Map Men
Map Men is a British edutainment mini-series which is created, written, and presented by Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones. A mix of comedy and geography, its videos regularly attract 1 to 5 million views on YouTube.
Premise
The series is created, written, and presented by Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones. Mark Cooper-Jones is a former geography teacher, and the pair met at the Edinburgh [Festival Fringe], where both were performing in 2009 or 2010. The series started in 2016, and has aired for four complete series, with a fifth one currently airing. The episodes are a mix of comedy and geography, with each episode answering a short geographical question, often involving maps. The style has been compared to Horrible Histories and the pair cite their inspiration as Monty Python. The videos feature deadpan, split-second visual gags, and comic sketches.The pair have attributed the show's success to the growing redundancy of maps as an everyday item, making them a more "geeky" topic. They attribute the channel's success to its unique mix of comedy and geography. In 2021, the series was nominated under the "learning and education" category for the 11th Streamy Awards, losing to Veritasium. In 2024, an edited version of the video about why some British place-names are hard to pronounce won 'Video of the Year' in the inaugural UK and Ireland TikTok Awards.
In October 2025, the duo released the book This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong .