Marvelous Maps and Measures

The geographical center of Budapest is marked with a 10-foot-tall stylized zero.

19th-century scientists would make the pilgrimage here to verify the precision of their measuring sticks.

This golfball sized platinum iridium cylinder is the official starting point for all national weight calibrations

An impressive century-old, to-scale topographical map of Guatemala.

Finding the exact middle of a giant land mass is hard to determine, but this spot managed to do the trick.

An ancient instrument used to measure the waters of the Nile so Egyptian farmers would know whether to expect famine or flood.

There's a 12-foot-tall replica of the Washington Monument hidden under a manhole nearby.

A stone slab in Madrid marks the point from which the distances of Spain's national roads are measured.

The world's largest model of our planetary system.

An overlooked marble is the only surviving in-place 18th century example of the measurement that changed how we define distance.

Breathtaking and huge 430 year old maps of Italy.

A scalable map of Colombia with the bonus of a butterfly house.

A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

This unusual building straddles two countries.

Plot your trip through the city on the sidewalk.

View the California coastline (and the home of Barbara Streisand) inch by inch with stunning, government-sanctioned aerial photography.

To the great disappointment of doomsdayers, this codex merely contains records of the Moon and Venus.