Phantom settlements, or paper towns, are settlements that appear on maps but do not actually exist. They are either accidents or copyright traps. Notable examples include Argleton in Lancashire, UK and Beatosu and Goblu, US. [1]
Phantom settlements often result from copyright traps, also known as mountweazels, which is when a false entry is placed in literature to catch illegal copiers. [2] Agloe, New York, was invented on a 1930s map as a copyright trap. In 1950, a general store was built there and named Agloe General Store, as that was the name seen on the map. Thus, the phantom settlement became a real one. [3]
There are also misnamed settlements, such as the villages of Mawdesky and Dummy 1325 in Lancashire on Google Maps. [4]
There is a satirical conspiracy theory that the German city of Bielefeld is a phantom settlement, despite its population of over 300,000. [5] Another example is Leiria, Portugal, (pop. 128,640), [6] which even gave rise to a song "Leiria não existe". [7]
Demographic features of the population of Portugal include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Bielefeld conspiracy is a satirical conspiracy theory that claims that the city of Bielefeld, Germany, does not exist, and is instead an illusion propagated by various forces to distract or mislead the German public. First posted on the German Usenet in 1994, the conspiracy has since been mentioned in the city's marketing, and alluded to in a speech by former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Leiria is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 in an area of 565.09 square kilometres (218.18 sq mi). It is the seat of its own district and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Leiria-Fátima. The city is part of the historical province of Beira Litoral.
Caldas da Rainha is a medium-sized Portuguese city in the Oeste region, in the historical province of Estremadura, and in the district of Leiria. The city serves as the seat of the larger municipality of the same name and of the Comunidade Intermunicipal do Oeste. At the 2011 census, the municipality had a population of 51,729 in an area of 255.69 square kilometres (98.72 sq mi), with 30,343 residing in the city. Although the city itself lies about 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi) inland, three of the municipality's civil parishes lie on the Atlantic Ocean. Caldas da Rainha is best known for its sulphurous hot springs and ceramic pottery.
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, added by the editors as copyright traps to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel.
In cartography, a trap street is a fictitious entry in the form of a misrepresented street on a map, often outside the area the map nominally covers, for the purpose of "trapping" potential plagiarists of the map who, if caught, would be unable to explain the inclusion of the "trap street" on their map as innocent. On maps that are not of streets, other "trap" features may be inserted or altered for the same purpose.
Sporting Clube de Portugal, otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting, or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries, is a Portuguese sports club based in Lisbon. Having various sports departments and sporting disciplines, it is best known for its men's professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football.
União Desportiva de Leiria, commonly known as União de Leiria, is a Portuguese professional football club based in Leiria. Founded on 6 June 1966, it currently plays in the Liga Portugal 2, holding home matches at Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pessoa, with a 23,888-seat capacity.
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR), and stored in its digital database. Books are provided either by publishers and authors through the Google Books Partner Program, or by Google's library partners through the Library Project. Additionally, Google has partnered with a number of magazine publishers to digitize their archives.
João Henrique Pataco Tomás is a Portuguese retired professional footballer who played as a striker.
José Carlos Fernandes Vidigal, commonly known as Lito, is an Angolan professional football manager and former player who played as a defender.
Beatosu and Goblu are two non-existent towns in Fulton and Lucas counties, respectively, in the US state of Ohio. They were inserted into the 1978–1979 edition of the official state of Michigan map. The names refer to the slogan of University of Michigan fans and a reference to their archrivals from Ohio State University.
Agloe was originally a fictional hamlet in Colchester, Delaware County, New York, United States, that became an actual landmark after mapmakers made up the community as a phantom settlement, an example of a fictitious entry similar to a trap street, added to the map to catch plagiarism.
Paulo Lourenço Martins Alves is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a centre-forward, currently a manager.
"Have You Ever Seen the Rain" is a song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, written by John Fogerty and released as a single in 1971 from the album Pendulum (1970). The song charted highest in Canada, reaching number one on the RPM 100 national singles chart in March 1971. In the U.S., in the same year it peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. On the Cash Box pop chart, it peaked at number three. In the UK, it reached number 36. It was the group's eighth gold-selling single. In March 2023, the song surpassed one billion streams on Spotify.
Paper Towns is a novel written by John Green, published on October 16, 2008, by Dutton Books. The novel is about the coming-of-age of the protagonist, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen and his search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, his neighbor and childhood crush. During his search, Quentin and his friends Ben, Radar, and Lacey discover information about Margo.
Argleton was a phantom settlement that appeared on Google Maps and Google Earth but was later removed by Google. The supposed location of Argleton was between the A59 road and Town Green railway station within the civil parish of Aughton in West Lancashire, England, in an area of empty fields. Data from Google is used by other online information services, which consequently treated Argleton as a real settlement within the L39 postcode area. As a result, Argleton also appeared in numerous listings for things such as estate and letting agents, employment agencies and weather, but although the people, businesses and services listed are all in fact real, they are elsewhere in the same postcode district.
Michael Simões Domingues, known as Mika, is a professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Primeira Liga club Moreirense.
União Desportiva Vilafranquense is a Portuguese football club from Vila Franca de Xira, Lisbon District.
Early legislative elections were held on 30 January 2022 in Portugal to elect members of the Assembly of the Republic to the 15th Legislature of the Third Portuguese Republic. All 230 seats to the Assembly of the Republic were up for election.