Hidden Goodies in Swiss Topo Maps

The Swiss Office of Topography (Swisstopo) has long been creating the most beautiful and meticulously created maps anywhere. A wonderful new article in the American Institute for Graphic Art's Eye on Design is titled  For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland's Official Maps.

Cartographers at the office have been putting images like this marmot on their maps as an inside joke or possibly as a way to escape the strictures of such cartographic rigor and the level of concentration demanded of it. Most of them are removed when discovered by proofreaders but some elude discovery for years. Here is a nice fish hiding in a nature preserve.

A hiker making his way among the mountain peaks just across the Italian border. The cartographer may have drawn it in part to fill in details they were missing from the Italian geographical services.

Here is a spider.

Many more nice examples and details can be seen here.