We Can’t Stop Looking at These Detailed DC Maps

Hand-drawn neighborhood maps are a common sight in shops around town, but we’ve yet to encounter any as detailed and absorbing as the ones that Zachary Ammerman makes. A transplant from Indiana who previously worked at the French Embassy, the self-professed map nerd is now devoting all his energy to his business, Wild Places Prints. In addition to neighborhoods, he offers maps of bookstores, coffee shops, local college campuses, and other cartographic curiosities. (They’re all available on his website.) “Maps tickle that part of your brain that combines arts and learning,” he says. “They are beautiful but at the same time informative.”