Monday, September 23, 2013

Pubs, Maps & Word Clouds


The UK is full of pubs with strange and wonderful names. 'The Bucket of Blood' in Cornwall, probably wins the prize for the most gruesome name, although 'The Hung Drawn and Quartered' in London comes in a close second. Some of my other favourite pub names include the 'The Pub with No Name', 'Filthy MacNasty's' and 'The Hairy Lemon'.

It is a bit of disappointment then to learn that the most popular name for a pub in the UK is the rather tame 'Red Lion'. According to the The Popular Pub Names Map the next most popular pub names in the UK are 'The Royal Oak', 'The Crown', 'The White Hart' and 'The White Horse'. Fortunately it is only the pub names that disappoint with this map.

This OpenStreetMap displays a word cloud of the most popular pub names based on OpenStreetMap data. When zoomed out you can view a word cloud of the whole UK. However you can also use the map to find the most popular pub names in your town or even in your neighbourhood. Zoom the map in on any location in the UK and the word cloud updates to show the most popular names for the current map view.

The map was created by Ross Lawley. I say, 'buy that man a drink'.

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