30 Day Map Challenge 2025 - Days 26-30

Here lies the final installment of this year’s 30 Day Map Challenge. November was busy with the last 3 weekends out of town, a brief illness at the end and a new (dog) family member. I was not sure I would be able to finish and while I did this last batch of maps are ones that could use more work.

Day 26 - Transport

This unsatisfying map took several forms before arriving at its current state. The railroads, ports and airports came from the Natural Earth dataset that was the subject of Day 22. I tried just showing railroads with no other context but the result was dull. The most used shipping lanes were added from Marine Vessel Traffic. I wanted to represent them in a way that was clear, but also fuzzy enough to show the many variations of the routes. It’s interesting how the ship traffic largely bypasses Cuba. This map was revisited for Day 30 but without much more success.

Day 27 - Boundaries

Boundaries were drawn from Encyclopedia Brittanica. The flag idea was fun but ultimately does not add much. I’m not sure how those two areas of international waters came to be. They almost mimic the 200 mile exclusive economic zones but the distance is much further.

Day 28 - Black

A black theme for Black Friday. This was fun to make and came out nicely but after seeing what others posted for this theme, I may have been able to do something more interesting.

Day 29 - Raster

These last two days were particularly difficult as I was ill and also traveling. The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone appears every summer when nutrient rich water, mainly from agriculture enters the Gulf depleting aquatic life of oxygen. The zone’s size varies from year to year but it is always large. The raster image was taken from NASA and only the land part was altered to make it stand out more.

Day 30 - Makeover

I almost didn't get this one done. In fact it really isn’t done. I had the idea to take the map from Day 26, and make it antique style like my Day 24 Portolan Chart map (from this post). I removed airports and thinned out the railroads. Unfortunately it looks too much like the portolan chart map. Time constraints left me unable to improve it.

Well, it’s been fun and I’ve learned at least a few things about the Gulf of Mexico and maybe you did too. Thanks for tuning in to my obsessive compulsions for a full month. Ultimately my tiny protest against the weak “obey in advance” stance of most map companies will be meaningless but it felt good to get it out there. I will never use that other stupid name, if I can help it. Maybe others will join me in that at least.

How does Gulf of Cuba sound? Not great either.

La Jolla Map Museum - Maps of Historical Interest

Last month I visited the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla. They have an impressively large collection of original maps and many of them are of significant historical importance.

For example, here is one of the earliest recorded maps - baked onto a clay tablet.

Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

It shows a parcel of land with ownership and dimensions in cuneiform. On the back are field measurements. This could be a legal document or may have been used as a teaching tool for surveying.

Here is a world map by Antonio Floriano (ca. 1555) using polar projections from the north and south poles. I took most of the following pictures on a phone so try to ignore the glare and reflections. Where possible I will provide links to better images online.

Photos taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

Each hemisphere is divided into 36 globe gores and therefore it was likely to have been designed for making globes. A better image can be found at The Vintage Map Shop. Here is some detail from the eastern Mediterranean.

A very different world map from a similar era (1581) is Heinrich Bünting's World Map.

Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

This is a figurative map meant to represent biblical geography with the cloverleaf shape possibly reflecting the Trinity. A colored version can be seen here.

Leo Belgicus maps.

An example of a Leo Belgicus via Wikipedia

These maps represent the "Low Countries" of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as a lion, partially because the most of the provinces of these countries featured lions on their coats of arms. I did not get a photo of the whole map so I used an online example above. I did, however get a nice detailed close up.

Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

I love the way the Rhine and Meuse Rivers flow over the paw like blood vessels. The paw scratching at "Colln" (Cologne) is a nice touch.

Here is a detail from Map of the Caribbean (Spanish Main) by Peter Martyr, 1511. Martyr was a friend to Columbus and the other explorers of the era. This is the first printed map devoted to the Americas. Martyr was also the first to have used the concept of a "western hemisphere" though he was not sure whether the mainland areas of South America were attached to India or not. Derived from confidential Spanish sources, it was very accurate for the time and also may have landed him in some trouble. The same year, King Ferdinand outlawed giving maps to foreigners.

Photo taken at the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

I love the exaggerated detail of the coastlines.

More to come in a future post - stay tuned!