Alternative History Maps

What if Czechia had become part of the British Empire? Perhaps, like the United States, its map would now be dotted with towns and cities bearing familiar English place-names.

There is actually no need to imagine this alternative historical timeline because Czengland is just such a map - a map of the Czech Republic with all the Czech place-names replaced with British equivalents. So Prague becomes London, Brno becomes Birmingham, and a whole host of Czech streets, districts, towns and landmarks acquire familiar British names.

What makes this map particularly interesting is that these aren't just random name swaps. An attempt has been made to use close analogues. For example, in Prague Malostranská is labelled Westminster. Both are historic central areas closely associated with national government and parliament, so this immediately gives a Londoner a familiar geographical reference point for understanding where they are in Prague.

Click on any (English) place-name label on Czengland to see both its borrowed and real names, with links to locate either one in Google Maps. The map also highlights the selected feature, so a street, river or district is clearly visible rather than simply appearing in an information panel. That panel also provides a brief definition of the clicked location, which often helps explain why the chosen analogue has been used.

A second main map view reverses the idea, showing Anglická republika - the UK with Czech place-names. So the relationship works in both directions: Czech places acquire British identities on one map, while British places acquire Czech identities on the other. The two views can therefore be explored as alternative geographical versions of each other.

This isn't the first interactive map I've used that features analogue place-names, but I haven't seen one undertaken in quite so much detail. I genuinely think that this kind of map could be quite useful for tourists visiting a country. The developer now just needs to provide analogue place-names for the other 200-odd countries in the world.