10 Places That Only Existed on Maps

Phantom islands, fake towns and a mountain range that never existed - 10 places that lived on maps for centuries until somebody walked there. From Agloe, New York (a copyright trap that grew a general store) to Sandy Island in the Coral Sea, deleted from charts in 1974 and still a black polygon on Google Earth in 2012. Crocker Land cost a four-year Arctic expedition and two failed rescues. The Mountains of Kong held West Africa's maps for ninety years on one geographer's theory. One idea runs through all ten: a map is not an observation. It is the most recent copy of one, and almost nobody re-measures a reference record - because re-measuring costs a ship, an expedition, or a man walking across a continent. Documented cases are sourced; the one legend here is told as a legend. Watch next: "Doggerland Was Found by a Fishing Net" #phantomislands #maps #mystery Chapters: 0:00 Sailing Into a Fake Island 0:53 Why Map Errors Survive 1:27 10: Agloe, New York 2:30 9: Maria Theresa Reef 3:33 8: Frisland 5:15 7: Sannikov Land 6:54 6: Argleton, Lancashire 8:31 5: Hy Brasil, a Legend 10:11 4: Bermeja 12:06 3: Crocker Land 14:58 2: Mountains of Kong 17:07 1: Sandy Island 20:05 What the Whalers Saw