CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – A social media artist known as The Geography Pin draws maps of real-life states and countries in the style of the popular video game franchise Super Mario Bros. The artist behind the maps, Miguel, is from Peru. He recently completed his 36th US state, West Virginia.
The map details some of the most famous landmarks in the state and the major highways. Snow and platforms depict the parts of the state with a higher elevation. Landmarks include the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, the West Virginia Penitentiary, Cooper’s Rock, Blackwater Falls, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, The Greenbrier Resort, the State Capitol building, New River Gorge, and Cass Scenic Railroad.
Miguel shared his work on Reddit under the West Virginia subreddit, where it was met with praise.
Thank you for posting! This is fantastic work! The only thing missing is Jim Justice as the princess, with his bulldog being one of those Bow Wow guys from the yoshi games.
SpiralTap304 on Reddit
This is awesome but leaving off the Mothman seems like an obvious miss.
Hobo_Dan on Reddit
Miguel has completed Pennsylvania and Ohio and says he intends to do all 50 states. He said the idea for the project came to him during the pandemic when his friends were starting their own businesses. Miguel has a love for maps and video games, and he decided to combine the two by starting a YouTube channel.
“When I illustrated the Alabama map in that style, I got very nice feedback from people. So I focused on that entirely, especially because the YouTube thing was very stressful,” Miguel recalled, “I chose to stop doing YouTube and focused on illustration entirely, and I have been doing great for the last year”
The Geography Pin’s Instagram account now has 14k followers and regularly receives thousands of likes. Miguel said he’s done almost 80 different maps from around the world.
“Since I love to stare at maps and research about countries, this is a fantastic thing to me,” Miguel expressed.
Miguel said he mostly uses Google to find out what landmarks to put on his map, but will occasionally ask his followers on Instagram what to add to the map.
“Sometimes, they have some fun things about the state that only they know or that is common knowledge [where they live],” said Miguel.
You can follow The Geography Pin on Instagram here.
Prints and t-shirts are available for purchase on The Geography Pin’s website.
