In cartography, not everything that appears on a map truly exists. Throughout history, mapmakers have deliberately included fictional places—phantom settlements, paper towns, or copyright traps—on their maps. These fabricated locations served multiple purposes, from catching copyright infringers to protecting territorial claims, and occasionally resulted from honest mistakes or wishful thinking.
One of the most famous examples is Agloe, New York, a fictional town created in the 1930s by the General Drafting Company. Founders Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers crafted the name by combining their initials (OGL + EA). They placed this non-existent town at a dirt road intersection in the Catskill Mountains as a copyright trap. If Agloe appeared on another publisher’s map, they would have clear evidence of copyright infringement.
The practice of including these cartographic fictions dates back centuries. Medieval mapmakers often filled unknown territories with imaginary islands, monsters, and settlements based on rumors and legends to avoid the embarrassment of empty spaces. The phrase “here be dragons” emerged from this tradition of populating unmapped regions with fantastical elements. As mapping technology improved, the nature of these phantom places evolved from mythical creations to deliberate fabrications with specific purposes.
What makes these cartographic deceptions particularly effective is their subtlety. The best phantom settlements are unremarkable enough to avoid immediate suspicion yet distinctive enough to be recognizable as copied elements. They typically appear in remote or less-traveled areas where verification would be difficult. Their names often have special significance to the mapmaker, as an inside joke or personal signature hidden in plain sight.
From Fiction to Reality
Phantom settlements are fascinating because some have transcended their fictional origins to become real places. Agloe, New York, provides a remarkable example of this phenomenon. After the fictional town appeared on General Drafting Company’s maps, Rand McNally, a competitor, also included Agloe on their maps. The original creators thought they had caught their rival in the act of copying.
However, Rand McNally had a legitimate defense: someone had built the Agloe General Store at the precise location marked on the original map. The fictional place had inspired reality. Seeing Agloe on maps, residents began referring to the area by that name. For a brief period, Agloe existed as a real place with a general store, gas station, and a few buildings before eventually fading back into non-existence when the store closed.
This curious transformation from cartographic fiction to physical reality demonstrates the power of maps as authoritative documents. When people trust maps as accurate representations of the world, they can inadvertently bring fictional elements into existence. The case of Agloe illustrates what geographers call “the power of designation” - the ability of maps to shape reality rather than merely reflect it.
Other phantom settlements have experienced similar trajectories. In Australia, the non-existent towns of Argyle Downs and Perara appeared on maps for decades before locals began using these names for actual settlements that developed near the marked locations. In each case, the fictional designation preceded and influenced the development of the exact place, creating a self-fulfilling cartographic prophecy.
Strategic Phantom Places
Not all phantom settlements were created for copyright protection. Some served geopolitical purposes. During the Cold War, Soviet cartographers deliberately included errors in public maps while maintaining accurate versions for military use. These alterations included subtle distortions of coastlines, misplacements of landmarks, and entirely fictional streets in major cities.
Similarly, the town of Argleton appeared on Google Maps in Lancashire, England, until 2010. Argleton did not exist in the physical world despite having map coordinates and a designated postal code, and it even appeared in various online directories. When questioned, Google described it as a “trap street”—a modern digital version of the paper town concept.
The strategic use of phantom places extends beyond simple copyright protection. Countries with territorial disputes have sometimes included fictional settlements in contested regions to strengthen their claims. During the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, European powers would place fictional outposts on maps to establish “evidence” of prior settlement. These cartographic assertions sometimes influenced real-world diplomatic negotiations and boundary determinations.
Military organizations have also employed phantom settlements as part of more extensive deception operations. During World War II, Allied forces created elaborate fictional army groups, complete with fake radio traffic and supply depots marked on decoy maps deliberately allowed to fall into enemy hands. These phantom military installations diverted Axis resources and attention from invasion plans. The British Operation Fortitude, which created the illusion of a massive force preparing to invade Calais rather than Normandy, represents perhaps the most successful use of phantom places as strategic deception.
The Persistent Legacy of Imaginary Geography
The tradition of phantom places continues in modern mapping. Digital map providers like Google Maps and Apple Maps still include digital copyright traps, though they’re typically more subtle than inventing entire towns. These might consist of slight curves in otherwise straight roads or small dead-end alleys that don’t exist.
Beyond their practical purposes, phantom settlements have permeated popular culture. John Green’s novel “Paper Towns” uses the concept as a central metaphor, bringing awareness of these cartographic curiosities to a broader audience. The persistence of phantom settlements reminds us that maps are not perfect representations of reality but interpretations influenced by human intentions, limitations, and, occasionally, deliberate deception.
These geographic fictions highlight an essential truth: the authority we assign to maps can sometimes transform fiction into reality. When a place is marked on a map, it gains a kind of existence—even if only on paper—that can eventually manifest in the physical world, blurring the line between cartographic invention and geographic fact.
The Ethics and Philosophy of Mapped Fictions
The existence of phantom settlements raises profound questions about the nature of geographic knowledge and the ethics of deliberate cartographic distortion. Maps occupy a unique position of authority in society - we trust them to represent the world around us accurately. When mapmakers deliberately introduce fiction, they challenge this fundamental trust, even for seemingly legitimate purposes like copyright protection.
This tension between utility and accuracy reflects broader philosophical questions about representation and reality. Maps, by necessity, simplify and abstract the physical world. No map can perfectly represent reality - choices must be made about what to include, emphasize, and omit. Phantom settlements take this inherent abstraction further, introducing deliberate fictions among the necessary simplifications.
The digital age has transformed this practice in unexpected ways. With satellite imagery and crowdsourced geographic information, phantom settlements become harder to maintain. When anyone can verify a location’s existence through multiple independent sources, purely fictional places become more challenging to sustain. Yet paradoxically, digital mapping has created new opportunities for cartographic fiction through algorithmic errors, database inconsistencies, and the sheer volume of geographic data that makes comprehensive verification impossible.
Perhaps most intriguingly, phantom settlements remind us that the relationship between maps and territories is reciprocal rather than one-directional. Maps don’t simply represent the world - they help create it. Through their authority and influence, maps shape how we perceive, name, organize, and ultimately build our physical environment. The phantom settlement that becomes real serves as the perfect metaphor for this creative power of cartography, transforming imagination into geographic fact through the simple act of being mapped.