Map of the Week-Children are Colorful and Beauty

Every couple of years the International Cartographic Association organizes the Barbara Petchenik International World Map Design Competition for children 15 and younger. Entries are archived online by the Carleton University Library in Ottawa, Canada. You can see all kinds of fun maps on this page. Many of them are cliched and similar looking but there's also lots of clever ideas in these young minds.

This entry is entitled "The world is colorful and beauty" and was done by Ferina Tjahyana from the Pelita Harapan Junior High School in Tangerang, Indonesia. She was 13 at the time this map was done (2003).

Map of the Week-Corporal Punishment

Human Rights Watch is focused on trying to end corporal punishment in the United States. It is already banned in most states but still prevalent in many. See any pattern in this map?

Map of the Week - Georgia's Abkhazian and Ossetian Problems

It's been tough finding good maps that really show what's going on in the Caucasus region. This CIA map illustrates why the South Ossetian and Abkhazian people want independence from Georgia - though I'm not sure that being a part of Russia is really what they want either. The Abkhaz are linguistically unique while the Ossetians not only have a different language but are also not considered to be "Caucasian". The map nicely illustrates how difficult it would be to create contiguous countries in the region. Also note the proximity of other recent spots of conflict such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. There are a couple of versions of this map on the web but Wikipedia has the best one I've seen.

For a nice, detailed general reference map of the region click here.

This is an interesting historical map of the region produced by American cartographer Thomas Bradford in 1835. Clicking the image will bring up a window so you can zoom and pan to get more detail.

Map of the Week - Beijing Olympic Venues

Friday is 8/8/08 and 8 being a very lucky number to the Chinese it will be the starting date for the Beijing Olympics. The Beijing 2008 website has this nice interactive map, showing the location of the venues. You can mouse over the dots to get basic information and a click on them will get pictures, diagrams, architectural drawings, links to schedules, game rules and much more. What's lacking is a mileage scale so it's not clear how close these places are to each other. Also some transit and/or parking/driving tips would be helpful. You can find that information in the "Spectator Guide"s but they could have put it in a more obvious place.
Hope your favorite country proves their athletic prowess to the world!

Map of the Week - The Vinland Map

The Vinland Map is a controversial map that would indicate that the Vikings came to North America before Columbus*. The map was uncovered in the 1950's along with a tract dating from the 1440's. It shows an island west of Greenland referred to as "Vinilanda Insula". Much doubt has been cast about the authenticity of this map, from the binding to varying Carbon dating results to the inks possibly containing synthetic pigments that did not appear until the 1920's. The map is currently housed at Yale University's Beinecke Library.

Webexhibits has this page where you can analyze the evidence and make your own decision about the authenticity of the map. If you want pages of detailed info. click the map above and you'll get it!

* This type of statement has been repeated by numerous web sites discussing the map. I'm not sure why that is controversial given that there is significant evidence of a much earlier Viking presence in North America, for example the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.

Map of the Week - Bicycle Crashes

As some of you know, I was whacked by a car on my bike this past week. Here's a diagram of approximately what happened courtesy of the City of Toronto's Tips for Avoiding Car-Bike Collisions page.
Take away the traffic lights, train tracks and the fact that drivers in other places actually use turn signals and you get the picture. Technically I hit the car but I couldn't stop that quickly - she could and didn't. Anyway I'm still alive and well - just a bit beat up. I thought I'd look for some good bicycle accident maps but there's not much out there. Ghostcycle did a cool thing placing "ghostcycles" at accident sites in Seattle to raise awareness. Unfortunately their google mashup doesn't work (don't try the map-your computer will be sorry).
I was looking for something localized to see if there are local patterns to these crashes. The best thing I could come up with is this map from the Portland Oregonian. X's mark fatalities and you can click the dots for more info.There may be patterns here but I don't know that city well enough to spot them. Anyway keep on riding but be safe, read your tips and don't expect drivers to see you just because you're wearing dayglow colors and it's bright and sunny or you'll end up in a sling like me!

Map of the Week-Britain Travel Time Maps

My Society has produced some nice travel time maps for Great Britain that you can see here. I particularly like this one comparing travel time by car and train from Cambridge. The red areas are quicker by train, orange is about the same and then yellow to green to blue gets gradually faster by car.

A couple of disclaimers about this map from their site:
"the road travel model takes no account of traffic or urban areas, so it is pessimistic about the time saving"
"However, the model of car journey times is very simplistic, so these results should not be taken too seriously—we hope to extend the work with a more realistic model of driving times, which may substantially change the comparative results."