When we move away from behemoth social networking platforms, one of the best things about the internet is the fact that it caters to niche interests – and Reddit does this better than most. For example, I didn’t know I was a fan of pictorial maps and panoramic cityscapes until I stumbled across r/papertowns, an 80,000-strong community of cartography nerds.

Most of the maps posted here are historical. You’re likely to see an aerial view of Venice circa 1500 or a map of the Mississippi coastline dating from 1700 when it was part of French Louisiana. It brings me back to when, as a 10-year-old, I spent hours poring over atlases and history books (just me?) to get a sense of exotic places I hoped to visit and times I wished I could have lived in.

There’s also quite a collection of historical maps from around Ireland. There’s a lovely one of the “cittie of Limerick” from 1587, which has drawn comparisons to Game of Thrones’ King’s Landing from some Redditors. My favourite is a digitally illustrated reconstruction of Dublin from 1500: the image is large and high- resolution to the point where you can zoom in on individual Tudor cottages. The original poster has also provided a link to download the full resolution image so it might be worth getting printed and framed for the history buff in your life.

reddit.com/r/papertowns