Map of the Week

Indoor Living - Part 2

2012-01-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Commenter Matt pointed out that Toronto has an impressive network of (mostly underground) connections. In fact it is the largest underground shopping complex with 28 kilometers (17 miles) of shopping arcades. Other interesting facts about the network can be found here. Below is a map of the system from ygraph.

Montreal also has a large Underground City represented pink lines on this map.

Here is the Centre Eaton map.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of the world's major skyway and underground systems.

Indoor Living

2012-01-25T08:16:00.000-08:00

Had enough of winter's chill? The perfect warm weather destination is ...Minneapolis! With an extensive skyway system you can spend a week (or longer) there in your jammies and never go outside. Stay at a downtown hotel and you can walk indoors to shopping, restaurants, theaters, art galleries, tourist attractions and basketball games. Here's a map of the skyway system.

Gas Station Maps-The Early Days

2012-01-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

According to Early Gulf Road Maps of Pennsylvania the Gulf Oil Corporation is usually credited with the first drive in gas station - on Baum Boulevard in Pittsburgh (where the company was headquartered) and the first freely distributed road maps.

Both of these credits are subject to debate - see footnote two from the article above, however the early oil company road maps were predominantly from Gulf. The first Gulf maps were made by W. B. Akins, a Pittsburgh advertising man. After a few years they switched to professional map making companies, first the American Blue Book Company, then Rand McNally and then H.M. Gousha after Harry Gousha left Rand McNally to start his own company.

Below are some details from a 1915 road map of Pennsylvania produced by the Automobile Blue Book Company and distributed by Gulf.

What is interesting (to me) about these maps is the importance of certain places (and lack of others) in the era before expressways.

The cover talks up "that good Gulf gasoline" and the "sterling qualities of this excellent petroleum product." It also advertises Supreme Auto Oil - "Its high viscosity renders it a perfect warm weather lubricant and its low cold test an Ideal Winter Oil, - as it flows freely at zero."

In addition to road maps Gulf also distributed trip itinerary maps. Here are routes from Pittsburgh to Buffalo and Cleveland (marked in orange), with a listing of the places in between and the mileage. I like the quaint picture too.

Below is a 1917 "Half Day Tour" from Philadelphia to New Hope, Lambertville and Trenton. These tours list detailed routes but don't tell you what to see along the way or why you should go to places like Lambertville. They do tell you where to fill up your tank - in this case at the Gulf station at Broad and Hunting Park in North Philadelphia. Gulf only had seven stations in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey at the time.

Of course I chose this tour for my own personal history. We lived in this area and took many of these trips.

Here is a 1925 Gulf map of parking regulations in downtown Pittsburgh. By then there were 14 Gulf stations in Pittsburgh. The takeaway from this map is to either try to find a space near the Point or on Congress St if you don't want to keep moving your car.

I will finish up with a detailed itinerary for the often changing Lincoln Highway, renamed Quebec Route 366 briefly in summer 2011. I have had inquiries about the specific route of this road - here it was in 1925. Street by street directions are listed for Pennsylvania. The New Jersey route is listed by town only.

Thanks to Historical Maps of Pennsylvania for the content of this post.

Another Texas Redistricting Fight

2012-01-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

The Texas Legislature drew the new congressional district map to protect Republican incumbents. However, the map may be in violation of the Voting Rights Act because it suppresses the opportunity for minority representation. Texas has gained four new seats in congress because of its population growth - 65% of which came from Hispanics. As a result a federal court in San Antonio has drawn their own map. This map could result in Democrats gaining up to four new seats. Here are the maps via the Houston Chronicle.

The fight is going to the Supreme Court and if not acted upon quickly will force the state to delay its April primary for a month or longer.

One person who seems to be having fun with this process is Texas Tribune illustrator Todd Wiseman. Here are some of his variations on a theme:

Samoans come early to the New Year's party

2012-01-04T06:51:00.000-08:00

Samoa lost a day on Friday. In an effort to boost trade and tourism with the Pacific Rim Countries, the Prime Minister decided on a "great leap forward" across the international date line.

This is not the first time Samoa has moved across the date line. In 1892 they moved to the east side of the line to make trade with the United States and Europe more convenient. Now that China, Australia, New Zealand and other countries to the west have become more important trade partners, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has decided to move back to the west side. According to Tuilaepa: "In doing business with them we're losing out on two working days a week. While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand and when we're at church Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane." This quote and more information can be found at the Daily Mail.

This change means that Samoa and American Samoa will be on different days. This brings about all kinds of possibilities for celebrating any notable date twice with a very short flight or boat trip. It also means that Cape Mulinuu (Sunset Point) will no longer be the last piece of land in the world to see the day end. Now that honor will be passed to Cape Taputapu on American Samoa.

The Frosted States of America

2011-12-28T08:47:00.001-08:00

My wife is obsessed with cookie cutters. We travel places and get them as souvenirs. A few years ago I decorated a cookie as a Vermont Foliage Map. Our friend's son Ezra just one upped me with this rendering of the entire lower 48 on a remarkably small US shaped cookie.

He even followed the rule about no same colored states touching-except for a last minute blunder at Vermont. You can nitpick about other geographical details but I doubt you can do better. Nice job Ezra!

A Christmas Ramble with the Dog

2011-12-25T08:17:00.001-08:00

The "Greatest Grid"

2011-12-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made a trip to the Museum of the City of New York to see The Greatest Grid. This exhibit celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Commissioner's Plan of 1811 that established the city's grid system. The exhibit is full of historic maps and the centerpiece is the Commissioners Plan Map of 1811 laid out on a glass covered table.

The grid was placed over the more sparsely settled areas above North Street (now Houston) without regard to the city's topography, water features or existing houses. Villages such as Harlem were eliminated to make room for straight streets. Houses that stood in the way (or even near the way) were demolished or moved. There is a section of the exhibit showing how houses were moved to accommodate the grid. This map from the exhibit's web site is one of many that show the land before the streets were built with the grid superimposed in light gray.

The exhibit starts with a video loop of residents proudly stating their address along the grid eg."125th and First!" After spending hours gawking at the maps you can go upstairs and see The Unfinished Grid, a collection of future design speculations resulting from a call for ideas from the Architectural League of New York. Many of these designs revolve around ways to break free from the grid's restrictions.

This collection of maps, photographs, newspaper clippings and other artifacts is very impressive and well worth a visit if you are in the New York metropolitan area. It runs through April 15th, 2012. The museum is located on the grid, at 5th and 103rd.

Celebrating 150 Years of Italy Through Tables

2011-12-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

Italy week continues with SESSANTUNA, a collection of tables celebrating 150 years of Italian unity.

From the website of Cassina, the store that will be selling them:

SESSANTUNA is an art work consisting of 61 tables and designed as a historical retelling of Italy's unification. Every table, by Gaetano Pesce, is numbered in sequence according to the time when the state in question became part of the Union. Thus each one is historically relevant. The work also includes the smaller islands (Caprera, Elba, Lampedusa, Ischia, Ventotene and the Island of Montecristo), represented on a larger scale. The tables will be sold through an exclusive auction mechanism at the best Cassina stores (see the Where and How to purchase section).

The tables represent regional areas, not official regions or provinces. According to the site

the project is not meant as an accurate historical-geographical reconstruction of Risorgimento.

Here are a couple of tables.

Molise, on the Adriatic coast

Immediately to the east is The Gargano, "Italy's Spur"

Mapping the Italian Food Cliches

2011-12-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

Here are a few Italian food maps I've been stockpiling. I guess I'm a little hungry and in the mood for Italian.

Prodotti Tipici Della Traditione Italiana:

Typical or perhaps stereotypical food by region:

There are various pasta maps out there - I like this one the most.

Spices:

Artist Antoine Corbineau's "Prodotti Traditionali Italiani" - he also has a similar wine map. I could do an entire post just on wine maps of Italy if I was inclined to do so.

And finally, a detail from the above map.

The Dogs of London

2011-12-07T05:43:00.001-08:00

The Westbourne Grove Church Art Space in London recently held an exhibition titled The Dogs of London. The main feature was the Dogs of London map, a "playful take on social stereotypes and local observations" drawn by artist Anna Walsh. A higher resolution image where you can read the tiny text is available here. Below is a detailed section - click to get the entire map.

Here is a description the exhibition's page:

The main feature is a Dogs of London Map; an illustrated map of where each dog 'lives' in London. It is inspired by traditional map drawings, especially of London, where the river Thames more often than not takes centre stage, splitting the city in half with its curvaceous, winding form. Each of the 35 dogs is placed in their postcode area, with an 'explanation' to the sides giving a brief description of each breed. Much of the text is taken from the book 'Champions Dogs of the World' by Richard Hamilton Glyn, as Walsh found the descriptions of the dogs often uncannily describing the inhabitants of certain areas…..

Going along with the stereotypes and descriptions by the author one might say that residents of Hackney are "boisterous and self confident, can create unintentional havoc" whereas those from Shoreditch are "lively and affectionate" and will make "an affable companion." "Regular grooming" is "essential" for the residents of Battersea.

December Map Crafts

2011-12-02T06:56:00.001-08:00

Emily Garfield is a Boston area artist who creates "imaginary cartography." She will be showing her work in several area venues starting this weekend. Here are some of her maps - I have a few small prints of these.

Here is her Map Teapot, on display at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge.

A short hop to the other side of the country will get you to the 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon to see a globe exhibit called Welcome to My World - opening tonight!

Below is a work called "Underworld" by book artist and friend of the Map of the Week family, Susan Collard.

Several of the globes take on Global Warming as a theme. My favorite is this one by Bonnie Meltzer.

Finally, I'll leave you with Rebecca's Room by David Chelsea- acrylic paint on globe.

American Migration

2011-11-30T05:56:00.001-08:00

Forbes has a very nice interactive map showing migration within the USA. Click on any county and you can see where people are coming from (in blue) and where they are leaving for (in red.) Hover over a county to get the specific numbers. Clicking the year under the bar chart will give you the figures from that year.

Data is from the IRS and a more detailed description can be found here. You can see the effects of the housing bubble when comparing 2005 to 2009 in certain cities, especially Las Vegas which went from mostly blue to an almost even split. The per capita income figures are also shown for each county. This shows that many cities and other areas are exporting wealth and importing poverty. Click the map above and explore.

Native American Industry

2011-11-22T06:53:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving is a time to travel, shop, cook, watch the Cowboys lose and argue with your relatives. It is also a time to honor those who were here before we took their land. We may think of Native Americans in simplistic cliches, but the interior cultures had an extensive network of production and trade called the Hopewell Exchange System.

This map shows the extent of trade among the different cultures that flourished from about 200 BC to about 500 AD (or CE.) The map's author, Hieronymous Rowe has numerous maps of Native American culture on Wikipedia.

A few centuries later, members of the Mississippian Culture began quarrying chert, a stone used to make tools and ceremonial objects. The raw material was dug up and transported to nearby settlements to be made into hoes, spades and other tools. Here is Rowe's map of the production sites at Mill Creek, Illinois.

Tools were then traded extensively as seen here.

And you thought they only made turkeys and yams!

What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You

2011-11-17T06:25:00.001-08:00

xkcd, everyone's favorite nerdy webcomic takes on map projections this week. I'll be the first to admit that I've never heard of the Waterman Butterfly or the Peirce Quincuncial. And I call myself a cartographer!
Click for better legibility.

The Web 2.0 Map

2011-11-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of years I've seen many attempts to show the internet using a metaphoric map. Most of those attempts have not held my interest and left me confused. The Web 2.0 Map is also confusing (after all the web itself is a confusing place) but it captured my interest because it is attractive, well organized and interactive. You can pan and zoom and also click the icons for further information.

The map is like a Risk board with icons for the primary players in the industry. If you click on them you get a somewhat advertise-y description of each one. As you zoom in more companies appear on the map. It is built on Google's mapping API and is organized from north to south with the "Clouds of Infrastructure" then the "Oceans of OS and UI", the "Platform Plateau", a couple of continents to hold social networking, searching and payment and at the bottom a "Subcontinent of Advertising." There's also some good puns scattered about.

At the top of the map there are alternate views for "Movements" and "Data Layers." Movements is designed to show "how a handful of major actors in the Internet Economy are moving from their bases of power into other points of control across the map." At the moment this view doesn't appear to change anything. The "Data Layer" tab was built for the 2011 Web 2.0 Conference. This view represents eight major internet players as cities, with skyscrapers for different data categories such as social, location, search and and content.

Each city has the same buildings at different heights so in the view above we see Twitter having interest data as its highest building, Facebook has tall buildings for social and wildcard (uncategorized) data, Google's tallest building represents search data and Yahoo's is content.

Confused yet? For a description of the main map see John Battelle's Web 2.0 Summit blog post. For a description of the Data Layer (or Data Frame) see his Searchblog post.

Melting Sea Ice in the Arctic Ocean

2011-11-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting faster than climate models have predicted. A recent article from The Economist looks at the causes. Included is this map comparing average and recent sea ice extents.

The article also links to an animation that shows the opening up of potential new shipping routes - also shown on the map above. Here is a still frame.

Some interesting notes from the article:

Melting ice creates a "feedback loop" where there is more water and less ice. Water absorbs light and heat, while ice reflects it. More water and less ice means more heat is retained.

Melting ice will enable the extraction of more fossil fuel from the area, creating another feedback loop in which more greenhouse gas emissions will be created.

The melting of the ocean ice will do little to raise the sea level, however eventually more ice will melt off of Greenland and other land areas and that will cause a sea level rise.

Tunisian Election Irregularities

2011-10-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Tunisians voted this weekend for the first time since their revolution. I was hoping to find an election results map to see if there were any regional patterns to the vote but the results are not all in yet. What I was able to dig up was this interactive map of voting irregularities from ISIE, Tunisia's independent election commission.

While it looks numerous, many of the irregularities are fairly benign acts like tearing down posters, not entering the voting booth in isolation, and using the flag-whatever that means. The violence and threat categories are either mostly empty or some data is missing. In fact, many of the categories are fairly empty. The above map shows all incidents. The map below shows "violation of silence" if my bad French comprehension is accurate. I chose this category because there are lots of incidents. The violence and corruption maps are pretty boring by contrast.

As you zoom in, the larger circles spread out to show more precise locations.

You can also change the basemap. I switched from the default aerial view because I find the street map easier to read. The only problem is the highway markers start to look like incidents.

If I find an interesting election results map I will put it in a future post.

Weekend Special-Intelliglobe Knows Too Much

2011-10-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a cheesy video ad showing gangsters chasing Replogle's Intelliglobe through the streets of Chicago. The globe is not only interactive, but can outrun gangsters while telling passersby how long it will take to fly to Caracas and what animals are native to the southeastern USA.

Boylan Heights and the Poetics of Cartography

2011-10-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Denis Wood's recent book Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas is featured on Places, an online journal of design. In the 1970's and 80's he began working with his students on a "narrative atlas" of the Boylan Heights neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. These maps are unique in that they remove the usual street patterns to reveal the bare details. His map of jack-o'-lanterns from this series was featured here on a Halloween post a couple of years ago. The Places feature has a slideshow of some of these maps. Here are a couple of examples:

Fences

Traffic Signs

Porch Ceiling Colors

The Places feature includes Wood's eloquent descriptions of the creative process. Here is a quote about making the "Pools of Light" map:

The usual “efficient” map would have located everything on the street onto a single sheet — that is, different marks for lamp posts, fire hydrants, street signs, trees. Our inefficient map concentrated on a single subject, and, rather than lamp posts, it brought the pools of light into view. No legend, no north arrow, no neat line, none of the usual apparatus. At last, a modernist feel!

That’s when I knew we could write poems in maps, and I began thinking seriously about a poetics of cartography.

A few more maps:

Intrusions Under the Hill - water, sewer and gas lines

Barking Dogs

Other maps include a map of power lines titled "Squirrel Highways", a mailman's delivery route, a diagram of the distance and direction that rent money travels to absentee landlords, wind chimes, viewsheds, and a bunch of others. The slideshow can be seen here.

Map of the Week-Shipwrecks of the Delmarva

2011-10-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

National Geographic features Shipwrecks of the Delmarva on their maps page. I never would have guessed that the chicken farms on Route 13 were perched on such treacherous soil. Here is a detailed view from the Zoomify interface.

From the web page:

Developed by renowned marine archaeologist and accomplished author Don Shomette, and designed by award-winning cartographer Robert Pratt, Shipwrecks of Delmarva is a stunning cartographic piece based on years of research and expert visual design.

I can't resist a few more detailed views.

The burning ship in this last one represents the amazing 2011 Phillies playoff run. Or maybe the gently sinking Rose is the better metaphor - it's just downstream from the stadium.

Map of the Week - QSL Card Maps

2011-10-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

QSL (Query Station Location) cards are postcards sent by amateur radio operators to verify station reception. The cards provide a visual identity for radio operators and are popular collectibles. Garth Hamilton, operator of station VE3HO in Fonthill, Ontario creates map based QSL cards for other operators. Here are some examples:

Here's his own card.

Franquelin's Map of Louisiana

2011-09-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin was the first official cartographer in Canada. He mapped the interior of North America in great detail in order to bolster French claims to the region. In 1684, he prepared this remarkable map recording the explorations of Jolliet and La Salle. The map is one of the first to contain many common place names, most of which started as rivers, such as Chicago (Chekagou), Illinois (both a lake and a river), Wisconsin (R. Misconsing), Kansas (Cansa), Ohio and the Wabash (Ouabache) among others.

The original map has been lost. This later facsimile is available from the Library of Congress. Below is a detail showing the eastern Great Lakes, "La Pennsylvanie," "Virginie," and the Ohio River referred to as the "St. Louis" but with a tributary called Ohio.

The map shows the Mississippi River flowing west into Texas before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. According to Louisiana: European Exploration and the Louisiana Purchase (see page 14) from the Geography Division of the Library of Congress, the course of the river was fraudulently altered to gain royal support for a fort at its mouth. By being closer to Mexico, the fort would have been more economically viable by serving as a staging ground for incursions into Spanish territory and attacks on the silver mines of Mexico.

From the Geography Division publication:

Having gained French support for his project, La Salle attempted to return to the Mississippi by way of the Gulf Coast in 1684-85, but his ships missed the mouth of the river and the expedition landed at Matagorda Bay, Texas. Two years of starvation and disease followed and subsequently a mutiny took his life. La Salle failed to establish a permanent colony in the lower Mississippi Valley but he did plant French claims over the vast region that eventually became the Louisiana Purchase.

Map of the Week - Wear a Helmet!

2011-09-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

NASA's defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is expected to fall back to earth on Friday, give or take a day. They don't know where but based on the satellite's orbit they've narrowed it down to somewhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south latitude, in other words somewhere between northern Canada and the southern tip of South America - where just about everyone lives. The dark areas on the map below could get hit with debris.

If you're in Antarctica, you have nothing to fear, except for the fact that your continent has gotten huge on this map projection. For the rest of us there's a 1 in 3,200 that someone in this zone will get hit. The U.S. Strategic Command at Vandenberg Air Force Base will provide updates as the time gets closer. In the meantime watch for falling objects.

Bonus Tropical Storm Coverage

2011-09-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

From NASA's Earth Observatory page:

Nearly a week after Hurricane Irene drenched New England with rainfall in late August 2011, the Connecticut River was spewing muddy sediment into Long Island Sound and wrecking the region's farmland just before harvest. The Thematic Mapper on the Landsat 5 satellite acquired this true-color satellite image on September 2, 2011.

It's also interesting to see the comparison of the Connecticut with the Thames River. When I first looked at the image, I assumed that there was less sediment from the Thames because its drainage area received less rainfall but that's not the only reason:

To the east, the Thames River appears to be carrying very little sediment at all on September 2. According to O'Connell, the Thames "drains glaciated terrain, so fine sediment was removed long ago." Most of the land surface in the Thames basin is "just bedrock, till, and glacial erratics." Unlike the Connecticut, areas within the Thames watershed only received 2 to 4 inches of rain in most locations.

Map of the Week Miscellany for September, 2011

2011-09-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

There's a lot going on this week and if I only didn't have to work I could devote more time to these posts and make them more meaningful but be careful what you wish for. Anyway here are a few interesting items I've found this week:

An Army Corps of Engineers map of the flood control structures in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

The manual this map appears in describes how the levees in Wilkes Barre and across the river in Kingston can form a bottleneck and make flooding worse for communities downstream. In 1972 these walls were too short to contain the flow from Tropical Storm Agnes and the city was flooded. The water stored from this flooding helped spare downstream places like Sunbury. Since then the levees have been raised, partially sparing Wilkes Barre from this weekend's floods (though water did get in by seeping under the levees.)

This sent more water to downstream places like Bloomsburg, where record setting flooding occurred.

Below is a map from the AP showing the some of the worst hit places.

Daniel Huffman's wonderful river schematic map shows how these places interconnect.

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Other Miscellaneous Notes:
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Tomorrow night (September 15th) David Byrne will squish an inflatable globe under the High Line in New York City. It will be there until October 1st. To sort of quote one of his songs "this was a parking lot, now it's all covered in globe." More information is available from New York Magazine.

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From LA Taco ("Celebrating the taco lifestyle in Los Angeles") comes this chart showing the population growth of the largest cities in the USA.

Map of the Week - About that Tropical Storm

2011-09-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

My colleagues in Vermont are doing a great job providing timely data for disaster responders under difficult circumstances. The Vermont Center for Geographic Information's offices have been flooded for the last week and a half but they are up and running. Meanwhile the Vermont Agency of Transportation is publishing and updating this detailed map every 12-24 hours.

Here's a detail from Wardsboro, a town I've spent time in and that was until recently inaccessible.

It's a big, colorful mess over there but they're still hoping to be open for the upcoming foliage season when things get really colorful.

Map of the Week - About that Earthquake

2011-08-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

So we had this earthquake yesterday. OK 5.8 is nothing by west coast standards but when it happens on the east coast it's really important! I'd love to see a map of all the tweets because they apparently traveled quicker than the quake itself. There were reports of people seeing the tweets before feeling the quake. Of all the maps out there, this one from Joe Hanson is clearly the most informative.

Anyway, the Baltimore Sun shows this map from the USGS showing the intensity felt by color. They use a detailed questionnaire to make it a bit less subjective.

Here is a link to other USGS maps. Hope you survived. I didn't feel a thing but I was on my bicycle and everything feels bumpy from there.

Map of the Week - Reverse Colonialism

2011-08-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a "cool" map that recently appeared on Strange Maps. It was produced by cinematographer and multimedia artist Inuk Silis Høegh for a project called "Melting Barricades," part of the Rethinking Nordic Colonialism exhibit. The map pictures Denmark being colonized by Greenland, not just by the people but also by climate and topography.

Greenlandic names are imposed on places with the native Danish names in parentheses. The country name and title of the map is Qallunaat Nunaat (Danmark) and its largest city is Nunap Utsussua (København.) The coastline has become jagged from glacial erosion and the frozen interior named after native Greenlanders. The author also appears to have named a strait after himself, the Høegh Havet.

There are a lot of details that escape me because I don't speak either of the languages and don't know my Illuqarfiks from my Nunaqarfiks. Some understandable (to English speakers) place names include "Chilly Friday" and "Air Greenland Fjord."

Høegh also made a video called Attack-atigiit showing the Greenlandic occupation of Denmark. The language barrier prevents me from all the clever details but the general picture is clear. Below are some stills. The first one shows quizzical Danes studying the above map. At least I think that's the idea.

In this one Greenland is shown on a world map as a Mercator Giant, planting its flags around the world.

Weekend World Map of Condiments

2011-08-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

It's another weekend - so enjoy your local condiment. This map is from Jeff Wysaski's Pleated Jeans site. South Salsa?

Public Redistricting Contest

2011-08-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

Azavea, a GIS software development company is launching an online redistricting contest for Philadelphia in an attempt at a non-partisan, collaborative process. From techPresident:
Amid Protest Over Closed Philadelphia Redistricting Process, Tech Firm Decides to Start Its Own.

Giving the public a nice and easy interface to make their own districts is a good idea but the City Council can still choose to ignore it. Results will be posted on the Redistricting the Nation website. This site also has a draw your own district interface and lists the Top 10 least compact congressional districts in the country such as Maryland's District 2.

Preserving Endangered Languages in Alaska

2011-08-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

The Alaska Native Language Center in an attempt to preserve indigenous languages has created this striking map of language groups. Some of the languages represented on this map are spoken by fewer than 10 people, others are no longer spoken.

The map is an update of a 1974 map by Michael Krauss that was a result of a linguistic survey focused on variations in pronunciations. Krauss gathered much of his language information from patients at the Alaska Native Service Hospital. There is a detailed history of this and previous Russian and American maps on the Resources pages from the Center's website. There is also a detailed discussion of the sometimes controversial choices made for language names and spellings. Interestingly many of the language names translate to mean either "people of this region" or "real", "true" or "genuine" person.

The Resources pages also provide guidance in giving your dog a traditional Native Alaskan name. Some examples:

maguyuk 'howler'
pakak 'one that gets into everything'
pamiiruq 'wags his tail'
pukiq 'smart'
qannik 'snowflake'
qimukti 'puller'
tupit 'tattoo lines on face'
pukulria 'bone chewer'
yakone' 'red aurora'
shtiya 'my strength'

Map of the Weekend-Riding the Hubway

2011-07-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Boston finally caught up to Washington, DC and Minneapolis and started a bike share program - the Hubway. They have an interactive map showing the stations and availability of bicycles at each one.

Currently the system serves limited areas but they plan to expand it into Cambridge, Somerville and other neighborhoods in Boston. I have not had a chance to try it out yet (as I did in Montreal - see the comments section from this post) but the Boston Globe did and posted this somewhat unfair article where they raced it against the subway and a taxi. In addition to the indirect route the bicyclist took, she also needed to purchase a membership pass. I've cycled on those streets and find it hard to believe that it would take half an hour to get from the library to Bobby Orr. Anyway the graphic is well done.

If you're in town give it a ride. The streets are not ideal for cycling but it's still the best way to see a new place or get a new perspective on a familiar one.

Map of the Week - Netflix

2011-07-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

I was going to post something more intellectual than this but today's a busy one so here's something nice and dumb- a map of what Netflix considers to be popular in your state courtesy of Slacktory.

Map of the Weekend-Sweet Mappy Dreams

2011-07-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

The best way to end a Detroit map week is to fall asleep on a nice Detroit River Pillow from the SaltLabs.

Or you can choose from a range of other nice designs. Sweet Dreams!

Detroit - the Woodward Plan

2011-07-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of good cartographic content on flickr. I was looking for something else on a flickr group titled The Paper Cites- Speculative and Unbuilt Structures, when I came across this image from a user who calls himself whitewall buick. It shows the "Governor and Judges' Plan" for Detroit after the1805 fire destroyed the city. This plan was based on L'Enfant's plan for Washington DC with a series of plazas and wide boulevards radiating outwards. The shaded area is what was actually implemented.

According to the poster, the remaining areas grew haphazardly because the city was not given the authority to force private landowners to subdivide their land according to the plan. Unfortunately much of the content on flickr is poorly attributed and he does not give much more information.

Here is a map the current street network (and what was ruined) from Detroit Yes! I suspect this map is a bit out of date because it does not show the Campus Martius Park (see below.)

Michigan Territory Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward proposed a plan of hexagonal blocks with the Grand Circus as the central point.

The Campus Martius, a few blocks south of the Grand Circus, is the point of origin for Michigan's coordinate system of roads that includes the Seven and Eight Mile roads located at those distances away.

Here is a photo of the point of origin marker. Campus Martius Park has recently been redeveloped into a very popular city park with fountains, performance spaces and an ice skating rink.

South Sudan- A Work in Progress

2011-07-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

The new Republic of South Sudan is quickly finding its way onto world maps but you may want to wait another week or two before purchasing your next wall map. Here is the new nation with it's name incorrectly specified on National Geographic's "Executive" Africa Map on my iPhone - it appears the same way on the wall map.

However, the classic map hasn't received the new nation yet.

Unless you have the iPhone app where it appears on the map but not yet in the list of countries:

Good luck South Sudan. We'll get you on the map correctly soon-probably more quickly than any previous country.

Animated Map of Wikipedia Edits

2011-07-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Wikimedia Statistics produced this animated map showing edits to Wikipedia by language and location on what they refer to as a "typical day" - May 10th 2011. The animation starts at 12:15 GMT, giving it a European bias but you can move the clock ahead. I don't see an option to move the clock backwards to see more of what happens in Asia. Here is a screen shot. You can click on it to get to the animation but it may not work in some browsers.

You can also choose bubble maps or heat maps and see the distribution of edits in various languages. The background can change if you like to be distracted by gratuitous topography. I prefer the dark background. This colorful map shows the most edited language in each area.

Bicycling on the Google Trails

2011-06-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

I was looking at a bicycling route in eastern Pennsylvania when I discovered that Google Maps now has a bicycling option. It is available under the "Traffic" tab - click on "more" to access it.

They don't provide you with a legend but it looks like the dark green are off-road paths and trails, lighter green are bike lanes and dashed lines are proposed routes. The maps tend to be optomistic-some of these routes are impassible mudholes in the spring as I recently discovered. Other paths look like this one.

The picture above is of the circled path below. I thought it looked like an odd place for an off road path so I looked it up on street view and unless the DRPA has changed its policy then this can't legally be considered a bicycle route. Note also the continuing presence of Quebec Route 366 throughout our country.

Bicycling directions are also available by clicking the bicycle icon (the far right choice at the top.) Of course, this is also subject to google errors such as telling you to take Quebec Route 366 across western Pennsylvania.

Upon further review the driving route still appears as the first choice. You have to scroll down on these directions to see that this is not actually the suggested bicycle route. You can't ride your bike on Quebec Route 366 through Greensburg because it is a limited access highway. The bicycle route finds a way to sensibly avoid central Greensburg. However, they still direct you onto some sections of the highway that don't look very legal or safe.
Where there are bicycling trails the directions they will find them and give you a pretty good route.

It's good to see the Google giving bicycling some attention and the tools are useful, if not perfect. They also make me want to try some new routes. So get on your bike and enjoy the summer!

Find Yourself a City to Live In

2011-06-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Sunshine Superboy posted this map on his awesome Black Maps blog. I'd say more but the map speaks for itself. Click to make it readable Link to original post.

Map of the Week-Recycled Africa

2011-06-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Anouk Zijlma is a travel writer who has lived in Africa and writes about it for About.com. She made this 4 foot high map of Africa from recycled tin cans. Her description follows:

The cans I used were specific to each country. I took into consideration team soccer colors, exports, favorite beers, and many of my personal experiences. The best oranges I ever tasted growing up came from South Africa. Nigeria drinks more Guinness than Ireland. Botswana exports diamonds and Zimbabwe exports flowers. The ocean was created from hundreds of Pepsi cans. All the cans are washed, cut and then nailed into wood. The only tools I needed was a hammer, small nails, a National Geographic map for accuracy, scissors, carbon paper and a friendly recycling plant.

Infographic of the Week-Learn a New Language

2011-06-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

From the Daily Infographic, this is not exactly a map but interesting. These languages are considered easy, medium or hard to learn for native English speakers. The data is from "learning expectations" compiled by the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. This makes me wonder how English would do for someone from any of these other places.
I spent years studying French and I can still barely speak it. If the graphic falls off the page a bit that's just Blogger being Blogger. You can click on it for a full size view.

Quebec's Longest Highway

2011-06-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

Quebec Route 366, according to Wikipedia is "a secondary highway in the Outaouais region of Quebec. It runs from Route 301 near Creemorne in the Pontiac to Route 148 in the city of Gatineau."

Quebec Route 366, according to Google runs from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Astoria, Oregon-aka U.S. Route 30. Here it is at the beginning and near the end.

The street view from Atlantic City

Why did this happen? I have no idea and nobody seems to have an answer on the google maps help forum.

I first discovered this issue when looking for something in the Exton-Downingtown suburbitopia.

Soon I discovered that they renamed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

Much of the legendary Lincoln Highway is now Quebec Route 366. This page from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review even lists a restaurant in Ligonier, Pennsylvania as being on Quebec Route 366.

Here are more views of scenic Quebec 366 as it travels across the USA.

Over and around Fort Wayne, Indiana

On the edge of Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Heading into Cheyenne, Wyoming

Pocatello, Idaho out by the airport.

Cascade Locks, Oregon

Portland, the City of Roses.

I don't know why Google has been so slow to fix this but hopefully it won't be too soon. Otherwise this post won't be as fun. I hope traffic isn't too bad on your stretch of the 366.

Satellite Images Reveal Lost Eqyptian Sites

2011-05-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

A new satellite survey of Egypt using infrared sensors with submeter resolution has revealed thousands of tombs and settlements that are buried under silt in the Nile Delta region. A team, led by Egyptologist Dr. Sarah Parcak, Ph.D. is using the imagery to locate future excavation sites. The infrared band of the spectrum enables analysts to distinguish building materials from the surrounding soil. This image forms a streetmap of the ancient city of Tanis - a much larger city than many people expected to see.

Is that the world's first expressway cloverleaf in the northwest corner?

For a regional perspective use this BBC map.

The imagery also reveals where and when sites have been looted so authorities can be on the lookout for antiquities that appear for sale. More details and a video can be found on the BBC and a program, Egypt's Lost Cities will be aired Monday on BBC One.

We're Number 5!

2011-05-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

As children, we knew our city was the fourth largest and that it would always be that way. Then in 1990 something awful happened-Houston moved ahead of us. Still, we could take solace in the fact that our metropolitan area was number 4 and Houston only got ahead by swallowing up a bunch of suburbs. Now that the Census 2010 verdict is in we are number 5 on all counts and just barely hanging on. These maps from the Philadelphia Inquirer illustrate our angst.

Dallas? Are they counting by number of parking spaces?

Using county based metropolitan areas creates some size anomalies and makes the maps look a bit goofy. Riverside? Why do they even get their own metropolitan area? It looks like they're including San Bernardino county also, making for one huge skyscraper that is mostly desert.

The north facing perspective also means losing San Francisco and Baltimore behind their larger "neighbors" but if you flipped it around you'd lose San Diego so something had to give. Of course all of this seems pretty insignificant when compared with the largest cities in the world. A little perspective goes a long way.

London Mapping Festival!

2011-05-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

The London Mapping Festival is an 18 month program(me) of activities that will eventually coincide with the 2012 Olympics. The official launch event is June 6th, however activities have already begun with an exhibit of hand drawn maps at the Museum of London. Readers of the Londonist have submitted their own entries shown online here. Some examples:
"Selected Loos of London."

"Brixton as a Tree"

Artist Alexander6's "super-swanky map of Mayfair and all of the area’s ridiculously over-priced luxury stuff..."

Many more can be found in their online archive.

Map of the Week-Mexico City's Subway Station Icons

2011-05-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

When Mexico City designed it's subway system in the 1960's there was widespread illiteracy (not so anymore.) They came up with a solution of visual signs such as colors and icons. Each station has a unique logo or icon based on local points of reference, history, nature, etc.

For example the Pino Suarez station icon depicts an Aztec pyramid that was discovered during the construction of the station.

Salto del Agua shows a local fountain and Merced shows a box of apples because it's located adjacent to one of the largest outdoor markets in the city. The stories behind most of these icons can be found by clicking the station name from this wikipedia page.

The image above is a detail from this image from Wikipedia.

I discovered these icons when I was working on my Maps on Album Covers project. One of my favorite "Rock en Espanol" bands Cafe Tacvba (not a typo) put a fake subway diagram with fake icons on their Cuatro Caminos album. The album is named for a real subway station, but the others on this map appear to be whimsical creations.

Here is the real area around Cuatro Caminos - the geodesic dome is a former bullfighting arena.

Map of the Week-US Population Change

2011-04-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's that time again when redistricting claims much of my time at work. I don't work directly with the overall US population figures, but I've been exposed to lots of ugly, poorly designed maps showing population change across the country. This map from Brookings Institute Demographer William H. Frey is one of the better ones though it's not clear if he's using the final 2010 Census figures or one of the estimates.

The resulting patterns are fairly predictable and consistent with previous decades. The ring around Minneapolis nicely exemplifies the exurban migration that may finally be starting to ebb a bit. The continuing growth of areas with the poorest access to fresh water is not really news but shows up clearly.

What is interesting is how many counties are losing population. The population loss in the Great Plains is old news but the huge number of counties in the less than 10% loss category is surprising. Unfortunately the pattern is lost a bit by the dull color choice for that category.

Maps in Unexpected Places-Savannah Part 2

2011-04-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

As promised here is part 2 of the Savannah edition of Maps in Unexpected Places.
Vic's on the River is a restaurant in an old warehouse, that was used by General Sherman's officers as a planning space. The main dining room showcases a map drawn by Union soldiers in the Civil War detailing Sherman's march from Tennessee through Georgia. The map was discovered during a renovation drawn onto the wall. For protection, it is framed under glass. The romantic dining lighting is poor for photography but here are some pictures I attempted. I can't find any good images of this map online so these photos are the best I have. First, the explanatory text.

The northern part of the map shows Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and the Georgia, Tennessee border region.

Lookout Mountain.

Some details a little further east.

Oh and by the way, the food is excellent, too. Come for the map, stay for dinner.

Maps on Album Covers-Reader Suggestions

2011-04-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

My recent "Maps on Album Covers" post was as incomplete as my music collection. Fortunately you folks stepped up and gave me some great suggestions. Here they are:

Hell's Ditch - The Pogues

Wisconsin by the Crucifucks

The Ambient series by Brian Eno is all kinds of mappy.

Coming Home by Maggie Bjorklund

No Borders Here - Jane Siberry, although the version I accidentally downloaded from her site has a different cover.

More globe than map but here's Soul Rotation by the vastly underappreciated Dead Milkmen.

This is not the front cover but apparently XTC's Colin Moulding has some nice cartographic skills. This is from Go 2.

The back cover of More Songs about Buildings and Food by Talking Heads. I'm not sure what this map is showing.

Map of the Week-Enclavistan

2011-04-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

A recent article in The Economist, titled The Land that Maps Forgot highlights the complex nature of the northern border between India and Bangladesh. The countries have been negotiating a possible land swap in order to solve the problem of enclaves - islands of Indian and Bangladeshi territory within the opposite country. There are also counter enclaves (islands within islands) as well as the world's only counter-counter enclave.

This detail of the Cooch Behar district shows the border with Indian enclaves in pink and Bangladeshi enclaves in green. Some counter enclaves are apparent such as the ones numbered 33 and 41. These are Bangladeshi areas within Bangladesh, but surrounded by Indian territory.

The full map is shown below. The age of this map is not clear from the article or from its source page but Bangladesh is "East Pakistan" so it's at least 40 years old and may date back to the original partition of Pakistan.

Thanks to my brother (aka "your brother") for his diligent reading of The Economist.

Maps in Unexpected Places-Savannah Part 1

2011-03-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a trip to Savannah, Georgia and saw a few interesting maps in unexpected places. This map, the first of two that I plan to spotlight, is embossed on both awnings of the new Sylvester & Co. Modern General store on Broughton Street downtown.

Here is a close up of one of the awnings. The black on gold is very striking and closely reflects the original map colors.

The map is titled "Plan of the City & Harbour of Savannah, in Chatham County. State of Georgia. A.D. 1818." It is from the "Report on the Social Statistics of Cities," compiled by George E. Waring, Jr., United States. Census Office, Part II, 1886. The map can be found online at the Perry-Castenada Library Map Collection at the University of Texas. Click below for a detailed view.

Savannah was founded in 1733 by General James Oglethorpe, who laid the city with six squares. As the city expanded more squares were added at regular intervals until there were 24. 22 of these squares still exist today in a National Historic Landmark District. These squares give the city a unique feel and charm. Major historic preservation and landscaping efforts protect the scenic and inviting character of the district.

This map, from 1818 shows the first 15 squares, with the area south of Liberty Street still undeveloped and listed as the "City Common." An empty space is cleared for Crawford Square, which sits on a "line of defense thrown up in 1814" along the perimeter of the city.

Map 2 from Savannah will be featured in an upcoming post.

Maps on Album Covers

2011-03-24T06:37:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be a good idea to spotlight album covers featuring maps but it turns out that there are fewer than I expected. I had to dig in some obscure places to find the ones below. Not having an exhaustive music collection I may have missed something obvious or notable. Let me know and I'll add it to the list.

I'll start with one of my personal favorite covers. Nile Rodgers of the disco/funk band Chic came out with a solo album titled "Adventures in the Land of the Good Groove" with a cover featuring lower Manhattan with faux latin place names like "Uptownicus" and "Nova Joysey."

Probably the best known album on this list is Chicago XI-Baby what a big surprise!

Martha and the Muffins went with the topographic Toronto look.

Early American folk music specialists Tasker's Chance used this historic map of part of Maryland.

Representing the world of experimental classical music is the Chicago Sound Map.

Hardcore metal band Slayer's "World Painted Blood" has a collector's edition with four different covers that when put together form a world illustrated with skulls and bones.

This is more of a globe than a map but I've always been partial to Yes so I had to include "Fragile."

Canadian popsters Barenaked Ladies used an oddly styled Michigan for a live album with the somewhat clever title "Talk to the Hand."

Two Philadelphia area bands previously covered here have some good map artwork. The Strapping Fieldhands map showing sightings of the New Jersey Devil and Slo-Mo's map of the Northern Liberties neighborhood.

Finally, a 4 CD compilation called "Left of the Dial: Dispatched from the '80s Underground" used some map mashups for their covers. Don't try to use the map below for wayfinding!

UPDATE: for more good stuff see the follow up post.

Map of the Week-Nuke Plants in Earthquake Zones

2011-03-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

The awful events going on in Japan made me curious about where else in the world there are nuclear plants in earthquake zones. Fortunately maptd had the same idea so they did all the work for me. Click the map below to get to their post and link to a google "heat map" of earthquake areas with a nuke plants overlay.

I was not previously familiar with the maptd blog but they have some excellent coverage of the mess in Japan including before and after pictures. They also include this Fox News "map fail" showing Japan's nuclear plants that includes the Shibuya Eggman, a nightclub in Tokyo. The map also missed several plants according to this wikipedia entry.

Map of the Week-Fake Countries!

2011-03-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

Micronations are small areas with (generally unrecognized) claims as sovereign states. They tend to be left or right wing attempts at secession, tax evasion schemes, jokes or publicity stunts. There is a micronation wiki on wikia, with a list and descriptions. Some are amusing while others are somewhat disturbing and the level of seriousness is not always clear.

The microfreedom page has descriptions, flags, links to websites and this map. There is also helpful information and warnings for anyone interested in starting their own country.

Here is a detailed view of some of the micronations of North America. The map and country lists do not completely agree.

I have not carefully researched the details of each county but the republic of Molossia has a good website with some interesting details about it's wars with Mustachistan and East Germany.

As this map shows, Mustachistan has made some pretty bold land claims so you can't really blame Molossia for challenging them.

Below are maps of the Battles of Lake Jean and Rattlesnake Rift during the War with Mustachistan. Why two Nevada area republics fought a battle (Lake Jean) in a Pennsylvania State Park is a long story but if you really want all the details follow the links above.

Map of the Week-Libyan Chaos

2011-03-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

It's hard to find a good map of the situation in Libya. The ones I've seen often contradict each other and that's not really surprising given that conditions change over there almost as frequently as the spelling of Gaddafi's name does. This map from Reuters via the Daily Mail makes it look like the opposition is really taking over.

The semi-interactive map that appears in The Guardian is more detailed and nuanced. There is a clickable detail of the town of Brega, where control has been shifting back and forth. In another country you might see a map showing areas of control instead of points but I suspect that the population outside the cities in Libya is small enough that a point map makes more sense here.

UPDATE: An anonymous commenter pointed me to the Libya Crisis Map, an excellent source for current information by region.

Weekend Puzzlers

2011-02-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

National Geographic has jigsaw puzzles on their web page. They're a great time waster at work or on a rainy/snowy weekend. I did this Africa puzzle at work in 8 minutes and 20 seconds while fielding a tech. support call!

The finished product:

What I Did for a Living

2011-02-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

When I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas in 1992, I was offered a job producing a map for disabled students. I recently discovered that this map is still actively used on KU's website.

I remember spending 13 hours uncompressing the original CAD drawing from Facilities Management to a useable format. Back then there were no status bars to tell you how long it would be or if it was even working. Just 13 hours of waiting and hoping something was actually happening. I converted the file to an eps format and brought it into Free Hand - a product that appears to be going out of use.

The map uses blue (I think they've darkened it a bit) to indicate the accessible buildings because it's the color of the handicapped signs as well as the color of the Kansas Jayhawk's uniforms. It's not the best color for sending a clear message but it basically works. The blue arrows point to the accessible entrances. My (misspelled) name appears in the credits at the bottom of the page.

Africa is really big, Vatican City is really small

2011-02-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

The designer Kai Krause recently produced this infographic showing the size of Africa in relation to various other countries and regions of the world. Click on it for a higher resolution image.

Here is a more detailed view of the map section.

Comparing countries to continents is a little like apples to crabapples (unless that country is Australia), but it is a very effective graphic and should help fight "rampant Immapacy", in the author's words.

Xefer made this graphic of the world's smallest country, Vatican City, inspired by Krause's work.

The Africa image lists the top 100 countries by size, while the Vatican one lists the bottom 100. Here is a closeup showing the size comparisons between the Vatican and the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Great Pyramid of Giza, the Ile de la Cite in Paris, Alcatraz, Rockall in the Atlantic Ocean and Boston's Fenway Park.

Map of the Week-River Systems

2011-02-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

Last year, I featured a map from London's Waterways, using a Harry Beck London Underground inspired schematic. Cartographer Daniel Huffman has created a beautiful series of schematics for various river systems here in the USA. Below is the Mississippi River System.

Details about the creation process can be found on his blog. Prints can be purchased here. Here are some nice detailed views from the series.

The Mississippi/Ohio jumble:

Boston Metro (from the "Southwest New England" map):

Michigan:

The Mighty Columbia:

Thanks to Cartogrammar for the heads up.

Weekend Weather Forecast

2011-02-04T15:07:00.000-08:00

I found this on Meme Generator though I can't find the exact link anymore.

Storm of the Week

2011-02-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Here in the Northeast we are still dealing with the tail end of the Groundhog Day Storm-another week, another storm. This map posted yesterday on AccuWeather nicely shows how big this storm was (or still is up here) with advisories in 43 states.

Each color represents a different type of advisory and they range from severe thunderstorms to blizzards, gales, floods, wind, wind chill, marine warnings, high surf, dense fog, air stagnation and my personal favorite, heavy freezing spray. I think that last one is along the lakes of northern Michigan but with so many colors it's tough to distinguish. The most common colors are the dark purply blue (winter storm), purply pink (blizzard), orange (wind chill) and the brown stuff in the south that I think is a wind advisory.

Despite the ugly projection, strange inclusion and exclusion of certain cities (especially in eastern Canada), and gratuitous topography that is easily mistaken for other weather patterns, the map still tells a pretty impressive story. Punxsutawney Phil says early spring-yeah, right. Have fun digging!

Map of the Week-What's in a Surname?

2011-01-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of National Geographic includes this interesting map showing the most common last names (according to phone directories) by state.

The map is color coded by origin of surname with the most common blues indicating the United Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales.) By clicking the map above you can zoom to a more readable level of detail. Here is the north to northeast part of the country.

Way up in Maine there are some French (via Canada) names. New England has some Irish names, New York and New Jersey have Spanish and a touch of German in Pennsylvania. Out in the Upper Midwest the brown Scandinavian and orange Germanic names are much more common.

Now for a short critique: By only using the most common names, a level of diversity is missed. For example, Asian names appear almost exclusively in California and Hawaii. The lack of state boundaries makes some distinctions difficult although the map looks cleaner without them. The by state format also has the effect of pushing the New York metro area Hispanic names out into the central part of the state where they are probably less common. Finally, a cartogram would have been more appropriate for this presentation, especially given the need to fit an equal number of names into each state. This format required most of New England to be considered as one state. A cartogram would have helped solve that and some of the other problems.

Antarctica Art Article

2011-01-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

Karen Bessette is an artist based in Manchester, New Hampshire who often incorporates maps into her collage works. I saw her at the Rhode Island School of Design Alumni Sale and bought this print titled "Antarctica I" from her Antarctica series. I don't a good place to hang it yet so I'll just put it on this page.

Happy MLK Day!

2011-01-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site in Atlanta consists of several buildings, including the house he was born, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he was a pastor, his tomb and the King Center. Here is a detail from the National Parks Service map that can be found on this page:

Another Good BBC Map

2011-01-13T05:55:00.000-08:00

In addition to the nice Sudan maps (previous post), BBC also has an excellent map of Brisbane, Australia showing the extent of the floods and major points of interest. Note that the yellow area is flooded area at the predicted water height and the flood appears to have peaked at slightly below that level.

Map of the Week - The Sudan Referendum

2011-01-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

This week the southern part of Sudan is voting on whether to secede from the north after two decades of civil war. Like many other formerly colonized nations, the boundaries imposed by outsiders have little to do with physical or cultural geography. This BBC article includes a series of maps that do a good job of illustrating the north/south divide in Sudan.
Geographically, the country is divided between desert in the north and vegetation in the south as seen from this NASA image. The white line is the proposed boundary.

The ethnic and religious divides are also pretty apparent.

Comparing education, infant mortality, water and sanitation shows that north is doing much better than the south. On the maps below showing education levels (green) and sanitation and fresh water (blue), the darker areas are more advanced.

Of course oil is a big issue, with many of the oil fields being in the border region and the pipelines carrying the oil to the north for transport. The oil producing border area of Abyei, shaded below, is expected to hold a separate referendum in whether to join the south or not.

More maps and descriptions be be found on the BBC site. For an even more detailed map of Sudan's oil resources see this previous Map of the Week.

Results of the secession referendum are expected in February and it is likely to pass, On July 9th 2011 there may be a new nation and we will all need new maps. Maybe I'll get a new country flag on my sidebar.

Map of the Weekend-The Canada Puzzle

2011-01-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

It's puzzling how clear some things are to me - like the colors of our states and provinces. On a recent weekend cleaning binge I found the jigsaw puzzle that helped me learn Canadian geography and also taught me what color each province is. If you see a map with different colors from these, it's inaccurate!

Saskatchewan is as yellow as the wheat that waves in a summer wind and and don't try to tell me Ontario is orange - nyet! Here are some pieces, poorly photographed.

Paradise Deserves a Better Fate

2011-01-05T06:26:00.000-08:00

"Paradise in Panorama" is a giant relief map of California built in the early 1920's by a team of sculptors, engineers and geographers. Scientific American called it the largest map in the world when it was unveiled in 1924. The map is made of plaster, wire, paint, and "bits of rock and sand", is "as long as two football fields" and weighs about 70 tons. It showed California before the age of freeways, suburbs and major bridges.

A somewhat mysterious article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in October saying that the map has "turned up at an undisclosed location on the city's waterfront" without describing how or why. The article details a bit of its history. The map was on display for many years at the San Francisco Ferry Building, the country's busiest transit terminal at the time, before being damaged in that building's renovation project in the 1950's. It was then cut into sections and put in storage. The city offered the map for $1 for anyone willing to restore and display it but found no takers because of the map's size and the expense of moving it. Various schemes have been devised to redisplay the map but it remains in storage with an uncertain future.

Google Zeitgeist-the most popular searches of 2010

2010-12-29T08:23:00.000-08:00

Google Zeitgeist reviews the most popular search terms of 2010. You can pick a country and see the most popular searches by month and the most searched personalities (some muppet named Justin Bieber tops most of the lists.) For the United States you can choose a city and see the most popular searches (university web mail servers are huge.)
Of course the best part is the interactive map.

You see how frequently some of the major stories of the year were queried by month with bar charts for each country. You can also play an animation for the entire year and compare up to three stories.

Also, you can choose a subject or person and get a map showing interest by state. Here is the Justin Bieber popularity map. Pardon the hideous plate carree (or something similar) projection. Happy New Year Justin-Virginia loves you!

Map of the Week-Census Preview

2010-12-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

Last week the New York Times put out this nice interactive map showing some of the latest data released from the Census Bureau. The dot maps are the most interesting. They nicely illustrate patterns of race:

and income:

The entire country is covered so you can zoom, pan or choose a location. If you zoom too far in you lose the patterns a bit and also get some misleading information because each dot represents multiple people, not individual households.

To really see the patterns of segregation, zoom out.

Here's a larger city with a more diverse breakdown.

The income map reveals the inner city income holes that are prevalent in older cities like Baltimore, but less so in Washington D.C. where there is much more inner city wealth.

If you zoom out a ways the dots seem to follow county boundaries. Zooming in arranges them in a more realistic pattern. I'm not sure what algorithm produces that result.

Happy Holidays and may your next year be filled with new census maps!

States and Provinces Auto-Completed

2010-12-08T07:36:00.000-08:00

The auto-correct feature on smart phones can be really annoying but if it didn't exist we wouldn't be able to waste our workday looking at Damn You Auto Correct!

Google has a slightly different feature called autocomplete based on web searches. Here is a map of the United States showing google's autocomplete suggestions - via Very Small Array.

Too bad the gratuitous topography makes it hard to read at this scale but if you click the map you'll get a readable version. There are at least five unfortunate states, that do not even contain google's autocorrect suggestion. See if you can figure them out.

Here's Canada, courtesy of the GIS User blog.

Holiday Books and Exhibit

2010-12-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

I will now proceed to discuss two books I have not read yet and one exhibit I haven't been to yet. After all, this is the internet where you just say stuff!

The Hand Drawn Map Association (HDMA) has a book out entitled From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association.

Those of you in the Philadelphia area can see a parallel exhibit of their maps called No where at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA.

The exhibit only goes until December 19th so hurry up!

Here are some maps in the exhibit lifted from Kris Harzinski's website. Harzinski is the founder of the HDMA and an artist from the semi-hip Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Perry Steindel, Untitled, 1965.

Scott Griffith, Window map of Anchorage, 2010.

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Mapping America is a follow up to the Mapping New York book featured previously. Once again Black Dog Publishing is offering a 40% discount for readers of this blog. For the discount send an e-mail to Jess Atkins jess@blackdogonline.com

Here are some sample images.

Detail from a pictorial Wildlife and Game map from 1956.

"Dissected Map of the United States" by Rev. E. J. Clemens, 1893. This is the box of a jigsaw puzzle meant to teach geography. The American figure is handing out pieces to grateful representatives of various foreign countries. On the back is an ad for Sherwin Williams paint.

Finally, I will leave you with this heart-warming image- "States United", a poster by Greg Beauchamp, 2009.

I like the legend at the bottom of the poster.

Comic of the Week-Zippy Tackles Maps!

2010-11-23T05:40:00.000-08:00

Sunday's Zippy features Bill Griffith's absurdist take on maps. The first frame features a nice wall map of Griffith's native Long Island. Click for a readable version.

The World of Juan Nunez Guirado

2010-11-19T07:53:00.000-08:00

Juan Nunez Guirado is an illustrator based in Spain who sent me a link to his work. Here is his world view.

He's done some nice pictorial maps and illustrations of various places in Spain. Here are some from Barcelona.

For a more detailed view, some soothing music and many more maps visit his website.

Mapping Gothic France

2010-11-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

My brother discovered the Mapping Gothic France website at a lecture. The site is dense with interactivity. The main interface allows you to overlay various historic maps with your choice of current base maps, click on churches and buildings and connect to more information than you can possibly absorb in one viewing.

Like a chef you can mix and match your ingredients as you see fit-below you can see King Philip II invading Normandy over a tasty layer of road map.

There are timelines, links to authors, stories and essays and lots of information about churches. Each church has its own page with images 360 degree panoramas and stereoscopic views (though I could not get those to load) that require 3D glasses. For dessert, some screen shots from a panel that allows you to select churches and compare images and floor plans.

Map of the Weekend-Cape Shot

2010-11-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

It's the weekend. Time to find your favorite map shot glass and drink a toast!

Nicaraguan "Invasion" caused by Google Maps - or maybe not.

2010-11-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

Nicaragua invaded Costa Rica because of an error on Google Maps! At least that's the story being tossed around the internet in articles like this one and in Wired. Of course like many stories, the truth appears to be more complicated and less satirical. Ogle Earth has an excellent summary of the border dispute. Here are some basics:

The eastern part of the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is the San Juan River.
The south bank (and sometimes east) of the river belongs to Costa Rica. The river belongs to Nicaragua but Costa Rica is allowed to use it for commerce.
Google maps incorrectly shows the border deviating from the river course giving a part of the Isla Calero to Nicaragua. Bing is basically correct although the alignment between the border and the river is poor.
In late October, Nicaraguan troops occupied a part of this land and began clearing the forest and dredging the river channel.
Costa Rica no longer has an official military to defend their land.
The official map that each country provided to the International Court of Justice both show the same border-along the river's main channel.
After the fact, the Nicaraguan government discovered the google error and used it to justify the troop incursion- from this article(translated.)
Nicaragua also uses historical changes in the course of the river channel to justify their claims

Here is a map of the area claimed by Nicaragua from Managua's La Prensa. The red line is claimed to have been the course of the river in 1897 when US President Grover Cleveland arbitrated a more detailed boundary (than the 1888 settlement) for this area.

However, the UN Settlement includes this map and contradicts Nicaragua's claim. The settlement clearly states that the boundary follows the main branch of the river and not the Taura Branch as claimed by Nicaragua.

Still, if you want to blame google maps go ahead - join the crowd!
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UPDATE: Brandon T. sent me this video from newsy about the border dispute. Thanks!

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

What I do for a Living-Part 1

2010-11-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Things are really busy for me this week. We have a big infrastructure evaluation project that I need to map and analyze every which way. Since I don't really have the time for an interesting, well researched post, here are some storm drainage pipes somewhere in Massachusetts. This is what I do in my non-spare time.

Mapping Municipal Inequity

2010-10-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities uses GIS map overlays to demonstrate patterns of municipal discrimination against minority and low income residents. They began working in North Carolina with neighborhoods that were either targeted with undesirable projects such as highway bypasses or were ignored when building water or sewer services.

The map below is from Moore County in south central North Carolina. The brown area is Jackson Hamlet, a predominantly African American community. The red lines show the boundaries of the affluent golfing and retirement communities of Aberdeen, Pinehurst and Southern Pines. The dark lines are sewer mains.

Jackson Hamlet is surrounded but excluded from these areas meaning that they do not have sewer or garbage service from any of those towns and must rely on the county sheriff for police protection, rather than on the closer municipal police stations.

While the three towns have annexed land in other directions, they have all avoided Jackson Hamlet and demographically similar communities. The residents of these places have relied on septic systems, private trash haulers and/or burning garbage while in some cases watching the garbage trucks cut through their streets to get to the neighboring, more affluent towns.

In recent years the Institute has expanded its work nationwide. They helped residents outside of Zanesville, Ohio win almost $11 million in damages for years of unsuccessful requests for municipal water service. While the city expanded water service to newer, further away developments, African American residents in the Coal Run neighborhood were required to haul water from the water plant or pump it from contaminated wells.

This map shows how water lines were built to specifically serve the white residents of the neighborhood and played a vital role in the settlement.

The images above and some of the material came from an excellent article in Miller-McCune.

Cigarette Card Maps

2010-10-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

Cigarette manufacturers began including cards in their packages in the mid to late 1800's. Issuing cards in a series enticed buyers to stick with the same brand. The cards showed popular actors, sports figures, animals, plants and a host of other subjects including maps.

The New York Public Library has a large collection of these cards viewable from their Digital Gallery.

Churchman's Cigarettes produced a "How to Make a Map" series for boy scouts. Here are some of their cards with the text that appears on the back.

"Scouts should first practice observation, and notice all the landmarks (such as hills, churches, trees, rocks, gates and bridges), so that, if necessary, they may draw an accurate map of the surrounding country. The four points of the compass should always be put in, and it is a very great convenience when a map can be, as nearly as possible, drawn to scale."

"It is a difficult matter for a scout to accurately draw a map of water, This, however needs only a little practice and a perfect knowledge of the different signs agreed upon to represent the different boats. The specimen given at the recto is a very good one, showing a very complete map of a village in the vicinity of water. The letters P. T. signify that the village possesses both post and telegraph office."

Gallagher, LTD also issued a "How to Make a Map" card. Here is the front and back of the card.

Map Reading Class was also a card subject.

Some cards depicted airline routes. Here is the route from England to South Africa.

Finally, a "Map of London and the Home Counties" was cut into pieces to be collected and reassembled. Here are two matching pieces.

I am a Very Slow Reader-Part 2

2010-10-13T07:24:00.001-07:00

I'm not only a slow reader, but slow to pick up on "new" things.
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet has been out for over a year but I only discovered it over the summer as one of the staff picks at the Maine Coast Bookshop. Two things drew me in; one, the staff picks at this store have never let me down and two, it's a book about a cartographer!

The book is very enjoyable, however I find parts of it to be a bit of a reach. A 12 year old cartographer maybe, but one with such maturity and depth of knowledge (including an expertise in entomology) just seems a bit of a reach. Perhaps if Reif Larsen had made him 14 or 15 I might find this story easier to believe. The basic plot of the book is that a 12 year old prodigy who lives on a ranch in Montana named Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is invited to the Smithsonian, unknown to his parents, to accept an award for his scientific work. The book is illustrated with some beautiful maps and illustrations, apparently these were an afterthought to the book.

Here is his map of the ranch in Montana. I could not find the original image online so I took this German version (note the building names) from the Fischerverlage publishing site.

T. S. Spivet's obsession with diagramming everything he sees, from the way his sister shucks corn, to male pattern baldness is borderline annoying but it makes for some fun marginalia. The map that begins Chapter 10, shows a large U.S. City and slightly gives away a bit of plot ahead of time if you recognize this street pattern.

Even if you don't recognize this place chances are very high that if you're riding a train across the country you will get there as will the plot. The image above is from the Boston Globe review.

Overall, this is a clever and unique book that is an entertaining read for anyone, regardless of your knowledge of cartography, entomology or male pattern baldness.

What is Map of the Week?

2010-10-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the fifth anniversary of Map of the Week! Sort of. Actually it's more complicated than that as most things are. An exact anniversary date is tough to pin down so today is as good as any. Here's the boring history lesson:

Map of the Week started in or around 1993 when I shared a house in Lawrence, Kansas with fellow graduate student, frequent commenter and Renaissance blogger Michael5000. We started putting maps of the week on the kitchen wall (or maybe fridge I can't remember everything from those crazy college days.) They were not exotic or special - just maps that we felt like posting and the practice didn't stick for very long because we had homework and life to attend to.

When I accepted a job in Seattle, a place I'd never been, I drew this mental map based on my limited knowledge and probably posted it as a final map of the week. The map suffers from the classic "figure ground" problem-the water looks like land and vice versa. The original is on yellow paper, printed on the back of a lost dog notice.

On occasion I would send Mr. 5000 maps in the US mail that I found to be noteworthy. Here is a map from a charity newsletter of a project they did in Moncton, New Brunswick. I clipped out the charity's name to spare them the embarrassment as they do some very good work.

The map is pretty tough to read from my poor copy but basically they didn't know where Moncton or New Brunswick were so they just plopped it right in the middle of the country. That's OK - Canada's a small place!

Years later (around 2004 or so) I decided to revive Map of the Week as a weekly e-mail with a map attached. Five years ago today I started keeping track of what map I posted on what date with an eye towards a possible blog. I finally created the blog in 2007 and began by back posting all my entries beginning October 5th, 2005. As of today the blog has reached over 150 countries!

Map of the Week will try to continue to bring a quality blog product every week, with the occasional extra map of the weekend or other special event. Map of the Week will not advertise your book, or map products but if something looks interesting, I may post it without the sales pitch. Thanks to all my readers for years of support!

Map of the Weekend-Your Fall Foliage Travel Guide

2010-10-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

Looking for the prettiest leaves this weekend? The Foliage Network has you covered - some of the country anyway. They have a network of spotters to help them construct maps like this:

Or this one if you're more of a midwestern type of leaf peeper:

They also have the southeast but there's not much to report there yet. In the Northeast elevation is a huge factor whereas in the flatter Midwest it's more about how far north you are - though maybe elevation accounts for the western slant of the moderate-high areas.

If you're going to Wisconsin, the state's tourism department has a nice interactive map where you can mouse over a county and get "color meter" scores from specific areas within.

Finally, I couldn't resist making an animation from the northeast reports to show the spread of color. Happy leaf travels!

Map of the Week-What the Future Looked Like

2010-09-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

Arthur Radebaugh wrote a syndicated Sunday comic series titled "Closer Than You Think" in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The series featured optimistic scenes of a future with robots, floating houses and smart transportation networks. Here is the "Super-Metropolis Map of 1975" published in 1961. Thanks to the Paleo-Future Blog for this image.

The "regional cities" of tomorrow will be nearly continuous complexes of homes, business centers, factories, shops and service places. Some will be strip or rim cities; some will be star-shaped or finger-shaped; others will be in concentric arcs or parallels; still others will be "satellite towns" around a nucleus core. They will be saved from traffic self-suffocation by high-speed transportation - perhaps monorails that provide luxurious nonstop service between the inner centers of the supercities, as well as links between the super-metropolises themselves.

Here is a cropped image focusing on the map.

People from Atlanta may be horrified to learn that they live in the "Chattanooga Strip" and who knew that Tulsa was going to be such an important city? So do you live in a "strip" on a "rim" or in a "finger" and what's the difference? I'm still waiting for that Monorail!

Map of the Weekend-ABC decides your region

2010-09-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Every week someone at ABC or ESPN or some parent company decides what college football game you want to watch based on what region they think you're in. This week they feel that those of us in the Northeast would rather watch #7 Texas than #2 Ohio State.
Maybe the Texas game will be less lopsided but they didn't consider how the distance factor can water down the hatred. Texas? Meh. But Ohio State-now you're talking hatred! At least to those of us from Pennsylvania. Go Eastern Michigan!

For those of you who want the NFL product, the 506 has your map:

Seems a bit incorrect to show both the early and late games on the same map but then what do I know about football?

Or you could go outside and enjoy the nice fall weather!

Map of the Week-This Gaming Life

2010-09-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not really much of a "gamer" but I'm also not one of those snobs that finds them offensive. I do like the cover of This Gaming Life by Jim Rossignol. Yes the book is two years old by now but I'm often late to discover things-especially when they relate to gaming.

I don't know why the cover makes me think of France. The resemblance is pretty weak.

Map of the Week-Mainegon and Wiscachusetts

2010-09-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

Next week I will be traveling to Portland for a workshop.
If I use Andy Woodruff's map of Portland I should be able to find my way, right?

Maybe on the way up there I'll stop in Madbridge, Wiscachusetts. Here is a detailed street map.

Map of the Week-Maine Expedites Wind Power

2010-09-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

I just got back our annual trip to Maine. The trip primarily involves the following steps.
1. throw a tennis ball into the lake
2. watch the dog bring it back
3. repeat
4 - infinity. repeat

Remy taking a rare break

In between throws I got a little reading done. This article about wind energy from the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting (reprinted in the Lincoln County News) caught my attention because it's largely about a map the state made under poorly documented circumstances. The map shows sites where wind turbines can get "fast track" consideration. Maine passed a law in 2008 designed to get wind projects moving with a goal of generating 2000 megawatts by 2015.

The map in question does not appear to be freely available to the public. Official records from the meetings where the map was drawn also appear to be non-existent. In fact, the whole process seems to be poorly documented and full of questionable connections between politicians and industry insiders. These projects are causing a rift among environmental groups with some of the groups seeing more harm than good. Beyond the usual "NIMBY" concerns about noise, property values and visual blight, there is also the required cutting of forests, installation of transmission lines, modest power output and much of the power and money being funneled out of state.

The map was approved by the state legislature as a first step in deciding which projects should be built where and does not guarantee approval. While that map is not available, here is a map from the National Resources Council of Maine showing present and possible future wind projects.

Most of these projects are mountain top sites. The term "In Development" seems optimistic as it appears to mean that permits have been submitted, not necessarily approved. The "Under Construction" category is apparently nowhere-but it seems that the state is hoping the next version of this map will have some yellow stars.

The Great Green Wall

2010-09-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

Eleven sub-Saharan countries in Africa are working together to create a "Great Green Wall" (La Grande Muraille Verte) of vegetation to halt the growing of the Sahara Desert. This will be a 15 km wide strip of various types of vegetation running the continent from Dakar, Senegal to Djibouti. Local and international organizations are working together to design the route and choose the most effective and useful species of vegetation. The wall's designers hope to help farmers and stem the exodus of environmental refugees.

Map of the Week-Pakistan Floods

2010-08-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

Flooding in Pakistan has affected more than 17 million people and is "the worst natural calamity of its history" according to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. In addition to the 1.2 million homes that have been destroyed there are also problems with water borne diseases, sanitation, lack of medical staff and supplies, destruction of agriculture and growing political unrest. See the BBC for sources and details.

The floods have destroyed more than 17,000 sq km (6,600 sq miles) of land and affect a huge percentage of the country.

Comparing this area side by side with a population density map from Wikipedia gives a good picture of the degree to which the population of the country has been affected.

A list of places to donate money or supplies is available at the Pakistani site Chowrangi.

Confusing Map of the Week-Oil and Much More

2010-08-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Preemptive Media is an organization that lets participants monitor air quality with GPS enabled monitoring devices. However, this post is not about that. This post is about the confusing map they have posted on their web page.

It's an interesting visualization but full of cartographic problems. First of all too much information takes away from the focus on US oil imports. The title and blocks of text at the bottom about gas and coal confuse the reader about what the map actually shows. It's not a map about all fossil fuels, just one. The country sizes are also confusing - is this supposed to be a cartogram? I'm pretty sure it's not. The colors? I guess they're just colors and have no additional meaning. They did get it right in sizing (by width) the connecting pipelines according to the number of barrels a day we import.

Nevertheless this map does show some interesting statistics about where our oil comes from. Canada and Mexico are our top two sources for oil? Ecuador's in the top ten? Who knew? I also like the chart at the lower right showing how we create greenhouse gases.

One solution to the "Fossil Fuel Fix"

2010-08-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

Get a zero emissions car and race it around the world! The Zero Emissions Race is sending four teams (Switzerland, Germany, South Korea and Australia) on an "Around the World in 80 Days" race. The vehicles are all electric and the costs of the energy (including transport across two oceans) will be "offset". They left from UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday and two of the vehicles are currently in Mainz, Germany.

For some reason the other two vehicles are nowhere to be found.

Here is the route they will be taking around the world.

Hoboken's Corner Cars

2010-08-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

Hoboken, New Jersey, the hometown of the overrated Frank Sinatra and way underrated Yo La Tengo has stepped to the forefront of urban transportation policy with the introduction of Corner Cars. The program is a partnership between the city and Hertz. Like any other densely populated area, the city has a major parking problem. By placing 50 rental cars around the city they hope to remove over 750 cars from the streets. Here is a map showing the location of the first group of cars.

The cars are placed so that 90% of the city's population live within a five minute walk of a car as illustrated by the map below. They have assigned spaces so you know where to find them and where to park when you're finished.

If you choose to use the local bus service instead the city also provides you with a map showing the live bus locations.

Now what's your excuse for keeping your car? You probably don't live in Hoboken, that's what.

Bad Map of the Week-The Pennsylvania Turnpike

2010-08-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

When you shift an entire state northward strange things start to happen. Philadelphia and Scranton disappear, the Maryland border runs across the middle of the state and the Susquehanna River starts flowing into the Delaware.
Thanks to Card Cow for the image.

Description:
America's Super Highway. Throughout the entire length of the Turnpike gasoline service stations and restaurants are located on both sides of the roadway at staggered points. The stations provided by the Standard Oil Co. Of Penna. Are unique and de luxe. They are built along early Pennsylvania architectural lines. the adjoining attractive restaurants are operated by the famous Howard Johnson

Map of the Week-California Girls

2010-07-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

This may be old news to some of you web surfers but I just discovered GraphJam. They have mapped and graphed many songs including "California Girls" by the Beach Boys.

There's Other Kinds of Petroleum in the Ocean Too

2010-07-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

In addition to the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and China, there is lots of other petroleum floating around the oceans in the form of plastics. The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has made the news but there's lots of stuff floating in the Atlantic as well.

The Sea Education Association (SEA) just concluded a research expedition examining the accumulation of plastic debris in the Atlantic Ocean. With no advocates for the open ocean, SEA hopes that this excursion will raise awareness of the pollution problem.
The expedition sailed 1000 nautical miles east from Bermuda in an attempt to find the eastern end of the concentration of debris. As the map below indicates no edge was found. The ship took readings every 30 nautical miles along a jagged course through an area of converging currents .

The map could certainly be improved. Purple is a lousy choice for the top category-or is that green dot the top category? While there is no obvious pattern here, it is clear that the problem is widespread and comes from all of us. SEA is hoping we all re-evaluate our behaviors to help stop the problem from getting out of hand. The July 13th daily update eloquently states the problem and potential mitigation measures we can all take.

This map of the Pacific from NOAA shows how currents can take garbage from all over the planet and push them into these convergence zones. Note that this map is an oversimplification of ocean currents, as is the term "garbage patch"-see the link for details.

Maps in Unexpected Places-Restaurants

2010-07-14T04:06:00.000-07:00

I love ethinc restaurants-especially ones with nice maps on the walls. Here are some examples taken from my iPhone:

A portion of a map of the Middle East from the Athena Restaurant in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

At Punjab in Arlington, Massachusetts - a map of...Punjab!

Los Paisanos, a Salvadoran place in Somerville, Mass. has this clocklike wall display showing the currency and provinces of El Salvador.

Here is a close up of the map part.

Even the napkin holder has a map of sorts.

Special World Cup Weekend Coverage!

2010-07-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Spain and the Netherlands will re-enact the Eighty Years' War on the field at Soccer City in Johannesburg. The game is not expected to last for 80 years though it may seem that way to non-fans. Casualties are not expected but there probably will be a couple of injuries and maybe even a fight or two.

Here is a map showing the early Dutch Republic in 1609 at the beginning of the Twelve Years' Truce when Spain recognized the breakaway republic "'as if' it were a sovereign state."*

Can Spain get revenge? Will the Dutch people see their first victory in South Africa since the First Boer War? We'll find out Sunday.

* Quoted from the Wikipedia article

Map of the Week-Worlds of Fun

2010-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

These world maps have been all over the internet for years. They are often full of racism and ignorant cliches but they can also be fun. Here are some samples for your reading pleasure.

There's your standard "world according to Americans" series.

Martin from vwMaps just sent me this one - source unknown.

Here is a map about U.S. geographic illiteracy from a term paper writing site. The article that accompanies the map uses some remarkably bad grammar to complain about illiteracy.

Had enough of the American perspective? How about Taiwan?

Finland?

One last one: Singapore:

And finally, a cow's spotty world