Worst. Maps. Ever.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Kathy and I went to the Arclight yesterday and had a few minutes to kill between dinner and our movie. We stopped by the bookstore and I started browsing the Los Angeles selections. When I picked up the Architecture Tours L.A. Guidebook: Downtown I knew I had to buy it. While the content is a fairly generic look at Downtown’s architecture, the maps inside the book are fascinatingly awful.

I’ve talked about bad maps before, but this one takes the cake. It’s simply incomprehensible. I have to believe that somehow they took the different layers – major roads, minor roads, street text, POI text – and just offset each one by a random value. It’s not just a single page either, there are nine maps inside the book. Each is as bad as the first.

The book was published in 2004 and was obviously still on sale yesterday when I picked it up. Schiffer Publishing still lists the title on its website and bafflingly even includes a picture of one of the maps.

Let your mind boggle with mine while checking out these photos. After the jump I’ve included a couple of my favorites.