A town marked on a map that doesn't actually exist and is used to help map making companies avoid being plagarized.
by youfoundher February 7, 2015
In the author’s note, John writes about how paper towns were not real places, but names of places on maps, “…created to protect against copyright infringement,” (p. 307). It’s the thought of creating something that other people want to make real, which resembles Margo so well. As she said, “It’s great being an idea that everybody likes. But I could never be the idea to myself, not all the way. And Algoe is a place where paper creation became real… I thought the paper cutout of a girl could become real here also,” (p. 294). Maybe life is not about belonging to anything or anyone. Maybe it’s not about being anything at all. Maybe it’s just about being one’s own Margo.
…All the houses that were built to fall apart… All the things paper-thin and paper frail
From a distance… You can’t see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it
“You will go to the Paper Towns.
And you will never come back.”
From a distance… You can’t see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it
“You will go to the Paper Towns.
And you will never come back.”
by Paper.Girl.</3 March 7, 2009
A town that is added to a map but doesn't exist to keep other mapmakers from crossing copyright laws.
person reading map: I've been driving around for hours and i can't find the town of Algoe
accompanying person: it must just be a paper town
accompanying person: it must just be a paper town
by piecesofyellow October 19, 2008
Look at all those cul-de-sacs, the streets that turn in on themselves all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people in their paper houses burning the furniture to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking the beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. It's just a paper town.
by whoeversaidthatwaswrong! August 23, 2010
"this paper town has no depth"
by Omantyke April 29, 2010
paper town is a made-up place used by cartographers to test for plagiarism. they will put fraud locations on their maps so if it shows up on other maps, that means another cartographer is plagiarizing.
John: Why can't Google Maps navigate me to Agloe, New York?
Margo: It's a paper town, it doesn't exist.
Margo: It's a paper town, it doesn't exist.
by connor franta's wife April 26, 2015
by MunkeeBoi December 10, 2008