Everyone loves maps, don’t they?

OK, not quite everyone. We discovered, in six-plus years of living in the UAE, that Emiratis often own no maps and do not know how to read them. No, really. They will describe movements by landmarks.

I digress.

We came across this batch of French maps, informational stuff, and they are fun to look at.

Topics addressed? Borders, languages/dialects, wolves, ancient tribal homes, Roman roads …

The first is quite significant, if you are visiting France — the number of bisous (kisses) that typically are given when meeting up with someone you know.

They range from one to four, with stops at two and three, depending on where you live. “Three” to me seems oddest in that a person can easily make a case for one (globally normal), two (checking both sides) and four (a little odd, but two plus two). But three?

We live in one of the regions were three kisses are required.

The wolves thing is just odd. The country is reporting more sightings of wolves. I suppose they are not being hunted down as ruthlessly as they had been in previous years, but I can’t imagine that people who have livestock think this is a good idea.

The ancient map made by an Arab cartographer, reinforces how difficult it is to visualize the world through various reports.

The change in size of France, gaining and losing territory and, mostly, ending up more on the “larger” side than smaller. (The map shows changes as they occur, and I wish it moved a bit more slowly.)

The map showing “regional languages” is not correctly titled. At most, you are looking at dialects, but usually it’s less than that — accents and maybe some odd regional usages. To my knowledge, no one in France is unable to understand another Frenchman based on where he lives. They may laugh at each other, but understanding is not an issue.

The map showing the Roman roads in “Gaul” — as the Romans called France — shows again why the Romans were so cool. Way ahead of their time in the infrastructure that built and maintained an empire.

A couple of goofy maps. The one showing where you can get to in France, from Paris, via train. Well, of course. If you can’t get to France from Paris … And then the next one, showing the growth of the national highway grid, which to me seems very incomplete.

Another old map, a map of the Holy Roman Empire (including France) under Charlemagne, and then a very interesting one — the location of France’s 59 (!) nuclear reactors, which provide about half of the nation’s energy needs. Which is great as long as 1) none of them melt down) and 2) you have a good system for disposing of spent nuclear fuel — and I’m not sure a good system exists.

France leads the world in nuclear reactors. The U.S. might have been a rival, but Three Mile Island, etc., pushed America back towards fossil fuels.

A map showing “sunshine levels” throughout France, and it’s clear you want to live in the south and southeast, if you want to see the sun 200-plus days a year.

A weird, pretty-much-nonsensical map which seems to want to show economic activity in various regions of France by comparing them to relevant countries. Also not much help if you can’t identify the regions by looking at them.

And the last is silly — charting the inconsistent usage in describing a particular cake associated with Epiphany. Some Frenchman call it a gateau des rois, others call it a galette des rois.

Maps. I look at them every time I have a chance.