[hashmal]

Things like this are actually done for very valid reasons, but these easter eggs are a really neat way to do it.

The reason? making an accurate map from a territory is (or used to be) difficult and takes time. Introducing fictional stuff in a map is a way to:

- figure out which of your cartographer competitors are copying you

- bring the case to court (factual data isn't protected by copyright, fictional data is).

Even Google Maps add a few fictional elements, but they're much more boring, like adding ghost streets in rural areas.

[mtmail]

Yes, usually boring. OpenStreetMap collected some examples https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs#Ex...

[twothamendment]

There is a ghost road I reported on Google and was ignored. It wasn't just any road, an impossible road.

It is a straight line from the base of a mountain right to the top, all while gaining thousands of feet in elevation. I haven't checked it out in person, but I'm familiar with the area, and I'd place a large wager that it doesn't.

Anyone who copies this road will have a map that screams "I copied Google!"

[SamBam]

I wonder if Google Maps tags the fictitious streets in its metadata somehow, so that it doesn't actually send cars down those roads.

[sllabres]

If they are only short dead end streets they won't be at risk sending cars through

[floatrock]

That's a real phenomenon -- they're typically called Trap Streets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trap-streets-with-no-n... -- but that's a bit different from these easter eggs.

You put a drawing of a marmot in a mountainside or turn a stream into a naked lady to have a chuckle and get one over your boss, not to enforce copyright :)

[kirmerzlikin]

There's a "Map Men" episode on this: https://youtu.be/DeiATy-FfjI

[lmpdev]

Tangental:

This is why Golf Courses and Land Art Designs are uncopyrightable but media created in the process of their development are