I really like maps that are funky. That describe an issue or capture a position in a non-traditional fashion. People, by nature, are very spatially aware. It is one of the reasons we have survived for so long. How it manifests is different depending on how you were raised and the culture surrounding you. Some of the earliest coordinate systems were used for magic practice and not for what we would consider mapping. Some cultures never think in cardinal directions and prefer to think in land marks and distance traveled.
Here are a few recent articles that show maps that are out of the box.
Dried up: Poverty in America's drought lands
This article is fairly standard on the surface. But consider the links that they are talking about and how the information can be used to understand a place that you might not know anything about. I think that is why geography (and history, and archaeology, and art, and science, and blah blah blah) are important to really understand. If you know nothing of the local area or how a group of people interact with it then you might not ever understand why certain aspects exist within the culture. It is easy to pass judgement on someone and say that you never did that where you grew up, but you are not considering the fact that you are a thousand miles away from your hometown. Similar might be said regarding poverty. Maybe, as is the case in some of areas of California, drought has affected people so much that they are now below the poverty line.
The Map Of Native American Tribes You've Never Seen Before
There are plenty of maps out there that show Native American groups traditional lands. However, they almost never show the names in the languages of the people. The sets you see in this article are. So many groups get labeled with names that are not theirs or are even racist. Most people do not think about it because it does not involve them. Often we hear arguments that the U.S. Congress has more important things to do than have hearings on the Washington Redskins. They might, but if they had taken care of this a long time ago they could get to those things. Naming is power and more people should speak out.
New online atlas tracks Nunavut’s centuries-old Inuit trails
This one is the most non-traditional map. I would really like to see these trails without the Google Imagery. Just the data itself. Or even drawn out based on the memory of the people. I like to watch people make hand drawn maps of their neighborhood or directions to get to their house. You can tell a lot about someones perspective of their surroundings when they are showing you how to drive there. You can even tell something about their commute to work based on what order they place individual streets in an intersection description.