Null Island

A fake island for geocoding

7–26–16, Adil

There is a fictional island in the South Atlantic, off the west coast of Africa, at latitude/longitude 0,0, called “Null Island.” Although it doesn’t exist in reality, this one-square-meter plot of land helps geographic analysts flag errors in a process called “geocoding.” Geocoding is the function performed by a geographic information system (GIS) that converts addresses into coordinates which can be easily mapped. This is actually what happens every time you type in an address in Google Maps. Due to typos, messy data, or glitches in the geocoder itself, the geocoding process doesn’t always run too smoothly. Misspellings and other errors can confuse a geocoder so the output reads “0,0”. While this output indicates that an error occurred, since “0,0” is in fact a location on the Earth’s surface according to the coordinate system, the feature will be mapped there, as nonsensical as the location may be. We end up with an island of misfit data. A lot of GIS professionals and cartographers end up frequently sending data points to Null Island, and this shared experience among map enthusiasts has fed the mystique of Null Island, with GIS enthusiasts creating fantasy maps, a “national” flag, and articles detailing Null Island’s rich history. So it’s a useful tool to catch errors, but also an elaborate inside joke among cartographers. At 0,0 there is actually a buoy permanently anchored (called “Soul”) to collect data on air temperature, water temperature, wind speed, wind direction and other variables. Also, after years of geocoder errors, Null Island has a bunch of addresses and places labelled to it that do not, in reality, exist there. This means that it is one of the most interesting, most visited places on Earth, despite the fact that it’s only a data dump that’s been fictionalised by geographers. Link here.