Today is Nothing Day.
Nothing Day is celebrated annually on January 16 around the world by people with nothing better to do. (Dad joke!)
It was purposefully established as a “non-event” by columnist Harold Pullman Coffin in 1972 to give people a day to do absolutely nothing and avoid observing or honoring anything. It’s a day for relaxation, a break from the usual hustle and celebratory events, even though it’s not a public holiday and businesses remain open.
So in every possible way, making a map honoring Nothing Day ruins it, which is kind of funny.
Really, it’s nothing. (Okay, I’ll stop. Promise.)
Since you won’t have anything better to do today, I figured I would design a map tha tis a little bit hide-and-seek. Can you find all the nothings in the United States… or the Nowheres, or the Nadas?
View nothing nowhere.
Made using
- Map: Web Mapper GPT. and MapLibre
- Data: Wikipedia, via Google Gemini, Perplexity Plus, and ChatGPT
Original Web Mapper GPT prompt
In two days it is officially Nothing Day in the US. I have decided to make a map commemorating Nothing Day, by showing nothing… literally… well… kind of literally… I want to show all places named “Nothing” or “Nowhere” or similar in the United States. I have created a small CSV dataset to commemorate this. Attached. It has links to Wikipedia articles about these nothing places and also the name and coordinates. Obviously, this map should be extremely minimalist. I would like you to come up with five ideas, with a five sentence or less description of aesthetic motif and design for each. The map can be designed using any free API we want. Again, they are all places in the coterminous United States. Thanks!