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Eric Fischer has spent the past five years mapping out the most photographed areas throughout the world—and the results are quite beautiful.
His project, dubbed "Geotaggers' World Atlas," shows a flurry of colorful lines crisscrossing through city streets and scenic routes. Fischer, who works for map and data visualization company Mapbox, gathered ten years-worth of data from Flickr, showing the locations where the images were captured through geotagging. But his map goes beyond just hotspots for snapshots. It also reveals the routes people went on while taking photographs. For example, the red lines are indicative of a photographer traveling between 7 to 19 miles per hour along their routes, likely on a bike, according to Mapbox's blog. Fischer writes:
A cluster of geotagged photos is a good indicator of the interestingness of a place because it signifies that people went there in the first place, saw something worth taking a picture of, and put the extra effort into posting it online for others to appreciate. And a sequence of photos along a route is even more significant, because it indicates that someone sustained their interest over distance and time rather than taking one picture and turning back.
We zoomed into Los Angeles on the map, and saw some of the areas that had the most visits for photography. There was Santa Monica Pier and Venice, the Grove and LACMA, downtown L.A., Dodger Stadium, Griffith Observatory, Universal Studios, USC, Rodeo Drive, and of course, the most touristy spot of all: a swath of Hollywood Boulevard, especially near Highland Avenue.
You can navigate the map below, or see a larger version here.
[h/t: CityLab]
