I came across this map while browsing Flickr last night, and was totally blown away by it. This map of St. Petersburg’s Metro system is simply gorgeous and is far, far better than the current official map. Definitely one of my favourite maps of the year so far.

Have we been there? No.

What we like: So many things! The lovely pattern used for the waterways, the stylish icons for points of interest, the inclusion of the city’s bridges as reference points, the clever use of colour to differentiate the Cyrillic station names from their Romanised equivalents, the beautifully abstracted geography, the circle shape of the city limits (and the wonderful negative space it creates around the map)… I could go on and on.

What we don’t like: The placement of the interchange station markers where Lines 1 and 2, and also 2 and 3, cross could be a little better and more consistent with the other interchange stations. The placement of the station at the 2/3 interchange seems particularly odd, as the coloured dots don’t lie directly over the route line they represent.

Our rating: Astounding work. Clear, graphically bold, gorgeous, useful. 5 stars!

Source: k3sotnikova/Flickr