The average American mind cannot comprehend Pittsburgh’s geography. From our bizarro intersections to our unconventional navigation habits, the City of Bridges presents challenges for even the most seasoned driver, cyclist, or pedestrian. Most of this is related to our topography, but Pittsburgh’s unusual layout is also a byproduct of our layered history, successive waves of immigration, and, in at least one case, a local pub owner’s stubbornness.
Geographer Stentor Danielson set out to chronicle Pittsburgh’s cartographic quirks with Pittsburgh in 50 Maps. The book, out now from Belt Publishing, is by turns fascinating, amusing, and revealing, showing off our city’s evolution from an indigenous hunting and trading hub to a meds-and-eds metropolis.
Some locals may already know Danielson from their popular Mapsburgh Etsy store, which features fantasy-style maps of cities and countries as well as hand-cut maps of Pittsburgh’s street grid.
“What got me into maps was really Lord of the Rings,” Danielson tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “On that first read through, there’s plenty of things that went over my head, but I just loved the map.” (Danielson’s Lord of the Rings-inspired map of Pittsburgh makes a cameo in Pittsburgh in 50 Maps’ end papers.)
Partly inspired by Tolkien’s series, Danielson went on to study geography and works by day as an associate professor at Slippery Rock University. After Danielson invited Vicky Johnson-Dahl, author of Belt’s Buffalo in 50 Maps book, onto their New Books Network podcast, the subject of a Pittsburgh instalment of the series came up.
“She was like, ‘Well, funny you ask that because the editor just messaged me the other day asking if I knew anybody in Pittsburgh,’” Danielson says. They immediately pitched the book to Belt, “and it kind of went from there.” Pittsburgh in 50 Maps is the fourth installment of Belt’s Maps series following Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
The maps by Danielson — who notes that, technically, there are more than 50 — run the gamut from topographical relief maps to watersheds to transit and back again.
“Of the ones that I was especially excited about doing, there’s the map about the Pittsburgh left, which was a fun one because it required, in some ways, some of the most research,” Danielson says. “It’s technically illegal, according to PennDOT, so there’s no existing database of where you can make a Pittsburgh left.”
Danielson sifted through publicly available data and used Google Street View and GIS software to study every traffic light in Pittsburgh, all in an effort to identify intersections where drivers are most likely to make the notorious quick left turn.
Organized into four sections, Pittsburgh in 50 Maps first situates the city geographically. The second grounds readers in city transit, and the final two sections consider Pittsburgh’s notable communities, people, and places. Each reveals fascinating details about the city — for example, in the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood map, Danielson notes Rogers’ passing quote about his equal attraction to men and women, which caused a stir in 2019.
“What’s surprising is always going to depend on what background you come into it with,” Danielson says. They learned numerous details while putting the book together. “[Al-Masjid al-Awwal] in the Hill District was the first mosque in the United States to be founded by a non-immigrant community. I was surprised to learn things like that.”
Implicit in many of the maps are Pittsburgh’s lingering issues with pollution, racism, and changing economic priorities. Partly inspired by the book’s three predecessors, Danielson included maps showing Pittsburgh’s distribution of racial groups, rates of asthma juxtaposed with pollution sources, and an overview of regional fracking wells.
“The map showing all the municipalities that border the city, that’s in all of [the …in 50 Maps books],” they explain.
But others are quintessentially Pittsburgh, like the map focused on Evergreen Cafe proprietor Phil Bacharach. Bacharach’s parking spot-turned-loading zone has long been a nuisance for unprepared drivers on Penn Avenue in Point Breeze. He’s been the subject of several CP stories over the years and who won Best Jagoff 2023 in CP’s reader poll. “City Paper definitely has been all over that story about Phil and his parking spot,” Danielson laughs.
From our sports teams to local heroes like pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson, Pittsburgh in 50 Maps considers the city from all angles. The lovingly assembled book is fun for both a quick skim and a long look, with the detail-packed graphics rewarding repeated reads. Readers will have an opportunity to hear from Danielson on Thu., March 20 at Stay Gold Books and Thu., April 10 at Riverstone Books in McCandless.
Danielson says it was a challenge to narrow the options from among so many Pittsburgh possibilities. “In some ways, they’re all my favorite,” Danielson says. “It was a struggle to get it down to 50.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Mapsburgh maps being laser-cut — Danielson clarified these are actually hand-cut, which has been noted above.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2025.
