Only 4 of Australia’s 1,075 “Big Things” can be mapped from the live sources — so the shortest route can’t honestly be computed
Asked:“show me map of all "big things" in australia and the shortest path between them”
A 2022 encyclopedic census counted 1,075 Big Things across Australia; the accessible state-by-state extraction yielded 188 named entries (four states/territories only), and just 4 entries carried recoverable coordinates. The map below plots those four and the shortest open straight-line visiting order among them — 2,137 km of geodesics, not roads. It is a transparent partial map, not a national tour.
Coordinate-verified Big Thing Shortest open visiting order, great-circle approximation — not a road route
The full census scale is missing from the map: Wikiwand’s encyclopedic list records 1,075 Big Things as of 2022, but its structured coordinates were not recoverable in extraction. wikiwand.com
“All” is ambiguous: a travel article estimates only ~150 “official” Big Things, one-seventh of the encyclopedic count — no canonical registry exists. thrillist.com
The 188-row extraction is truncated: it covers only Queensland (77), New South Wales (75), Northern Territory (19) and the ACT (17) — Victoria, SA, WA and Tasmania are absent. wikiwand.com
Even a state-level list overflows the census pace: one South Australian checklist alone claims 56 Big Things, none of which reached the coordinate-bearing set. myrigadventures.com
What the truncated extraction does show: 188 named entries in four states
Searchable inventory — 188 extracted names
Name
State / territory
Source
Method & limitations
Coordinates for the four plotted sites were parsed verbatim from OpenStreetMap links embedded in the encyclopedic page’s evidence text; the structured coordinate columns were blank.
The dashed path is the minimum open straight-line (great-circle) visiting order over four points: Big Apple → William the Wombat → Big Spriggina floundersi → Big Hills Hoist, ≈2,137 km. Its reverse is equivalent. It is a geodesic approximation, not a road-routed itinerary, and must not be read as the shortest driving route.
A defensible shortest route between all Big Things cannot be computed from the live sources: the set is not canonical (150 vs 1,075 claimed), most entries lack usable coordinates, and completeness would require choosing a registry, validating each current site, geocoding it, and running road-network route optimisation with a stated start/end rule.
Data: 4 coordinate-bearing rows and 188 named rows extracted from encyclopedic “Big things (Australia)” pages, plus 3 list-level and 22 source-comparison evidence rows; extraction is truncated (4 of 8 states/territories) and locality fields are unresolved. Distances are haversine great-circle km. Long inventory names wrap; localities cut for space.