MOTW #72

This is a "map" of geographic knowledge compiled by Dr Andre Skupin at San Diego State University. I don't really understand it much but it's an interesting concept anyway. His own description:
"Visualization of the geographic knowledge domain based on more then 22,000 conference abstracts submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (1993-2002). Landscape features express the degree of topical focus, with elevated areas corresponding to more well-defined, topical regions and low-lying areas corresponding to a mingling of various topics. Dominant terms are used as labels for topical regions."

MOTW #71

Many years ago I publicly insulted the City of Milwaukee at a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin. I could tell that I really insulted the guy at the next table so I've felt bad about it ever since.
I've always wanted to pay my debts to that fine city. I recently came across some very good things being done there for bicycling and the environment. Here is a virtual map of the Memomenee Valley. If you click the Landmarks and recreation "on" you get some nice facts and pictures about the places. If you click on the Sixth Street Viaduct (bridge nr at the east end) you get a picture that looks remarkably similar to a bridge we have here in Boston.

MOTW #70

Got illegals in your neighborhood prison? Wondering what happened to the dishwashers in your local restaurant? Want to visit them so you can tell them they're not worthy of cleaning your bathrooms? Here's where to go. In the words of Detention Watch:
"Welcome to the world of immigration detention, where over 27,000 immigrants are detained on any given day in almost 200 prison-like facilities across the country."

MOTW #69

The Geo-Heat Center at Oregon Institute of Technology has a map of geothermal projects across the USA. You can click on any state and get a map like the one below. Unless you pick a state with no projects in which case they send you to New York(?). Clicking any of the symbols will take you to a page listing the details of that project.

MOTW #68

This past weekend I did lots of traveling in circles around the Northeast using all kinds of transportation modes. During one of the long rides I decided to see what it would look like to map out my travels so here's what I came up with. Well, it's sort of vaguely interesting anyway. Note that the walking distances are slightly exaggerated (but not by much) - otherwise they'd be invisible at this scale.

MOTW #67

Snobs like me who order loose tea from catalogs get newsletters like the Upton Tea Quarterly. They have articles about the history of tea. This history mirrors the history of empires controlling trade. The current issue has this map on the cover showing the eastern Portuguese Empire.

Some quotes from the article:

"Portugal was the fist country to establish an empire upon which the sun never set"

Vasco da Gama set the tone of "hatred and vengeance which would characterize Portuguese-Muslim relations for the future. By 1504 the Pope received a threat that Christian holy places would be destroyed unless something was done to curb the Portuguese".

The empire started modestly with the claiming of unoccupied islands such as Madiera and Porto Santo. Prince Henry "The Navigator" claimed to have liberated these places from Muslim rule.

MOTW #66

This is a map from 1987-88 showing areas suitable for growing Cocoa in the Rio Cobre Valley of Jamaica. The map illustrates what we cartographers had to deal with in the early days of computer maps - a small set of ugly and hard to read shading patterns. The map is remarkably usable considering that. If you zoom in on the image you can actually tell the areas apart and match them to the legend.
Suitability for Cocoa growing was determined by overlaying population density, roads, soils, slope of land, rainfall and temperature. This map was displayed by ESRI to show off the magic of this new technology called GIS.