Further proof that cats do run the Internet, a new project has collected 1 million cat photos and placed them on a world map.
Using metadata embedded in social media posts, the website I Know Where Your Cat Lives pins images of cats to their locations, within 7.8 meters' accuracy according to Curbed SF.
The project was created by Florida State University art professor Owen Mundy, who used the university’s supercomputer to troll for images tagged with the word "cat.” Of course, not every pic ends up being an actual cat, but the coolest part of the map — adorable images aside — is how Mundy breaks down the data to reveal where cats live.
According to the infographics, California has the most cats in the U.S. with San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco ranking as the top three cities. In S.F, there appears to be 3,383 cats with a large concentration in the Richmond District, Bernal Heights, and SoMa. Despite posting hundreds of cat pictures through the years, I couldn’t find any of mine on the map.
If you want to help the site expand, there’s a Kickstarter campaign to fund its first year of web hosting.
