March 2011

Eighth Anniversary: Top Eights
Today marks the eighth anniversary of The Map Room, which I started on March 31, 2003. Yes, it’s been that long. The site has gone through a number of different iterations and questionable site designs. In the past year alone,…
Google Mercury
Well, not quite — but you can view Mercury imagery in Google Earth by downloading a KML file. That sounds like a very good way to peruse all that new imagery from the MESSENGER spacecraft, now orbiting the planet, in…
GOCE Releases New Geoid Model of the Earth
A new geoid model has been released by the GOCE satellite mission. Included in the release is an animated geoid model. A geoid is a gravity map of the earth that compensates for ocean currents and variations in sea…
More Men than Women Ignore GPS Directions, But Lots Do in Either Case
A survey has found that men are more likely than women to ignore the directions given by their GPS navigation system, Reuters reports: 83 percent of men versus “less than three quarters” of women. (How much less?) Gender issues aside…
New Sendai Imagery in Google Earth
Google has updated Google Earth’s base layer imagery with new high-resolution imagery from the Sendai, Japan area. The imagery was collected on Sunday and Monday, so this is an incredibly fast turnaround. The imagery will also be available in Google…
Railway Maps of the World
Mark Ovenden announced on Twitter today that his next book, Railway Maps of the World, will be available soon. (According to Amazon and the publisher’s website, next month.) I’ve known about this for a couple of months now and…
Two GPS Cameras from Panasonic
Two new point-and-shoot digital cameras from Panasonic with built-in GPS, announced in January, are available this month: the 14-megapixel travel compact ZS10 or TZ20, which I presume is a successor to the ZS7/TZ10, and the 12-megapixel ruggedized TS3 or…
Ozone in the Arctic
NASA Earth Observatory has released maps showing the decline of atmospheric ozone levels in the Arctic to what is approaching “the lowest levels in the modern instrumental era”: “These maps of ozone concentrations over the Arctic come from the…
The Globe and Mail’s 50 Ridings to Watch
Last Saturday’s Globe and Mail ran a feature looking at 50 electoral districts to watch in the Canadian federal election now under way. The print infographic (above) differs from the online version, which is a Google Maps mashup with…
Second Edition of Making Maps Now Available
John Krygier reports that the second edition of Making Maps, the manual of map design he co-authored with Denis Wood, is now shipping. My review of the first edition. Previously: Second Edition of Making Maps Coming Next Year. Buy…
Japan Evacuation Maps
MapAction has a number of maps relating to the current situation in Japan, including maps showing the evacuated population and search and rescue maps. The New York Times maps the evacuation zones around the Fukushima reactors. Google Maps Mania…
The New York Times Maps the Libyan Uprising
If I keep posting links to the New York Times’s online maps I’m going to run up against their paywall limit in no time. Even so, here’s their day-by-day situation map of the Libyan uprising, showing the daily state…
Before/After Maps Using JavaScript
Interactive online maps are frequently done in Flash. That’s a problem if you’re using a device that doesn’t support Flash, like an iPhone or iPad. Andrew Long discusses using a jQuery plugin — JavaScript instead of Flash — to create…
Poynter on Online Maps and Journalism
An article on Poynter explores the use of interactive maps on online news sites — basically, why they are so useful from a journalistic perspective, particularly in the context of recent major news stories (i.e., Libya and Japan). Via @googlemaps….
British Passenger Rail Network Maps
A nice collection of maps of the British passenger rail network in PDF format, both diagrammatic (think Beck’s Tube map on a national scale) and geographic, on the National Rail Enquiries website. Via @maptd….
Post-Earthquake Christchurch from 150 Metres Up
Google Maps Mania links to aerial imagery of Christchurch, New Zealand, taken only two days after the February 22 earthquake from an altitude of only 150 metres (500 feet). Resolution is 10 cm/pixel….
The NYT on Crowdsourced Humanitarian Mapping
A New York Times article about a report discussing the lessons learned from crowdsourced humanitarian mapping, of the sort seen during the Haitian earthquake. Via @geospatialnews….
Mapping New York
NYU professor Steve Hutkins wrote in to tell me about his collection of links to maps of New York….
Venetian Navigators
The Independent has a review of a book that might be of interest: Venetian Navigators by Andrea di Robilant, “an account of 14th-century map-mania and the Italian navigators who charted apparently new-found lands in the North Atlantic.” Emphasis on…
Strange Maps Blogger in the Financial Times
The Financial Times profiles Frank Jacobs, the author of the Strange Maps blog. And to think that for his first few years of blogging, he did so anonymously. Buy Strange Maps at Amazon.com (Canada, UK)…
GPS Tracklog Reviews the Magellan RoadMate 9055
Briefly noted: GPS Tracklog’s review of the Magellan RoadMate 9055, with a monster seven-inch screen, which Rich calls “perhaps the best Magellan I’ve ever tested.” Buy Magellan RoadMate 9055 at Amazon.com (Canada)…
The Ordnance Survey and the Private Sector
The business practices of the Ordnance Survey vis-à-vis its private-sector competition are being criticized. Thierry Gregorius’s so-called “hard-hitting analysis” is actually fairly even-handed: criticizing the rather two-faced nature of the OS as both government agency and commercial enterprise, but also…
Both OSM Books Reviewed
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that there are two OpenStreetMap manuals out there — the one by Frederik Ramm, Jochen Topf and Steve Chilton, the other by Jonathan Bennett — each of which, confusingly, is titled OpenStreetMap. Muki…
An Irresponsible Radiation Map
Speaking of the New York Times, they published an interactive map last week that had me fuming. It was a map that showed the forecast spread of radiation from Fukushima, Japan — or, more precisely, “how weather patterns this…
Manhattan’s Street Grid, 1811-2011
To illustrate an article marking the 200th anniversary of Manhattan’s street grid, the New York Times has put together an interactive map superimposing 19th-century maps of Manhattan on the modern city. (Flash required; at some point NYT links may be…
Global Migration Maps
James Cheshire has created migration maps using data from the Global Migrant Origin Database. “Each line shows the origins and destinations of at least 4000 people in a given year (2000 in this case). The more red the line…
What People Search for on Their GPS Receivers
Mashable has infographics from TeleNav showing what people search for on their GPS receivers, based on anonymous data from 20 million subscribers….
Cruise Missiles Don’t Just Rely on GPS
Cruise missiles use GPS for navigation. As we have seen, GPS signals can be rather easily disrupted by an inexpensive jamming device. This would be a problem if cruise missiles didn’t have a backup, as Technology Review explains: terrain contour…
Still Another OpenStreetMap Book Review
While I continue to procrastinate my own review of the book, here’s another review, by Dan Karran, of OpenStreetMap: Using and Enhancing the Free Map of the World by Frederik Ramm, Jochen Topf and Steve Chilton. Dan calls it…
The 12 States of America
In the April 2010 print edition of The Atlantic, authors Dante Chinni and James Gimpel “analyzed reams of demographic, economic, cultural, and political data to break the nation’s 3,141 counties into 12 statistically distinct ‘types of place.’ When we…
Earthquake Risk vs. Population
This map compares historical seismic activity on a gridded equal-population cartogram: the colours show past earthquake activity; the map is distorted by population. “The resulting map,” says the press release, “gives each person living on earth the same amount…
Atlas der Neederlanden
Atlas der Neederlanden is a Dutch-language blog that explores the restoration of a nine-volume composite atlas — a bound collection of maps from different periods and by divers hands — by the Special Collections department of the University of Amsterdam’s…
Chicago Tribune’s News Apps Blog: Making Maps Step-by-Step
Via GIS Lounge, a five-part series from the Chicago Tribune’s News Apps Blog about “making choropleth maps using PostGIS, TileMill, Mapnik and Google Maps” — the end result being this population map of Illinois. Start with part one, here (fortunately,…
Two Books of Antiquarian Interest
British Map Engravers by Laurence Worms and Ashley Baynton-Williams. “An illustrated dictionary of well over 1,500 members of the map-trade in the British Isles from the beginnings until the mid nineteenth century, including all the known engravers and lithographers, all…
Speed Atlas’s 400th Anniversary
The Leader, a Welsh newspaper, has an article about the 16th- and 17th-century historian and cartographer John Speed, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the publication of his atlas, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine….
Radio Interview About Infinite City
Listen to an interview with Rebecca Solnit about her book, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, from 99% Invisible, a program on public radio station KALW. (Yes, my review is still coming.) Previously: LA Times Reviews Infinite City; Infinite City:…
Snopes Debunks Meltdown Fallout Map
Snopes debunks a fake map that has apparently been making the rounds. The map and accompanying message claims that lethal doses of radiation will blanket the northern Pacific Ocean and western North America following a Japanese reactor meltdown. Via @BadAstronomer….
The Scale of Maps
Bookslut’s Christopher Merkel reviews the English translation of Belén Gopegui’s 1993 prize-winning debut novel, The Scale of Maps (La escala de los mapas), in which a geographer and a mapmaker conduct an affair. [A]side from its focus on the…
Sohei Nishino’s Diorama Maps
The Guardian on the diorama maps of photographer Sohei Nishino, now on display at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London (until April 2). Last year, Nishino spent a month walking the streets of London — which, come to think…
Forbes: Where Americans Are Moving
If the U.S. migration maps I linked to earlier this month weren’t detailed enough for you, you should absolutely take a look at Forbes’s interactive map, which gives county-by-county information on domestic migration. Actually, it’s more detailed than that: for…
Disease Maps
Via MapHist comes word of a forthcoming book by Tom Koch, due out in June: Disease Maps: Epidemics on the Ground. From the publisher’s website: Disease Maps begins with a brief review of epidemic mapping today and a detailed…
Ben Joyce’s Artwork Exhibited at Google
The Google LatLong blog is the last place I’d expect to see a post about map art, but last month there was a post about just that subject — more specifically, about the fact that map-inspired works by Ben Joyce…
Grassroots Mapping
GOOD has a piece on Grassroots Mapping, an initiative that started by using balloons and kites to get aerial imagery of the Gulf oil spill in areas that were otherwise off-limits and that has since evolved into the Public Laboratory…
GPS Tracklog Reviews the Garmin nüvi 2460LT
GPS Tracklog’s hands-on review of the five-inch Garmin nüvi 2460LT only finds fault with the “wonky routing” occasionally thrown by the navigation unit’s use of its historical road speed database. “With that caveat, the nüvi 24xx models may actually…
Franklin Jarrier’s Detailed Track Maps
Franklin Jarrier’s maps of urban rail systems are neither network diagrams nor geographically accurate maps, though they have elements of both: they’re extremely precise maps of the metro systems that include the number of tracks, platforms, closed stations and routes,…
Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Maps
This post collects links to maps of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan and the ensuing tsunami. It may be updated if new maps are made available. Earthquake. USGS maps of the quake. USGS real-time earthquakes layer for Google Earth (KML)….
U.S. Passport Ownership
C. G. P. Grey’s map of U.S. passport ownership by state has been circulating the Intertubes lately (Boing Boing, a little snarkily, correlates it with U.S. diabetes rates)….
Typographic Tacoma
Via @awoodruff, Yuri Alexander’s typographic map of Tacoma, Washington — “a personal design project of mine to hide a 48in×30in piece of bare wall in my living room” — which he’s selling as a rather large print….
Post-Earthquake Christchurch Imagery
Post-earthquake imagery of Christchurch, New Zealand is now available through Google Earth and via a special Picasa web album link; both options allow you to see images from before and after the quake….
London Mass Transit Visualizations
Via Mapping London, a couple of neat visualizations of trips on London’s public transit systems. This animation (above) shows a five-percent sample of Oyster card users on the Tube throughout the day, with trips inferred from start and end…
Satellite Radar Image of Christchurch Earthquake
A satellite radar interferogram of land deformation resulting from last month’s earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand has been released. BBC News coverage. Via @MattArtz….
The Havoc Wreaked by GPS Jammers
GPS is ubiquitous and an essential component of many critical things — and, as New Scientist points out, GPS reception can be knocked out in a wide area by an inexpensive device, thanks to the fact that GPS signals are…
Libya Crisis Map
The public version of the Libya Crisis Map is now online. The CrisisMappers Standby Task Force has been undertaking a mapping of social media, news reports and official situation reports from within Libya and along the borders at the request…
Map Coasters
On MarthaStewart.com, a step-by-step guide to making coasters out of old maps. They posted this at least a year and a half ago; I’m surprised I missed it. Via FYC! Previously: Google Maps Pushpin Coasters….
Macworld Reviews Casio’s Geotagging Camera
Macworld has an extensive review of the GPS-equipped Casio Exilim EX-H20G. “The EX-H20G also has some of the best in-camera GPS features we’ve ever seen, thanks to its intuitive map interface, points-of-interest database, real-world location names (not just raw…
Woodward’s Wisconsin Map and the Shaded Relief Archive
Via Daniel Huffman comes word that David Woodward’s relief map of Wisconsin, first published in 1971, is now available for download on the Shaded Relief Archive. The archive, the brainchild of Tom Patterson, who previously gave us the Shaded…
FAA Allows iPad as Alternative to Aviation Charts
Paper maps have been replaced by their digital equivalents in many fields, but the idea that paper aviation charts could be replaced by an app running on an iPad is something new. Wired: “The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing charter…
Driver Stranded Three Days in Snow After Obeying GPS
A driver got stuck in the snow for three days because she followed her GPS navigation unit’s directions, which sent her along unpaved logging roads in New Brunswick that were impassable due to snow. New Brunswick is one of those…
Moscow Metro Maps
A collection of maps of the Moscow metro is so extensive that it must have all of them. (Above, one from 1935; they go as far back as 1931, and there are nine from 2010.) In Russian. Via @spatialanalysis….
‘How I Was Saved by Maps’
A beautiful, personal piece by Daniel Huffman on how cartography helped him overcome depression. Here’s an excerpt, but you should really read it all. I made a lot of maps during that period; it was one of the only activities…
U.S. Migration Flows
Interactive maps of domestic migration in the United States from the Pew Research Center. “They show gains and losses only from people who move from one state to another, and not from births, deaths or movement to and from…
Index of Potential Unrest
Richard Florida’s Index of Potential Unrest attempts to predict “unrest and revolutionary activism” in the Middle East and elsewhere: With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, we pulled together statistics from 152 nations and sorted them according to eight…
The Geospatial Revolution Project, Episode Three
Episode three of the Geospatial Revolution Project was posted yesterday; this latest installment covers maps’ use in war, peace, security and privacy. Previously: The Geospatial Revolution Project, Episode Two; The Geospatial Revolution Project….