https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs#Ex...

There is a ghost road I reported on Google and was ignored. It wasn't just any road, an impossible road.

It is a straight line from the base of a mountain right to the top, all while gaining thousands of feet in elevation. I haven't checked it out in person, but I'm familiar with the area, and I'd place a large wager that it doesn't.

Anyone who copies this road will have a map that screams "I copied Google!"

I wonder if Google Maps tags the fictitious streets in its metadata somehow, so that it doesn't actually send cars down those roads.

If they are only short dead end streets they won't be at risk sending cars through

That's a real phenomenon -- they're typically called Trap Streets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-n... -- but that's a bit different from these easter eggs.

You put a drawing of a marmot in a mountainside or turn a stream into a naked lady to have a chuckle and get one over your boss, not to enforce copyright :)

There's a "Map Men" episode on this: https://youtu.be/DeiATy-FfjI

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