Every two years, the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) judges and selects map submissions from cartographers around the world, then publishes a new volume of The Atlas of Design. They recently released Volume 3, which features these 32 beautiful and unusual maps (narrowed down from 250):

• Whaam!
• Yellowstone Elk Migrations: The Pulse of the Park
• Antarctica
• Caricature Map of Europe 1914
• Alternative Strategic Spatial Vision of Natural Disaster Prevention in Future Shanghai
• Bonaventure Cemetery Illustrated Map
• Megan’s Woods
• Here there be robots (We're already fans of this one! —Ed.)
• Jenny Lake Hiking Trails
• An Unfurling of Lake Michigan
• Fisher Ridge KN Canyon
• Chart of the Saint-Elias Isles
• Yellow River Basin
• The Analytical Tourism Map of Piedmont
• Venice public transport map
• The Historical Ecology of Upper San Francisquito Creek
• The United States: Her Natural and Industrial Resources
• Those Who Did Not Cross
• The North American Continent
• UFO Sightings
• Mars Cartography
• Losing Ground
• Dolomiti di Brenta hiking trails map
• Gatwick and Heathrow Worker Locations
• Bicycletown/Bridgetown
• Bears of Finland
• Denali and the Alaska Range
• Mississippi River
• Unofficial TriMet System Map
• Bob Marshall Country
• Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight
• Monsters of the United States

For a more thorough look at what's inside the atlas, check out this article by National Geographic.

More photos and info about the book can be found at atlasofdesign.org, and the direct link to the store/purchase page is here. The 12" x 9" hard-bound book is $35.