Passport design has come a long way in the last few years, often being transformed from relatively dour official documents into elaborate and detailed expressions of national pride. 

The new UK passport is no exception, with the theme of “Creative United Kingdom” tying all the page designs together, celebrating over 500 years of artists, landmarks and architecture, the performing arts and iconic innovations – including this spread for the London Underground, prominently featuring the Tube Map.

I’m not quite sure what version of the official Tube Map this is based on,if any: it looks mostly like the current map, but the “U” curve on the District Line to Kensington (Olympia) is way too wide, and the interchange station shown where the two branches of the Northern Line merge just north of Kennington doesn’t exist on the real map at all. There’s other oddities like this throughout the map which make me think it’s a redrawing made just for this artwork which maybe incorporates aspects of some different versions of the map. An artistic representation rather than an actual map, if you will. Interesting!

Source: UK Passport Office brochure on the new design (PDF), via @TfL/Twitter