About

About Random Atlas

Random Atlas picks a random real place and shows it as a postcard: a short description, a few facts, a map, and photos when good ones exist. Pick a category and a country, hit Go, and see where you land. Press G anywhere for another roll, or use Nearby to hop to a random place within 100 km of the one on screen.

Every discovery earns a stamp in your passport: countries fill up from Bronze to Silver to Gold, achievements unlock along the way, and the history page keeps your recent finds. Postcards can be shared as images with a light or dark design.

The site is under active development. Cities and towns work best in Europe and Asia, where most results come with solid facts and photo galleries, and more regions are being filled in. Museums, castles, islands, national parks, and landmarks are covered worldwide.

What counts as a city here?

The line between the City and Town / Village categories is drawn like this: a place counts as a city if it is a national capital, a regional capital with at least 50,000 people, or any place with 100,000 or more. Towns are places of 10,000 to 100,000, and villages run from about 1,000 up to 10,000. Each postcard also shows what the place actually is, so a search can be honest when a country simply has no big cities to offer.

There are no accounts and nothing to sign up for. Your passport, favorites, and history live in your own browser. Expect the occasional rough edge while things keep improving. The open data projects that make the postcards possible are credited on the attributions page.