Map of the Week- Lookout Mountain

On this day in 1863 Union and Confederate forces fought the Battle of Lookout Mountain. After losing a major battle at Chickamauga in September, Union forces gained control of this strategic overlook and the following day forced the Confederate troops off nearby Missionary Ridge. These battles enabled the Union Army to control most of Tennessee and set the stage for later campaigns in Georgia.

This battle and many others are nicely documented in maps for Wikipedia by amateur Civil War historian Hal Jesperson.


He also sells coffee mugs and t-shirts featuring his maps at Zazzle. Maybe someday he'll make a Lookout Mountain coffee mug that looks as nice as this one showing the Battle of Shiloh.

Map of the Week- Russia's Time Zones

President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, in a recent speech, suggested reducing the number of time zones in Russia. A recent BBC article titled "Changing Times in Russia" highlights the difficulties of governing a country that has 11 time zones.

Businesses along the Amur River, across from China have a very short time window in which to be in contact with Moscow during normal working hours. Much of that region's economy has stronger economic ties to China, being closer not only geographically but temporally. The region could possibly improve ties to western Russia and Europe by changing their clocks to be in a closer time zone. 

China, despite spanning five time zones has adopted one time zone for the entire country. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau also use this same time zone. Russia is much too big and would more likely combine several of the time zones on the map above. The BBC article did not list any specifics from Medvedev 's speech but according to Georgian Daily he has proposed cutting the number of time zones to four.

Russia's 11 time zones are a source of pride for many, showing how large the country is and resistance to the plan is expected. A quote from a skeptical scholar of the plan via the Georgian Daily article:

Moscow can cut the number of time zones but it can’t change the shape of the earth or the speed of its rotation relative to the sun.

At least we hope they can't. They do have nukes!
Here is a list of the time zones:

Kalningrad:   UTC (aka GMT) + 2
Moscow:   UTC + 3
Samara:   UTC + 4
Yekaterinburg:   UTC + 5
Omsk:   UTC + 6
Krasnoyarsk:   UTC +7
Irkutsk:   UTC +8 - this is China's time zone
Yakutsk:   UTC +9
Vladivostok:   UTC +10
Magadan:   UTC +11
Kamchatka:   UTC + 12

Map of the Week- Where was the Wall?

There's been much media coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. One story I heard was about how some residents of Berlin no longer remember exactly where the wall was located. The German Senate has been working to preserve remnants of the wall and border fortifications. Berlin's official web site has a nice online map and guide showing the course of the wall and the associated monuments. This overview map allows the user to add artistic, memorial and historic sites and click on them for details.

                            
 Below is a zoomed in view of the area around the Pariser Platz and Brandenburg Gate.

           

The web site also has aerial views, history, photos and tourist information.

There is also a 3D view although it requires the Google Earth plugin and does not allow for much interaction.














Here is an aerial view of the Checkpoint Charlie area combined with a map of that location.

The City has also constructed a hiking and bicycling trail along the 160 kilometers of the former border, most of it following the border control roads used by the two governments. The website has a nice description of each section of the trail and also has a link to the Mauer Guide, a downloadable GPS tour that traces the path of the wall with historical information. The guide can be loaded to a cell phone or other handheld device.

Happy 20 jahre mauerfall!

The Map as Art-Exhibit Opens Tomorrow

The Map as Art opens tomorrow at the Christopher Henry Gallery in New York City. This is a group show curated by Christopher Henry and Katharine Harmon, author of the really great map book "You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination." The show shares its name and accompanies the launch of Harmon's new book. There is an opening reception tomorrow (November 5th) from 6-9 PM.

The gallery is "conveniently located off the Elizabeth Street ramp of the Lower Manhattan Expressway" as illustrated below. Those of you in NYC might actually get the joke.


I did not get any images from the show other than what's on the gallery's site. Below is "Strike Anywhere" by Doug Beube.


Many artists are featured including Joyce Kozloff and Karey Kessler.

Here's a quote from the press release. I'm not sure how much I agree with it but it's an interesting take on mapping.

"In the guise of offering illumination, maps obscure. They purport to bring order to the fundamental chaos of life, promising clarity in the face of flux, and claiming knowledge of the unknowable. In their quest to demarcate our differences, they comfort us even as they give the lie to the notion of common experience."

Map of the Week- Pumpkins!

Denis Wood, an artist and cartographer has co-written several books on mapping, most notably "The Power of Maps" and "Making Maps." Since the 1970's he has been working on a "narrative atlas" of Boylan Heights, his neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. While the atlas has not been published, there are excerpts on the "Making Maps" blog. One of the most well known of these is his jack-o-lantern map.

The map shows the locations of jack-o-lanterns using an image of each one. The lack of any other detail challenges the idea of this being a map. The author aims to break down boundaries between mapping and art and to focus on the patterns rather than on the specific locations that would be apparent if the streets were included.

There's a Map of the Week for That

OK - I screwed up this post a bit. I will leave the original post intact but see the correction section at the end.

Verizon has blitzed the TV and print media with their clever "There's a map for that" advertisements. Given the ease of manipulating this type of map, I'm surprised that this ad has gone virtually unchallenged so far. Does Verizon's map color in any area of reception regardless of how spotty? Are the map projections the same? Does the red vs blue scheme imply some kind of secret Republican bias on the part of Verizon?
I wasted way too much time on a somewhat extensive web search and found nothing out there that challenges this ad. Here is a screenshot from the ad.


Here's a look at AT&T's "coverage viewer" map - it tells a slightly different story.


Both carriers, Verizon and AT&T have interactive coverage maps. You can zoom down to street level to see your local coverage. However, if you live in any urbanized area you're likely to see nothing but a sea of color. Both of these pages have very similar disclaimers. Here's part of AT&T's.
"Map may include areas served by unaffiliated carriers, and may depict their licensed area rather than an approximation of their coverage. Actual coverage area may differ substantially from map graphics, and coverage may be affected by such things as terrain, weather, foliage, buildings and other construction, signal strength, customer equipment and other factors. AT&T does not guarantee coverage"
Sounds like lots of gray areas that can go either way depending on whose map you're making.

The obvious lesson in all of this-don't believe everything you see in advertisements-or maps.

Or on this blog (See below)!!!!!





CORRECTION:
So, as anonymous commenter pointed out, the AT&T map I show above from their website is a "Voice & Data" map, not 3G. As are both of the coverage viewers that I linked to above. You can get a 3G map from AT&T but it's very tricky-if you really want it look for instructions in the comments. The map you will find is actually pretty similar to the map shown in the ad.

What's the difference? Is it just speed or are there things you can't do with "Voice & Data?" I don't know enough about this stuff to speculate.

So if I've unfairly portrayed Verizon as a bunch of liars, sorry about that. However, I am still very skeptical about their own coverage map and the entire premise of the ad. As the Verizon disclaimer says:

"This does not show exact coverage. Wireless service is subject to network and transmission limitations, particularly near boundaries and in remote areas"

If you want maps that are better than the blurry ones in the ads, see the Verizon 3G page.

It was 45 years ago today (last month)

At a yard sale in Pennsylvania we found a nice collection of vintage records and teen magazines from the 1960's. The sellers were big Beatles fans who saw them on tour and collected magazines that featured the band.

I picked up the October/November 1964 issue of "teen talk" for 50 cents. The original newsstand price was 35 cents. Issued on the eve of the first major U.S. Beatles tour*, there were lots of articles about the Fab Four and other British Invasion bands. Also included was a map of the tour.




* This magazine probably hit the stores well before October 1964 - the tour dates (August-September 1964) are mentioned in the future tense.