Simon Kuestenmacher

This animated globe shows all cities with at least 1 million residents.

This animated map illustrates how four of the ancient world’s most important domesticated grain crops spread across the Old World between 7,000 and 3,500 years ago. Source: buff.ly/7GnMCQr

The MAP-100 from the late 80s is a perfect toy for vintage map and watch enthusiasts. It measures distances on real paper maps using a rotating wheel. By tracing a route, it could calculate how far you’d travel, long before GPS made navigation effortless. Source: buff.ly/HajOe1s

This animated map allows us to watch Manhattan grow up, literally. We see New York’s building boom from 1765 to 2014, as colonial houses give way to brownstones, tenements, skyscrapers, art deco icons, post-war towers and today’s luxury high-rises. Source: buff.ly/R8mvtfh

This animated map shows 196 years worth of passenger rail in Great Britain. They come, they go. Let's just say that these days no Brit would dream up a character like Thomas the Tank Engine. Source: buff.ly/qzHUti4

Berlin’s transport network still carries the scars of the Cold War. West Berlin ripped out its tram network and replaced it with a U-Bahn system, while East Berlin kept its trams running. After reunification, the tram lines started making a comeback. Source: buff.ly/GKsc5Qn

Another animated true size type of map. This lovely version is from the great @milan_janosov.

It's the early 1930s and you travel from London to Cairo via train. Imagine what this would've felt like. Exhausting, exhilarating, dangerous? This lovely animated map by @viola__alba allows us to dream about traveling the old Orient Express.

Watching this video I realised that I almost always used the most commonly used browser.