Google Maps' straight lines: coincidence or hidden design?

Coincidence or design? The straight lines hidden in the maps

Is it possible that the distance between two churches in Murcia is exactly twice the distance separating them from a castle belonging to the same family? And that in Madrid three landmark points form an equilateral triangle with sides of 3.33 kilometres? These are the questions that arise when drawing straight lines on Google Maps and discovering what many call coincidences that are just too perfect.

The most frequently cited case is that of the Vélez Chapel in Murcia Cathedral and the Basilica of Vera Cruz in Caravaca. The distance between the two points is 65.4 kilometres. The exact midpoint, 32.7, falls on the Vélez Castle in Mula, built by the same family thirty years later. A coincidence that, for some, reveals a deliberate geometric plan.

In Madrid, things get more complicated. The Temple of Debod, the Fallen Angel statue and the headquarters of the CNMV (Spain's securities regulator) on Edison Street form an equilateral triangle of 3.33 km. The centre, it is argued, is Plaza de Colón, with its oval and the Gardens of the Discovery that trace a compass shape. Adding another triangle with Plaza de Manuel Becerra, the statue of Luis de la Escosura and 33 Cabeza Street, you get a six-pointed star. All vertices 3.3 km apart.

But reality is more prosaic. As sceptics point out, all it takes is moving the pointer a few millimetres for the figures to stop being round. At these scales, a small adjustment turns 65.4 km into 66, and the midpoint into 33. Moreover, any pair of buildings can generate a bisector pointing at something interesting. Trigonometry is no mystery: the Greeks had already mastered it, and medieval builders could align visible landmarks with precision.

The human tendency to see patterns where there is only noise is well known. But it is also true that some alignments, such as the one linking the cross of the Valley of the Fallen with Mount Abantos and El Guanol, are striking. Deliberate design or mere chance? The answer, as almost always, lies in the eye of the beholder. And in Google Maps' ability to make any point seem like the centre of the universe.