8 Imaginary Places People Once Thought Were Real

For centuries, Hy-Brasil was depicted on maps as a circular island—and a supposedly wondrous paradise—off the west coast of Ireland. It also appeared under names including Hy-Breasal, O Brasil, Insula Fortunatae (Fortunate Island) and the Isle of the Blessed. 

The phantom island—rooted in Celtic mythology—supposedly emerged from the Atlantic Ocean for one day every seven years, when its king briefly held court. According to Brooke-Hitching, maps featured Hy-Brasil from the 14th to 19th centuries, even as multiple European voyages failed to verify its existence.

Frisland, a phantom island thought to be near Iceland and Greenland, was practically ubiquitous on maps in the 16th and 17th centuries. This prevalence may have stemmed from confusion with actual sightings of the two countries, Brooke-Hitching says.

In the 14th century, Venetian brothers and navigators Nicolo and Antonio Zeno—who came from a family of fame and wealth—purportedly created a map depicting the supposed island. In the 1500s, one of the Zenos’ descendants claimed to discover letters from the brothers—along with their map—detailing their so-called time in Frislanda. 

The map was widely circulated and influenced cartographers of the era. Centuries later, many now believe the expedition was a hoax or fabrication.

The idea of Atlantis dates back to Plato’s Timaeus and Critias, in which he describes a sunken island nation. It was described as an advanced, utopian kingdom that sank around 9600 B.C. by way of divine punishment, namely earthquakes and floods. Plato believed Atlantis was located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (now the Strait of Gibraltar).

In medieval times, “Nobody actually tried to locate Atlantis,” says Matthew Edney, geography professor at the University of Southern Maine and director of the History of Cartography Project at University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Everybody understood that this [was] a literary device. It doesn’t actually exist.”

However, the idea resurfaced amid a renewed interest in undiscovered lands after Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in the late 15th century—and Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher later published a widely circulated map of the fantastical kingdom in 1664. Though Atlantis is widely accepted as myth, efforts to find the civilization have persisted into the 21st century.

In his 1799 book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, Scottish explorer Mungo Park claimed to have spotted a massive mountain range in West Africa, supplementing his findings with printed maps. The impassable mountains, explorers reasoned, were a barrier to reaching the vital trade hub of Kong (now a small town in northern Ivory Coast). 

Roughly 40 maps in the 19th century depicted the Mountains of Kong, believed to stretch hundreds of miles. But explorer Louis-Gustave Binger successfully reached Kong in the late 19th century and found no mountains, effectively disproving their existence.

The mythical city of Vineta (or Wineta)—dubbed the “Atlantis of the North”—was believed to be a major trading post somewhere in the South Baltic Sea off the northern coasts of Germany and Poland. Legend has it that Vineta disappeared under the waves due to a catastrophic event before A.D. 1000. It began appearing on printed maps of the southern Baltic coast in the 16th century.

It’s uncertain whether the island ever actually existed, though some accounts point to the present-day town of Wolin in Poland as its most likely present-day counterpart.

“It's said even today you can see the city glowing under the waves with the citizens still going about their business,” says Brooke-Hitching.

In 1539, Spanish cartographer Alonso de Santa Cruz charted an island called Vermeja (or Bermeja) in the Gulf of Mexico. The Guiness Book of World Records dubbed Bermeja Island the “longest-lived phantom island." It continued appearing on maps and charts into the 20th century—including the 1921 edition of the Geographic Atlas of the Mexican Republic.

In 2009, American and Mexican expeditions failed to find the island as they sought to lay claim to oil rights in its surrounding region.

“Many missions have been dispatched throughout history if there was even a slight promise of gold, natural resources or valuable strategic territory to be claimed,” says Brooke-Hitching.

Whether the island disappeared due to natural geographic changes or never existed at all remains open for debate.

For more than a century, Sandy Island appeared on maps in the South Pacific Ocean. Its supposed discovery dates back to the 1770s, when British Captain James Cook recorded a “sandy island” in his logs. Then, in the late 1800s, the whaling ship Velocity reportedly sighted the island.

The symbol “ED” (referring to “existence doubtful”) began appearing next to the island on nautical charts in the 20th century, according to Atlas Obscura. In 2012, Australian scientists failed to find the island, even as it appeared on Google Maps.

The tale of El Dorado emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries, when Europeans believed a place of immense wealth existed in the New World. Following earlier quests for the city of gold, Britain’s Sir Walter Raleigh made two expeditions to South America, in 1595 and 1617. The latter voyage resulted in his execution upon his return to England, as his crew attacked a Spanish settlement, going against the king’s orders.

The prospect of locating El Dorado largely fizzled out by the mid-17th century—but that didn’t stop it from becoming a common trope in American culture. As explorers mapped most of the world by the 19th century, many mythical places began fading into history, says Edney, who also authored Cartography: The Ideal and Its History.

“There’s no space for that kind of imaginary land on our maps,” Edney says. “What happens is, the imaginary lands move into new forms of literature—the new kinds of speculative fiction that people start to produce.”