It's the apocalypse, might as well get drunk.

April 10, 2012 10:12 AM

Map of the Dead is a zombie survival map created using the Google Places API
posted by Ritchie (45 comments total)

Just a FYI: the danger zones are places with man-made structures.
posted by clockworkjoe at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

You know, it's taken the last, what, 4-5 years? Probably about that. It's taken a long time, because I'm naturally inclined to really like the topic. I watch the movies and the TV shows, I read the comics.

But on April 10, at 10:22AM Pacific Time, I finally became sick of the whole zombie thing.
posted by gurple at 10:23 AM on April 10, 2012 [12 favorites]

What, no schools? My zombie contingency plan is to go out into my back yard and scale the wall of the school next door, which is so well-protected that it can only be described as an Educational Doom Fortress.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:25 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

It is sort of an intriguing way to visualize one's surroundings, with sort of a survivalist angle. I had not realized there was a gun shop walking distance from my house. O.o

Alas, most of the "doctors" are actually dentists or chiropractors...and it doesn't show the cemetery, which seems like a major oversight. If you're thinking zombies, anyway.
posted by epersonae at 10:26 AM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

I just know this will catch on if I link to it enough: brundlefly's law.
posted by brundlefly at 10:26 AM on April 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

(Now watch the zombie apocalypse happen during recess, and the virus responsible being airborne and spread by five hundred coughing and sneezing ankle-biters...)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 10:26 AM on April 10, 2012

Don't worry gurple, soon you'll have something else to hate that's gone from hipster to cool to annoying.
posted by Fizz at 10:26 AM on April 10, 2012

and it doesn't show the cemetery, which seems like a major oversight. If you're thinking zombies, anyway.

Depends on which ruleset your zombies are using.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:36 AM on April 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

My campus is pretty much constantly overrun with zombies (the students have a league or something). This map does not help.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:40 AM on April 10, 2012

I'm a bit confused as to why the local playing field next to my house is a danger zone, when the hospital two hundred yards away isn't.

Would love to know the rationale behind why some roads are more dangery danger zones than others - at least, I'm assuming that's why some of the side roads are darker pink than others, and why the major routes are vivid red. It doesn't seem to have any correlation with distance from blocked-in danger zones, or whether the locale itself is more built up, wooded, open etc, or whether they're dead ends or have multiple escape routes.
posted by talitha_kumi at 10:42 AM on April 10, 2012

HAHA er, good to know that Central Park is safe! Like a haven in the middle of the brightest bright red spot.
posted by hellomina at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2012

I really must get around to updating my zombie survival plan since they closed the local RAF base
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

This missed the police station near my house, also the survivalist / preparedness center like ten blocks from my house. Possibly a good thing since no one else will think to raid the place for supplies, and the owner probably has a bugout shelter somewhere on Mount Hood when the zombies start.

Of course internet discussion of Zombies has always gotten weird when someone pointed me to some forums where racist gun nuts realized they could use zombies as code word for african americans and zombie uprising as a race war, and now they all of a sudden have a culturally acceptable way to discuss their racism.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:45 AM on April 10, 2012 [5 favorites]

I want to create a Left 4 Dead 2 map where you fight your way into one of the St. Louis military bases they list, and find that the US Army National Personnel Records Center and US Defense Contracts Audit facility are not fat with assault rifles and grenade launchers.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:48 AM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm not sure how fighting my way to my state's adjutant general's office is going to help things.
posted by double block and bleed at 10:52 AM on April 10, 2012

An adjutant general is the military leader of a state's national guard, BTW
posted by double block and bleed at 10:55 AM on April 10, 2012

Not to mention, it's seemingly obsessed with marking all the golf courses as danger zones. Ignoring Cambridge itself, the whole of my county is largely a huge expanse of safe greyness, pockmarked with dangerous golf courses.
posted by talitha_kumi at 10:56 AM on April 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ha! My local neighborhood hippie co-op grocery is listed as a "Gun store".
posted by echo target at 11:00 AM on April 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I would just like to know why zombies don't bloat as a result of their decomposing flesh.

Anyway, as we know from Night of the Living Dead, zombies are only going to last for maybe 12 hours until they run out of steam or are eliminated by local law enforcement. So, no map is needed. Just stay in your house, away from the windows, like in any natural disaster.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:00 AM on April 10, 2012

Of course internet discussion of Zombies has always gotten weird when someone pointed me to some forums where racist gun nuts realized they could use zombies as code word for african americans and zombie uprising as a race war, and now they all of a sudden have a culturally acceptable way to discuss their racism.

Uh... hrm. Well that saps a lot of fun out of this.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:00 AM on April 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yep. Golf courses give you clear line of sight, plenty of climbable trees, clean water, and a ready supply of long sticks

also, so long as the generator holds out, electric vehicles with easy egress.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:01 AM on April 10, 2012

Missing lots of relevant stuff in my area, not to mention the entirety of Stockholm, but no matter, I adore this.
posted by Iteki at 11:02 AM on April 10, 2012

Can someone explain why the Twin Cities are apparently the most dangerous zombie cities in all the world? Is it because of the Zombie Pub Crawl?
posted by Muddler at 11:06 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

> Anyway, as we know from Night of the Living Dead, zombies are only going to last for maybe 12 hours until they run out of steam or are eliminated by local law enforcement.

But you haven't obviously watched Dawn and Day, where the problem is all dead (regardless of how they died) rise again, so it becomes a continual problem. Night was just the beginning of the problem (we just saw the local scope), eventually it gets overwhelmed when a larger urban center (dawn) gets infected, and we see the result at the state level in Day.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:07 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, yes, but I always regard those movies as taking place in a different, alternative continuum. I'm more of a fan of Carver-esque, social-realist zombie movies.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:09 AM on April 10, 2012

Can someone explain why the Twin Cities are apparently the most dangerous zombie cities in all the world?

They come from hundreds of miles around, drawn by the still-glowing and mysterious FOSHAY
posted by shakespeherian at 11:09 AM on April 10, 2012

Well, while it's interesting to note that I'm apparently within walking distance of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, and while it is technically a military facility, I rather suspect their offices, with their 4,172 auditors (including 1,216 CPAS!) and 657 various professional support staff are more likely to be zombie chow than a well-armed and protected redoubt.

Unless you can novate zombies to death, in which case I withdraw my statement.
posted by Naberius at 11:31 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Somehow, you get your butt to Disney land or world. Lock the gates, tons of food, water, clothing, and a castle to hole up in.
posted by pearlybob at 11:38 AM on April 10, 2012

I think the problem there is going to be that A) You're not going to be the only one with that idea so there will be tons of other people there and the food won't last as long as you think and B) Depending on the speed with which the infection spreads, there might already be tons of zombies in there with you, many of them still in costume.

You need to get away from major population centers and out to the rural areas with a ready, sustainable food/water supply.
posted by VTX at 11:45 AM on April 10, 2012

Houseboat.

Middle of lake.

Watch the world burn.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 11:47 AM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Since the Street View icon appeared on that map, I was hoping street view would show a post-zombie-apocalypse wasteland. Or at least a bunch of 2-D pictures of zombies, fires, and destruction dropped in random places, just for fun.
posted by Tehhund at 11:50 AM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Somehow, you get your butt to Disney land or world. Lock the gates, tons of food, water, clothing, and a castle to hole up in.

But the Cokes are like $5.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:52 AM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

BitterOldPunk: "Houseboat.

Middle of lake.

Watch the world burn."

According to World War Z, zombies can walk underwater (they're already dead, so it's not like they're gonna drown, right?) So be prepared to defend your anchor chain.
posted by workerant at 12:08 PM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

echo target: "Ha! My local neighborhood hippie co-op grocery is listed as a "Gun store"."

Are the hippies really buff?
posted by brundlefly at 12:09 PM on April 10, 2012

So be prepared to defend your anchor chain.

No anchor needed.

On many lakes you can hold a houseboat in place with a trolling motor (electric, battery recharged by solar cells on roof).

And I'll bet catfish can eat zombies faster than zombies can eat catfish.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:17 PM on April 10, 2012

Houseboat.

Middle of lake.

Watch the world burn.

q.v. SS Huckleberry, winner of the 2010 Zombie Safe House Competition.
posted by zamboni at 12:25 PM on April 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Relevant.
posted by brundlefly at 12:25 PM on April 10, 2012

According to this, my entire city has no liquor stores, hardware stores, gas stations, radio towers or dentists, my closest grocery store is 7 km away, and the cemetary and hospital that I know are blocks away from my home don't exist.

I'm getting notices on the side that it's pulling listings from YellowPages.ca, so do I blame them for poor listings? Is there any sort of "behind-the-scenes" for this map that explains how they put it together?
posted by RobotHero at 12:31 PM on April 10, 2012

I'm getting notices on the side that it's pulling listings from YellowPages.ca, so do I blame them for poor listings? Is there any sort of "behind-the-scenes" for this map that explains how they put it together?

From the Map of the Dead FAQ:

WHY DO SOME PLACES NOT SHOW UP? WHY IS IT INACCURATE?
Since the map relies entirely on Google Maps for data, some places may be incorrect or not show up. In addition, since some markers are generated by keyword matches, those results can be fuzzy at best.

Where does Google get information?

Google Maps for the United States compiles information from many sources to bring you the best results. Our listings combine information from our web search results, data submitted directly by local business owners, and third-party sources such as publicly available Yellow Pages directories. Please note that we aren't currently able to share our full list of U.S. Yellow Pages sources. If you've found incorrect information about a listing and would like to edit it, you can do so using the 'Edit' feature.

If it bothers you that something's wrong or missing, fix it.
posted by zamboni at 1:09 PM on April 10, 2012

Oh gosh, love the SS Huckleberry idea: using zombie sludge to make diesel fuel! Note the brain used as zombie bait!
posted by darkstar at 3:25 PM on April 10, 2012

Of all the hulking old buildings around downtown here, it only marked City Hall as screming red dangerous. I wonder if our ex mayor had more shenanigans going on than his shameful greasing of the road to become a provincial minister.
posted by Iosephus at 3:35 PM on April 10, 2012

Next obvious step is mash it up into a game of sorts.
posted by stbalbach at 5:22 PM on April 10, 2012

Apparently if there is a zombie apocalypse I should head to the nearby graveyard for safety. I'm appreciative that it marks Morse Farm Sugarworks as a good spot to stop in for groceries though, you can get maple syrup in bulk there and I'm sure it will prove to have many uses.
posted by meinvt at 6:08 PM on April 10, 2012

Really, it needs to incorporate street directions. In the event of zombie apocalypse I plan to stay mobile, and this is going to be my ride.
posted by Ritchie at 7:36 PM on April 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Zombie survival house under the Golden Gate Bridge
posted by morganw at 8:46 PM on April 10, 2012