Lesson plan
Phantom settlement
Phantom settlements, or paper towns, are settlements that appear on maps but do not actually exist. They are either accidents or copyright traps. Notable examples in the English-speaking world include Argleton, Lancashire in England, and Beatosu and Goblu, Ohio in the United States. Phantom settlements often result from copyright traps, also known as Mountweazels, which are false entries placed in literature to catch illegal copiers. Agloe, New York, was invented on a 1930s map as a copyright trap. In 1950, a general store was built there and named Agloe General Store, as that was the name seen on the map. Thus, the phantom settlement became a real one. There are also misnamed settlements, such as the villages of Mawdesky and Dummy 1325 in Lancashire on Google Maps. There is a satirical conspiracy theory that the German city of Bielefeld is a phantom settlement, despite its population of over 300,000. Another example is Leiria, Portugal, (pop. 128,640), which even gave rise to a song "Leiria não existe". In the same spirit, around 2015 a meme started circulating in Italy about the alleged non-existence of one of its regions, Molise (which some jokingly called Molisn't, a portmanteau between the name of the region and the English isn't).
Article summary
Phantom settlements, or paper towns, are settlements that appear on maps but do not actually exist. They are either accidents or copyright traps. Notable examples in the English-speaking world include Argleton, Lancashire in England, and Beatosu and Goblu, Ohio in the United States. Phantom settlements often result from copyright traps, also known as Mountweazels, which are false entries placed in literature to catch illegal copiers. Agloe, New York, was invented on a 1930s map as a copyright trap. In 1950, a general store was built there and named Agloe General Store, as that was the name seen on the map. Thus, the phantom settlement became a real one. There are also misnamed settlements, such as the villages of Mawdesky and Dummy 1325 in Lancashire on Google Maps. There is a satirical conspiracy theory that the German city of Bielefeld is a phantom settlement, despite its population of over 300,000. Another example is Leiria, Portugal, (pop. 128,640), which even gave rise to a song "Leiria não existe". In the same spirit, around 2015 a meme started circulating in Italy about the alleged non-existence of one of its regions, Molise (which some jokingly called Molisn't, a portmanteau between the name of the region and the English isn't).
Key claims
No claims recorded.
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.