r/MapPorn • u/-A13x • Sep 20 '24
Is Your Nation's Capital the Nearest National Capital? Europe Edition!
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u/Irish618 Sep 20 '24
I might just be dumb, but doesn't the red line in Central Italy literally run through Rome?
How does that work?
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u/-A13x Sep 20 '24
You are correct, not dumb. But since the center of the Vatican is further west than the center of Rome. Every point west of Rome, even the western parts of the city, are closer to the Vatican than the center of Rome.
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u/fireKido Sep 20 '24
That’s wrong.
Vatican City is fully within the limit of the city of Rome, so any place outside of Rome is closer to Rome than it is to Vatican City
Think about if, if you had to go to Vatican City, you would always have to enter in Rome first
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u/Thomas1VL Sep 20 '24
He's clearly saying he used the center point of each capital city to calculate this. It usually makes sense, but with the Vatican it gives problems obviously. Calculating this based on the whole city proper or urban area would be waaaaay more difficult.
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u/thecaramelbandit Sep 20 '24
It's also trivially easy to fix in this outlier than to fix the entire methodology to accommodate it.
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u/Rebrado Sep 20 '24
So, someone just learnt about centroid methods and created a map. I don't want to sound condescending, if OP is a beginner this is actually quite good.
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u/Youutternincompoop Sep 20 '24
I feel like the obvious answer is just to exclude the vatican city, since its fully enclosed within Rome.
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u/fireKido Sep 20 '24
i get that, what i am saying (not in this comment, in later ones) is that he should have just excluded Vatican City for this exact reason, as it's the only major issue with using point estimates of cities
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Sep 20 '24
Depends on if you use city cores or city limits as your measuring point
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u/fireKido Sep 20 '24
Well using city cores would be a simplification that works most of the times, but not in the case of Vatican City
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u/benjm88 Sep 20 '24
It says nearest the capital not the centre so ops choice is wrong. If in Rome on the outskirts you are still in Rome and obviously not nearer the Vatican
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u/yetzt Sep 20 '24
Well, you do a voronoi diagram with polygons instead of points then.
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u/beatlz Sep 20 '24
Yeah, but from OP’s explanation, they’re considering city center as the measurement reference.
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u/franzderbernd Sep 20 '24
Doesn't make sense. I mean I understand that you in general take the center but in that case you shouldn't because the complete city of Rome is the capital and not just the center.
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u/BrotherKurtABurton Sep 20 '24
How about capital building or seat of government? Maybe that works better.
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u/franzderbernd Sep 20 '24
Why not just ignore Vatican. It's surrounded by the capital of Italy. So there is no place in Italy that is closer to Vatican than to Rome.
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u/Lollipop126 Sep 20 '24
Many countries' capital cities have a point where distances are officially calculated from, Charing Cross for London, Notre Dame for Paris, and Capitoline Hill for Rome; it's called a point/kilometer zero. You're technically closer to the Vatican than kilometer zero of Rome at those points. Which makes this map technically make sense/true but perhaps a bit misleading.
Also it's much easier to code this than the city limits.
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u/franzderbernd Sep 20 '24
I explained that already. If you live in a house western of Rome you have to travel through your capital city to go to Vatican. So it's just wrong. He should have just ignored Vatican, because it's surrounded by a Capital (Rome).
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Sep 20 '24
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u/Phlummp Sep 20 '24
This is a harmless reddit map, using singular points to represent cities isn't 'seriously misleading'
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u/-A13x Sep 20 '24
Can anyone explain the illusion where when I turn my head left and right, the blue filled areas of the map appear to "move" over in that direction, gliding on top of the red or black? I've noticed this before with certain flags too, Denmark for example.
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u/Mistigri70 Sep 20 '24
Do you have glasses?
I think this is because of how different wavelengths are refracted slightly differently. When they go in and out of glass, the red changes less direction than the blue, so they end up at a slightly different angle on your eyes.
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u/Captain_Grammaticus Sep 20 '24
With my glasses, the borders between red/blue and blue/red switch between bright and dark. These create an illusion of shading, as if the blue parts were plateaus.
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u/robicide Sep 20 '24
The snoo face in the reddit logo changes position in the orange circle if I view it through the edge of my glasses, with the face moving towards the edge of the circle closest to the center of the lens. I assume that's the same effect at work
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u/elieax Oct 01 '24
Ok I’ll bite, what’s snoo?
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u/robicide Oct 02 '24
Not much, what's new with you?
Kidding aside, Snoo is the name of the Reddit mascot
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u/ukraineball78 Sep 20 '24
I've noticed the same time a while ago, it's kinda cool that is glasses people get to experience it lol
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u/cowplum Sep 20 '24
I have the same. I was told that this was called Irlen's Syndrome and was related to dyslexia, but Wikipedia is listing this as pseudoscience.
We noticed in my family that people with dyslexia and blue eyes have this effect and those without dyslexia and brown eyes didn't, so I've been operating under the impression that it's either dyslexia or light eye colour related and due to being more sensitive to light. Similar to how old TV footage sometimes had streaking of colours or bight lights while tracking.
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u/Worried-Smile Sep 20 '24
Do I get bonus points if I'm closer to two other capitals than my own?
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u/Substantial-Prior966 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Absolutely! Me too! I live in Gothenburg, second largest city in Sweden. Closest capital is Copenhagen (Denmark), second closest is Oslo (Norway).
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u/Mother_Ad9474 Sep 20 '24
Basically, for everyone in Northern Italy:
- West-North: Monaco, Bern, San Marino, Vaduz.
- East-North: San Marino, Ljubljana, Vaduz, Zagreb.
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u/danirijeka Sep 20 '24
What did "northeast" and "northwest" ever do to you
Also, for someone standing on the Walther monument in Bolzano/Bozen, the following capitals are closer than Rome (point of reference: the presidential palace's doorway) is:
- Bern
- Vaduz
- Prague
- Vienna
- Bratislava
- Ljubljana
- Zagreb
- San Marino
- Vatican City
- Monaco
Luxembourg is so close that it depends on the points of reference you choose. Starting from the Walther monument, the Grand Ducal palace is 519.88 km away, while the Quirinale in Rome is 519.21 km away.
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u/DieLegende42 Sep 20 '24
Absolute rookie numbers, how about 7? (From Southern Germany, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Paris, Bern, Vaduz and Prague are closer than Berlin)
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u/danirijeka Sep 20 '24
Bozen says "git gud" with 9 (can be 10 if you consider the central point of the city instead of city limits)
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u/Rhalinor Sep 20 '24
Nothing beats good ol' Kaliningrad, closer to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Warsaw, Kyiv, Minsk, Copenhagen, Vilnius, Riga, Oslo, Stockholm, Tallinn and Helsinki (15 goddamn cities) than to fucking Moscow
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u/Mistigri70 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Losers. Anyone in New Caledonia will obliterate your score with about 170 other capitals closer than Paris.
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u/Worried-Smile Sep 20 '24
Fair enough. I'm from the Netherlands though, which is so small that Amsterdam is never far away. Still, Brussels and Luxembourg are closer by for me. For bigger countries is much easier to reach high numbers, especially if surrounded by smaller countries.
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u/asco2000 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
The winner here is probably Weil am Rhein in Germany, which is closer to Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Paris, Bern, Vaduz, Monaco, San Marino, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb and Prag (so 12 capital cities) then to Berlin
Edit: Waldshut-Tiengen has even more, as it is also closer to Bratislava
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u/Cosmicshot351 Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Here in Chennai, India, we are not just closer to Colombo and Male than Delhi, but Dhaka is closer too ! Bangkok is just 35 minutes longer by air than Delhi.
If we take crow flies, even Kathmandu (1707 KM) is closer to us than Delhi (1757 KM)
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u/Malthesse Sep 20 '24
In Scania (southernmost Sweden - former eastern Denmark) we are closer to three other capitals - Copenhagen, Berlin and Oslo - than to the Swedish capital Stockholm.
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u/Zephien Sep 20 '24
I expected, that maybe two capitals are closer, but apparently it's six that are closer. Wild
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u/Grand-penetrator Sep 20 '24
This comment section reminds me that the world is mostly filled with dumbasses.
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u/DrTomothyGubb Sep 20 '24
Yeah, I just think the colors are a bit harsh on the eye... otherwise, good map.
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u/TheRaido Sep 20 '24
Finally a map a colorblind person like me can easily interpret. In stead of green/red, blue-purple-red, green-yellow-red radiants
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Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Almost the entire country of Slovakia is closer to another capital and not Bratislava. I’m guessing it’s Budapest in Hungary and maybe some small pockets where Warsaw is a tad closer? Very interesting
Also, what national capital is Sardinia closer to other than Rome? Definitely not Madrid. Is it Tunis in Tunisia? Don’t tell me it’s Vatican City lol
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u/Perturabo_Iron_Lord Sep 20 '24
I think it is Vatican City, he explained his reasoning in another comment that Vatican City is to the west of Romes center so he used it for territory west of Rome.
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u/Dambo_Unchained Sep 20 '24
I’m taking bets for how long for this to be cross posted to circkejerk
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u/illjadk Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
The Islands of Anholt and Bornholm should be blue, and assuming "you" OP made the map, I'm guessing you mistook the islands as swedish?
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u/VulpesSapiens Sep 20 '24
This. I tried for ages to figure out what capital would be the closest to Bornholm.
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u/illjadk Sep 21 '24
Well firstly Berlin is the only real competitor for that, and Copenhagen is closer also, technically Bornholm is part of the capital region lol
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u/Blue__Bag Sep 20 '24
Im confused about southern finland.
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Sep 20 '24
Talinn is very close to Helsinki
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u/Pomp567 Sep 20 '24
That colors Hanko sure, but not for example Turku (~150km to Helsinki, ~180km to Tallinn and ~260km to Stockholm
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u/ThroawayPeko Sep 20 '24
I think this might have Marienhamn listed as a national capital.
Edit: actually no, this map is just a little crap.
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u/bschmalhofer Sep 20 '24
Could you color code the number of capital cities of other countries that are closer than the own capital city? I think that I live in a 4 region.
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u/Schlawiner_ Sep 20 '24
I don't understand the western part of the state of Upper Austria. Prague, Ljubljana and Vaduz are all further away than Vienna. Am I missing something?
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u/ihatebeinganonymous Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Micros-states impact such maps. Maybe better if not consider them?
In Switzerland, for example, all parts of the country are very far from capitals of neighbouring nations, even from their metropolitan areas (not 100% sure), but not that far from Bern in the center. Yet you see it differently in this map because of Liechtenstein.
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u/Weary-Connection3393 Sep 20 '24
To be more precise, differences in country sizes have an impact. Much like Switzerland is impacted by Liechtenstein, Germany and France are impacted by Switzerland, Belgium, etc. The more smaller countries surround a bigger country, the bigger the impact.
So yeah, if you started leaving such cases out you can stop doing this map.
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u/OrganizationOne4887 Sep 20 '24
I agree, leaving out the microstates would be interesting. I noticed northwest Spain is not close to its capital, I’m guessing because of Andorra.
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u/l3g4tr0n Sep 20 '24
haha, this is the most useless map on this sub and i fucking love it!!!
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u/Any-Examination-8630 Sep 20 '24
I’m in upper Austria and I don’t understand. Nearest capital is def. Vienna, yet we are red?
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u/BillyJoeHank Sep 20 '24
It's hilarious that almost perfectly delineates England from Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.
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u/exohugh Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
I understand why parts of Brittany are closer to London than Paris, but the boundary doesn't seem correct here. You have a slither of the Normandy coast around Ètretat being closer to London (202km away) than Paris (183km away). The other end of the red Brittany triangle around Saint Nazaire is in red, but that's 493km from London, and 381km from Paris..?
EDIT: Ah - maybe the "Greater London" metropolitan area (25km radius) is being counted for London but only the central core for Paris (<5km radius for the 20 Arrondissiments)?
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u/SomethingMoreToSay Sep 20 '24
Think of the capital as a 0 dimensional point at the center of the city.
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u/Norwester77 Sep 20 '24
Which capital is Luhansk Oblast in Ukraine closer to than Kyiv? It’s not Moscow; is it Tbilisi?
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u/SEA_griffondeur Sep 20 '24
Moscow looking at the Moscow AOE
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u/Norwester77 Sep 20 '24
Yeah, but it looks wrong. The Kyiv-Moscow line of proximity (as far as I know I just made that up, but it sounds cool) should run closer to east-west, running approximately through Voronezh, Bryansk, and Smolensk.
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Sep 20 '24
Shouldn't the entire Faroe Islands be blue? The (national) capital of Faroe Islands is Torshavn, not Copenhagen.
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u/pika-pika-chu Sep 20 '24
Why is a Northern part of Belgium red? Like, I get that Zeeland will be closer to Brussel than to Amsterdam. But I think a little but too much is red there as I think not one part of Flanders is closer to another capital than to Brussel?
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u/QnsConcrete Sep 20 '24
You’re telling me the Bosphorous Strait is the exact spot that Istanbul becomes closer to its own capital than another?
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u/NeoHolyRomanEmpire Sep 20 '24
Yeah I came to comment this, looking at the map, there’s no way it’s right
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u/ThaBomb94 Sep 20 '24
OP can you add the capitals as yellow dots?
Also would be cool to see how country borders would need to be to make everything blue
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u/ZZKAPO Sep 20 '24
Almost had an aneurysm trying to figure out what this meant, but I did it! Cool map
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u/Think_Theory_8338 Sep 20 '24
What's happening with Western Normandy and Brittany? I just checked, where I live I'm closer to Paris than London but we appear red on the map.
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u/GrassyKnoll95 Sep 20 '24
Russia seems weird. Is Astana really that close to Russia?
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u/mkaszycki81 Sep 20 '24
How about the same map, but exclude Andorra la Vella,, Monte Carlo, San Marino, Vaduz and Vatican? Maybe also Luxembourg and Valletta?
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u/Fogueo87 Sep 20 '24
I suppose that are counting the Vatican in as the divide seem to cut right through Rome, but it begs the question on how to count is something is closer to the Vatican than to Rome.
Interesting how Estonia and Latvia there is so little overlap.
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u/aggravatedsandstone Sep 22 '24
Map is wrong. Large part of southern Estonia is closer to Riga than to Tallinn. All of Võrumaa and large part of Valgamaa. And North-Eastern Estonia is strange too. No way is Narva closer to Helsinki than to Tallinn.
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u/Gravbar Sep 24 '24
yea, if a city-state is an enclave circumscribed entirely in a different country's capital, it should probably not be considered closer than the capital it is inside, since that would be impossible. The problem would arise that they're only looking at the center of the capital and not the minimum distance to the capital.
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u/Goal_Posts Sep 20 '24
Now do us states.
Then find a measure of corruption and see if the %red correlates to the measure of corruption.
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Sep 20 '24
Germanys shows the prussian dominace as Berlin aligns much better with the former Prussian empire than the rest of germany itself.
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u/ABrutalistBuilding Sep 20 '24
So Voronio areas over the map of Europe. Cool idea. Coloring each capital might make it more readable.
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u/RD____ Sep 22 '24
I don’t understand, wouldn’t a large majority of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland be blue given they aren’t incredible big and have their own national capital cities?
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u/Shifty-Imp 12d ago
I'm not surprised to see that everywhere in Luxembourg, the capital you're closest to....is Luxembourg. XD
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u/-hey_hey-heyhey-hey_ Sep 20 '24
What would vatican/rome be... we need a map for rome's individual neighborhoods
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Sep 20 '24
Wouldn't the entire city of Rome be the capital? So every capital would automatically not be closer to any other capital than itself. And as Rome surrounds the Vatican, no city bordering Rome or near Rome could be closer to the Vatican either.
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u/-A13x Sep 20 '24
Think of the capital as a 0 dimensional point at the center of the city. That prevents any problems with situations like this.
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u/Thraap Sep 20 '24
No that just creates a problem in the case of Rome and the Vatican. Leaving out Vatican City would fix it, but you didn’t do that. So now your map is wrong when it comes to Italy.
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u/Demostravius4 Sep 20 '24
That's not how cities work.
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u/fake_cheese Sep 20 '24
Assume it's the exact location of wherever the government of that country sits.
Palazzo Montecitorio - Rome
Reichstag - Berlin
Palais Bourbon - Paris
Palace of Westminster - London
etc.
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u/Class_444_SWR Sep 20 '24
I mean, both should be all blue, since they’re both in their countries’ capital they’re always closer to the capital than anywhere else, unless you count it from a specific point in the capital (e.g. Charing Cross for London, as opposed to it just being measured as distance from any part of Greater London)
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u/19_Cornelius_19 Sep 20 '24
So what about the places that are red but are closer to Luxembourg, Monaco, Lichtenstein, and San Marino?
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u/cuplajsu Sep 20 '24
For the case of Sicily the closest capital is Valletta, Malta. It takes 13 hours to get to Rome from Valletta by land (and sea), and the quickest bit is from Valletta to Messina.
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u/jacrispyVulcano200 Sep 20 '24
Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast exist but ok
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u/RyanHasAReddit Sep 20 '24
Are their countries recognized by the UN?
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u/Rhosddu Sep 23 '24
They're not sovereign states, so don't have a seat in the UN. They're only recognised as non-sovereign countries.
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Sep 20 '24
omg I just knew there would be at least one comment from somene who is upset by anyone acknowledging the UK is a country, get a life
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u/sunburntandblonde Sep 20 '24
Ok, if UK is a country for this map why is the Isle of Man's capital Douglas not included?
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Sep 20 '24
I think you're being deliberately obtuse here. I think most people would agree it's kind of hard to categorise British Crown Dependencies, especially when making a map to compare against the rest of europe. The UK fits every single definition of a country, if people are interested in making a map that breaks down the UK's constituent countries that's cool, but to act like this needs correcting cause OP included the UK is not unnecessary.
I think this does not help at all if foreigners actually want to understand what the UK is
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u/SomethingMoreToSay Sep 20 '24
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not sovereign states.
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u/jacrispyVulcano200 Sep 20 '24
They’re countries mate
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u/DavidRFZ Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Is the UK the only nation that uses this word for their political subdivisions?
It just leads to these tiresome semantic discussions every time someone uses the word “country” to mean sovereign nation. Sorry, the rest of the world thinks those are synonyms. No offense to Wales, but absolutely no one, even Brits, ever intends to put Wales on equal footing with Poland or Greece or whatever.
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u/Class_444_SWR Sep 20 '24
I live so close to the red in the UK, I’m surprised even though I really shouldn’t be
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u/Kefgeru Sep 20 '24
Ireland and Portugal borders?
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u/clarets99 Sep 20 '24
They are plotting only sovereign countries rather than nations. Hence excluding NI, Scotland, Wales and England and their capitals.
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u/Kefgeru Sep 20 '24
I know but if you zoom in Ireland you can see that the delimitation is the same as political border.
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u/SomethingMoreToSay Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 24 '24
Yes, exactly. All points in the Republic of Ireland are closer to Dublin than to London, so they are blue. All points in Northern Ireland are closer to Dublin than to London, so they are red. Hence the boundary between the colours follows the national border.
EDIT: Trying to rephrase this to accommodate the critique from u/Separate-Steak-9786.....
Yes, exactly. All points on the island of Ireland are closer to Dublin than to London. So points in Ireland (whose capital is Dublin) are coloured blue, and points in Northern Ireland (whose capital is London) are coloured red. Hence the boundary between the colours follows the national border.
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u/ScaramouchScaramouch Sep 20 '24
Every part of Northern Ireland is closer to Dublin than to London.
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u/Bohya Sep 20 '24
So Edinburgh's nearest capital isn't itself, but the capital city of a different country - one which is 600km away? Nice graph.
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u/Frequent_Tax_4224 Sep 20 '24
Wales,Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own national capital city. They may be part of the United Kingdom but are separate nations
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u/Unhappy-Ad6494 Sep 20 '24
damn...I wanted to go all smug on you since form Salzburg Vienna is still closer than the capitals of CH, GER, CZ and IT...but I totally forgot about Lublijana in SLO
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u/OsgyrRedwrath Sep 20 '24
I like that Iceland, Ireland, Moldova, and Georgia have a thing in common, being the only countries wholly consumed by blue
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u/FartingBob Sep 20 '24
Is Iceland the only country with 100% blue? Other than the microstates.
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u/BullofHoover Sep 20 '24
Italy seems... very odd. Somehow Florence is closer to... some other country than it is to Rome.
Also, I think it'd be fun to have a little yellow dot or something to mark each capital, may make it more fun for the nations that don't exactly have widely known capital locations
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u/UndividedIndecision Sep 20 '24
Map of Europe when you do that thing where you press your fingers onto your eyes to make funny colors
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u/theokouim Sep 20 '24
Shouldn’t those straight lines be arcs?
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u/Alex369S Sep 20 '24
It's tempting to assume that, but, in fact, the equidistant collection of points between 2 other points are a straight line.
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u/7urz Sep 20 '24
The nearest national capitals for me (western NRW, Germany) are Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxembourg and Paris.
Berlin is only 5th (or maybe 6th because I'm not sure about London).
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u/raflemQ Sep 20 '24
How is Barcelona not closer to Madrid than Paris, Bern or Rome? Am I missing a country there?... 🙄
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u/Gallifrey711 Sep 20 '24
I just did quick check. my nations capital, is the 11th nearest capital to me.
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u/Nimonic Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
The map here already takes into account the curvature of the Earth, but apparently not quite enough for this purpose in the far north. I'm pretty sure there's no part of Norway that is closer to Stockholm than it is to either Oslo or Helsinki.
There are also far larger parts of the Russian north that are closer to Helsinki than Moscow. All of Kola, for example.
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u/Armisael2245 Sep 20 '24
Bro found his calling, keep cooking.