It is not down in any map; true places never are.
Herman Melville cf. [T]rap streets, or deliberate cartographic errors introduced into a map so as to catch acts of copyright infringement by rival firms. In other words, if a competitor’s map includes your “trap street” — a geographic feature that you’ve simply invented — then you (and your lawyers) will know they nicked your data, gave it a quick redesign and tried to pass it off as their own. But this strategy of willful cartographic deception is not always limited to streets: there can be trap parks, trap ponds, trap buildings. And trap rooms. …. These and other subtle geographies — trap architectures — awaiting detection all around us. —Geoff Manaugh