FACT CHECK: Does This Image Show A German Village In The Shape Of A Fingerprint?

An image shared on Facebook over 300 times purportedly shows a German village shaped like a human fingerprint.

Verdict: False

The picture was created digitally. It does not show a genuine German village.

Fact Check:

The Facebook image shows what appears to be an aerial shot of a town that spirals like a fingerprint pattern. “This is a german village shaped like fingerprint,” reads the image’s caption.

The image, however, is not a photo of a genuine village in Germany. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found the picture on the cover of a February 2015 issue of Modus magazine. The magazine attributes the “cover illustration” to Yippiehey. Yippiehey is the alias of German digital artist Jacob Eisinger who “specialises in 3D illustration,” according to his bio on his page on the social media platform Behance. Behance is a platform where users can “showcase and discover creative work,” according to the company.

Eisinger posted photos of his creation, as well as the cover of the Magazine, on his Behance account in February 2015. (RELATED: Does This Image Show A Solar Eclipse From The International Space Station?)

“For the February issue of Modus Magazine I was asked to create a satellite picture kind of artwork showing a fingerprint-shaped city to illustrate ‘the human touch,’” Eisinger posted. “Experimenting with cloner objects and dynamic texturing it was a great challenge to figure out the best way to create a crowded place like a city.”

Eisinger further confirmed he created the picture in a Twitter direct message to Check Your Fact, stating, “That is my image and it is created in CGI.”

The same image was shared in 2017 on Eisinger’s Instagram account, @yippiehey, with a caption that indicates it is a computer-generated image.

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