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11 Famous Places That Don't Really Exist
Credit: Public Domain - Fair Use

If someone ever offers meet up with you in Goblu, Ohio, or fly with you to Listenbourg, tell them you’re wise to their scheme, because those places don’t exist.

Making up fake places is as old as human history, but some fake places take on lives of their own, appearing on maps and other official documents, or encouraging generations of people to search for them. You will never find the 11 places mentioned below, though, except in your dreams (or possibly on Twitter).

The Isle of Demons

The Isle of Demons
Credit: Public Domain - Fair Use

Beginning in the 16th century, cartographers mapping the new world included the ominously named “Isle of Demons” near Newfoundland and Labrador. It was believed that the island was the home of otherworldly monsters that would attack any ships that dared pass. But it’s not an entirely fictional place. There were even famous (real) residents of the island.

According to the account of 16th century explorer Andre Thevet, in 1542, noblewoman Marguerite de La Rocque was traveling to a Canadian colony and she had a shipboard affair with a sailor. This did not sit well with La Rocque’s uncle. He left the noblewoman, her maid servant, and the sailor on stranded on the “Isle of Demons.” Marguerite gave birth on the island, but the baby and the sailor died. She survived by hunting wild game until she was rescued two years later.

The story seems to have actually happened, but not on the fictional Isle of Demons. Marguerite was probably marooned on Quirpon Island or Harrington Harbour. By the mid 17th century, as more explorers charted North America, the Isle of Demons was quietly removed from maps.

Listenbourg

On October 30, 2022, Twitter user Gaspardo posted a map of Europe with the caption, “I’m sure that Americans don’t even know the name of this country.” The country in question: Listenbourg, an EU nation with its own football league, airline, national anthem, and more, all created as a work of collaborative fiction between Twitter users. For more on Listenbourg, including its rich history and current political situation, check out Listenbourg’s Ministry of the Interior, and official government page. I can only assume that the blue checks that will mark them as legitimate are incoming.

Arkham, Massachusetts

Arkham, Massachusetts
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He only sold a handful of short stories to cheap pulp magazines while he was alive, but writer H.P. Lovecraft’s work proved extremely influential. The settings of many of his cosmic horror stories, the city of Arkham, Massachusetts, is still used as a “spooky location” is fiction today. Located near the equally fictitious cities of Innsmouth and Dunwich, Arkham is home to Miskatonic University and the Arkham Sanitarium. Arkham appears in DC comics as “Arkham Asylum,” and as the setting of novels by Steven Philip Jones and Charles Stross, and too many short stories to even list.

Poyais

Poyais
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General Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish war hero and adventurer who left the British army in 1810 to become the greatest conman in history. His greatest scam involved inventing a nation, and he was so successful, people tried to move there.

In 1821, MacGregor convinced banks, rich people, and European governments that he’d founded a new nation in South America called Poyais. Calling himself “His Serene Highness Gregor I. The Cazique of Poyais,” MacGregor convinced people in London to purchase land in the fictitious nation, which he said was a stable democracy with such rich fields they could be harvested twice a year. In actuality, he was really selling parcels of worthless jungle on the Mosquito Coast.

In 1822, the first group of settlers set out for Poyais, but after crossing the Atlantic, found only an uninhabited jungle. They figured they must have landed in the wrong place and sent their captain out on foot to find the nation. Then the second boatload of confused settlers arrived. While the captain searched for Poyais, hundreds of settlers found out why they call it “the Mosquito Coast;” malaria and yellow fever ran rampant. Then a hurricane struck and destroyed their ship, leaving them stranded.

Luckily, the survivors were rescued by a passing ship in 1823. By this time, MacGregor had skipped London, but he turned up a few years later in France, running the same scheme. This time, it didn’t get far enough for anyone to die. MacGregor eventually retired to Venezuela, and never faced any official consequences for his scam.

Agloe, New York

The “town” of Agloe, New York didn’t exist. Then it did exist. Then it didn’t.

Beginning in the 1930s, Agloe appeared on maps created by General Drafting Co. It was shown as being in upstate New York, near Roscoe and Rockland. The town’s name was an amalgamation of the names of General Drafting’s director, Otto G. Lindberg’s (OGL) and Ernest Alpers’ (EA), his assistant, and was put on maps as a copyright trap. Map-makers often seeded their work with fake names, so if anyone lifted it without paying up, they could prove it in court.

In the 1950s, Rand MacNally published a map that included Agloe, New York. The suit that follows must have seemed like a sure-win for General Drafting. But it actually wasn’t. Rand McNally’s legal defense was: “Agloe, New York, is a real place. There’s a general store there called the ‘Agloe General Store,’ so how can it be fake?”

And there was an Agloe General store. The owners of the store saw the name on a map made by General Drafting, and believing they were in Agloe, named their store “the Agloe General Store.” Rand MacNally won the case, but Agloe wouldn’t survive—the store closed, and with it, the only real-world evidence that Agloe existed.

Whether Agloe exists now is an almost philosophical question. You can look it up on Google Maps, and the United States Geological Survey added “Agloe (Not Official)“ to the Geographic Names Information System database on February 25, 2014. So you could say it’s a real place, even if there’s no town there.

Atlantis

When Plato needed a foil for his Platonic ideal of a state, he invented Atlantis, an island nation that ran afoul of the Gods and sunk into the sea. Plato likely had no idea he was creating a place people would mistake for real for thousands of years. Possible locations of Atlantis include Spain, Africa, Cyprus, Antarctica, Turkey, and just about everywhere else. But the historical consensus is that Atlantis was never real—of course, they said the same thing about Troy until it was discovered in 1870.

Ong’s Hat

Located in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Ong’s Hat was listed as a town on early maps of the area. It may have been the site of a small village, but it was probably just the site of a Ong’s hut, a place a farmer named Ong stopped on his way to market. But even by the 1930s, Ong’s Hat still appeared on maps of the area, although there was nothing there but the remains of an old shack in the middle of New Jersey’s ancient forest.

Fast-forward to the 1980s, when strange stories started appearing seemingly at random on bulletin board services and ‘zines detailing an elaborate conspiracy concerning a group of mystics and scientists who opened a door between dimensions at Ong’s Hat.

The story, created by Joseph Matheny and detailed in his book The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat And Other Gateways To New Dimensions, is a work of fiction, but many of the weirdos and cranks who followed the elaborate breadcrumb trail of clues Matheny and others left were convinced it was real. As late as the 2000s, truth-seekers were showing up at Matheny’s door looking for the true story of Ong’s Hat.

Misiveria

Not to be outdone by the people on Twitter and their fake European country, the kids on TikTok have their own fictional place. The state of Misiveria is located next to Missouri, along the Mississippi River. It was the 38th state admitted to the union, and its main exports are coal and corn. The capitol of Misiveria is Gunter City, home of the Gunter City Bisons basketball team, and famous Misviverians include former president Calvin Coolidge and Leonardo DiCaprio. Misiveria has its own website, subreddit, and state anthem too. Not bad for a place that’s entirely fictional.

Frisland

Frisland
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Frisland is an island that appears on almost every map of North America printed between the 1560s and the 1660s. The error seems to have sprung from cartographers mistaking part of Greenland or Iceland as a separate island, and because of the difficulty and rarity of trips to that part of the world, the existence and position of Friesland was accepted as truth for over 100 years. Eventually, English and French explorers got around to making more accurate maps of the region, and Frisland ceased to exist.

Beatosu and Goblu, Ohio

Beatosu and Goblu are fictitious towns marked on the 1978 and 1979 edition of official maps from State Highway Commission of Michigan.

Most fake cities in maps are “mountweazels” like Algloe, NY—fictional entries meant to trap anyone who is illegally copying information—but Beatosu and Goblu served a different purpose. The fake towns in Ohio were included on official Michigan maps as a joke.

Their names, “Beat OSU” and “Go Blue,” are a reference to the football rivalry between Ohio State University and University of Michigan. Peter Fletcher, chairman of the State Highway Commission at the time, ordered the names included in his state’s maps because he was apparently mad with power.

Crocker Land

Crocker Land
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In 1906, explorer Robert E. Peary set out to reach the North Pole. He was unsuccessful, but in the book he wrote upon returning to civilization, he said he’d seen a distant land while looking north from the northern most place in Canada. He named it “Crocker Land,” after George Crocker, the banker who funded his expedition.

In 1909, both Peary and Frederick Cook claimed to have been the first person to set foot on the North Pole. Cook said he’d gotten there without crossing Crocker Land, leading supporters of Peary to conclude he must be lying. Rather than tell his supporters that he’d invented Crocker Land as a try at cadging more money from his banker friend, Peary stayed silent, and Donald Baxter MacMillan organized an expedition to the arctic with the goal of mapping Crocker Land and proving Cook a liar. “I am certain that strange animals will be found there,” MacMillan wrote at the time,”and I hope to discover a new race of men.”

MacMillan’s party set up a base in Northwest Greenland, and in March, 1913, MacMillan and his party set off on a 1,200-mile journey across the Tundra to Crocker Land. The arduous journey sapped the resolve of the explorers, and everyone turned around and went home except Macmillan, Navy Ensign Fitzhugh Green, and their two Inuit guides, Piugaattoq and Ittukusuk. This ragtag crew reached the edge of the Arctic Ocean on April 11.

They set off across the treacherous frozen ocean in search of Crocker Land, and on April 21, Macmillan saw a huge island in the distance! Even though Piugaattoq said it was a mirage, the crew pushed further North. After five days traversing the rapidly melting ice sheet, Mcmillian realized his guide had been right, and they turned around and made it back to solid land right before the sea ice broke.

Later in the expedition, Green murdered Piugaattoq after an argument over directions. Macmillan and the rest of the Americans covered up the crime, telling the Intuit that Piugaattoq died in an avalanche. Stranded by the weather, the expedition members didn’t all make it home until 1917.

Despite their claims, it seems that neither Cook nor Peary actually reached the North Pole. The first verified trip to the pole was Roald Amundsen’s expedition in 1926.

Finland

Just kidding. Or am I?