Map of the Week #105-A Geography of Chaos

We interrupt this season of peace and good cheer to bring you a map of the current turmoil in the Middle East. This map was done by Philippe Rekacewicz who does some nice cartography for Le Monde Diplomatique. The map is a companion piece to their November, 2007 "Special Dossier on the New 'Broader' Middle East" I had some more optimistic ideas but after today's events in Pakistan this one somehow seemed appropriate.

Map of the Week #104-The West Virginia Slaw Mapping Project

For those of you wondering where to go in West Virginia for a good coleslaw topped hot dog here is your map! The Slaw Mapping Project shows the diversity of the state's slaw preferences from the central areas where of course you get the slaw to those red, outlying counties where they may give you strange looks and ask "you mean coleslaw?" For even more info check out the West Virginia Hot Dog Blog.


Of course I couldn't resist this anatomy photo - it's almost like a map!

Map of the Week #103 - Transit Maps of the World

My in-laws gave me a real nice Hanukkah gift - Mark Ovenden' s "Transit Maps of the World". This book is described by boingboing as "sheer subway porn". The map below is from the inside cover and shows a fanciful map, based on Harry Beck's famous London Underground maps linking all of the World's transit systems. Imagine a quick ride on the red line to Istanbul or Shanghai or with one switch at Newark, an easy ride to Vancouver, Buffalo or Ufa! OK, I better stop before I get too excited.

Map of the Week #102 - Chicago Map Fest Map

Those of you who are as obsessed as I am with maps may want to hurry over to Chicago for the Festival of Maps. There is a major exhibit at the Field Museum and a bunch of map related exhibits and events going on at over 30 other institutions including universities, museums, art galleries, libraries and even the Brookfield Zoo. Of course, they also have an excellent web map that allows you to pan around the city find out what's happening at all the big red dots. Even if you can't make it to Chicagoland, you can still spend hours browsing at the events and looking at the little thumbnail pictures. Maybe I'll even make it over there before it's too late. See you there?

Map of the Week #101 - Australian Drought Maps

Those of you who are regular readers of the Australian Crop and Livestock Report (my brother is one at least) published by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics know that they have had a horrible drought over the last couple of years. While they have had some rain in November, the map on the left shows how dry things have been this Spring (yes it's Spring there and toilets flush the other way). The map on the right shows the effect on the wheat crop. You will probably want to click on them to be able to read anything.

Map of the Week #100 - Map of 100 Maps!

In honor of the 100th Map of the Week I have gone back, looked at the places I have mapped and made of map of these locations. This is based on the tags below which is not a perfect science since my tags have not been consistent. Sometimes I tag a state when a city is featured, sometimes I forget to (sorry Washington). Sometimes the state seems less relevant to the subject matter. The "USA"tag is also misleading because I tend to use it only for nationwide maps of the U.S. The map above shows all the countries that have been featured. Below are the cities, states and provinces. Yes I do have a pretty obvious bias towards northerly and familiar regions. I will try to look beyond my narrow realm at least a few times in the next 100 maps. Stay tuned.

Map of the Week #99 - [murmur]

Murmur (excuse me it's [murmur]) is a cool multimedia project established in Toronto. You can click the link below, choose a neighborhood and bring up a "mental map" such as below. Clicking the red dots will bring up audio files that are stories told by everyday people who have a connection to those locations. Below is their own description of the project:

[murmur] is a documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations. We collect and make accessible people's personal histories and anecdotes about the places in their neighborhoods that are important to them. In each of these locations we install a [murmur] sign with a telephone number on it that anyone can call with a mobile phone to listen to that story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being right where the story takes place. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.
The stories we record range from personal recollections to more "historic" stories, or sometimes both -- but always are told from a personal point of view, as if the storyteller is just out for a stroll and was casually talking about their neighbourhood to a friend.

Map of the Week #98 - The Vermont Foliage Cookie

My wife bought a Vermont shaped cookie cutter and as we were making Halloween cookies last night I tried to color mine along the lines of the foliage maps that we had seen in the newspapers up there a few weeks ago. While it did not match the state's tourism web site animation very well, it did come somewhat close to the September 25th foliage map on the bottom right. In fact it was close enough that Amy was able to guess what the map was showing on the first try.

Map of the Week #97 - California Burning

The US Forest Service has a web site that monitors major fires. Usually they are spread throughout the country but this week it's all happening in southern California. You can click on the dots on the map and get a status report for any fire. You can also link from this site to Google Earth and get a close up view of all the fire activity going on throughout North America. The image to the right from Google Earth shows the current fire activity in southern California.

Map of the Week #96 - Business Week's "Map of Misery"

Feeling glum about the shorter days? So is Business Week. They put out this "Map of Misery". It took some digging to figure out exactly what they're showing here but it's basically the percentage of people who are getting new or refinanced loans that allow the option to make lower payments in return for getting hammered with future interest debt. This phenomenon seems to be prevalent in the expensive and desirable communities such as Santa Barbara, Boca Raton and of course, Jersey City.

Map of the Week #95 - The Inglehart Values Map

The Inglehart Values Map visualizes the strong correlation of values in different cultures. Countries are described using two dimensions; secular-rational vs. traditional values and self-expression vs survival values. Countries that are geographically or culturally close cluster in different areas on the chart. A more detailed description is available by clicking below.

Map of the Week #94 - Wikimapia

I love Wikipedia. Not everyone likes the fact that anyone can post entries and information is not always verified. However, there is a process for removing bad entries and I've found most if the information to be pretty useful. What I don't like about it is the lack of good maps. One day while being frustrated by that I discovered Wikimapia. While this does not directly link to Wikipedia and solve the map problem it is still a pretty cool idea. You can create your own login but actually anyone can add a place. Sure there's abuse but users can flag bad entires, make comments and give a "thumbs down" to inaccurate or dopey comments or entries. Also, it is worldwide so you can add any place on earth! So go ahead and add your favorite places. The more feedback they get the better (and more accurate) the site will be.

Map of the Week #93 - City Plates

The Rios Celementi Hale Studios have designed map dinner plates for eight cities - Los Angeles, Shanghai, Cairo, Berlin, Las Vegas, Dubai, New Orleans, Washington DC - and the list is growing. In their own words these cities were "chosen by our notNeutral design team for their reputations as gateways, and for the way each is dealing with the effects of agglomeration as its population begins to reach critical mass. These porcelain plates measure 12” across, with each city’s downtown core printed on a black background. Key buildings are represented with orange icons, while rivers and public spaces are shown in blue and green."

MOTW #92 - The Australian Word Map

This web page gives you lists of regional words spoken in Australia. If you click on "Map Search" on the left you can pick a region and see the local words. The "Words A-Z" gives you the full list of words. You kill your whole day right up to beer o'clock on this page. So don't be a nong-linger, rattle your dags and get on your treddly so we can go rally jacking arseways foremost. I could yaffle on all day but I've gotta go map some stobie poles and talk to the turd mechanic.

MOTW #91 - Lake Tahoe Fire Risks

The Sacramento Bee had an article this past summer with a nice map illustrating how much building is going on in high risk areas for forest fires. The red are areas of high fire risk and the black dots represent building permit locations.

MOTW #90

Algeria is building its first subway line-in Algiers. The line shown on the map is the first of three proposed lines. Unfortunately this is the best map I could find of the system. The map showing all the proposed lines is even harder to read.

MOTW #89

National Geographic has this interactive map of selected US local foods - the type that you can only find in a very small area. Click on the place and the recipe comes up - albeit slowly. I know you're craving the Livermush right about now!
Quick vent - National Geographic of all organizations ought to be able to locate Buffalo properly.
People are going to show up in Rochester looking for Beef on Weck and leave in tears!

MOTW #88

From the Daily Mail - Research shows that almost 50 per cent of Britain's drivers - an astonishing 15 million - are unable to identify simple map symbols and that about 11million admit they "cannot read a basic road map". Then again if you scroll down and look at the Ordnance Survey's map symbols you may have trouble with them too. You didn't know the green box was mud? PC? Must be a Brit thing.

MOTW #87

These maps are "wind speed grids" for New England. The heights (30m, etc) in the upper corners are the height at which the wind speeds were measured. This study was done by Truewind Solutions to get an idea of how much wind power can be derived from wind turbines of different heights and locations.
If you really want the whole in depth analysis you can go to the Mass. Technology Collaborative and get a detailed wind map for areas within souther New England.

MOTW #86

I've wanted to actually do a timely map of a newsworthy event for a while now so here are two maps from yesterdays horrible bridge collapse in Minneapolis. The first was taken from MinnDOT via wikipedia. The diagram map is from CNN.

MOTW #85

I don't even remember where I dug this one up but it's the classic problem of what poor neighborhood to dump the nudey bars on. You can't wish them away so you have to put them somewhere. In Washington DC they are looking at a location by Gallaudet University (they may be deaf but they're not blind!) and also right near a playground though those two things would theoretically be in operation at different times. Since the map doesn't give you much surrounding detail all you need to know is it's a very short drive from Congress so your reps will have easy access. Here's the text from whatever web site I originally grabbed it:

D.C. Council Member Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, wants to help relocate several bars that permit nude dancing that were put out when the city decided to build the new Washington Nationals stadium in Southeast Washington.

But where Graham sees helping some former business owners, he said he also anticipates a possible "not in my backyard" style backlash from residents in the areas of Ward 5, into which the businesses plan to move.

Graham's Committee on Public Works and the Environment is scheduled to mark up and vote on a bill that would allow for the one-time relocation of the businesses.

The problem is that lighter commercial zones often act as a buffer between heavier commercial and residential areas, officials in Graham's office said.

The businesses are unable to relocate near the stadium because it was rezoned and other areas of the city that would allow them, including downtown, are too expensive.

MOTW #84

This is a map poem by Howard Horowitz called "Manhattan". It originally appeared in the Op-Art section of the New York Times. His art can be found here. Those of you over in Oregon might enjoy his other offering. Also, there's an Idaho poem so something for everyone!

MOTW #83

One of my pet peeves is when worthwhile, timely information gets put on the web and then is never updated. This example is cited as a "recent map" from a company that works with newspapers to put maps on their web pages. The map shows "Rummage Sales"* in the "Siouxland" for the weekend of April 14th - note that the date at the top is today. This is/was useful information and if they kept it up to date could be still.** If not take it off or the residents of Ascot/Broadmoor should be expecting visitors this weekend, sale or not.

*I'd like to see a map showing what regions of the country use what terms to describe yard/garage/tag/rummage sales

** I can think of several other ways they could improve this site but I've already gone on for too long here.

MOTW #82

Sorry - I'm a day late on this one but you can save it for next year and start planning now. This is a map of the prime viewing sites for the Washington DC Fireworks. If they use this same site every year then save it for future reference.

Yes I know its sideways!

MOTW #81

The Newton (Mass.) TAB did a sloppy map showing the most popular college locations for graduating Newton High School Students It makes for a somewhat interesting pattern and also allows me to rant about careless cartography. I don't expect a cartographer in Mass. to know that Northfield, MN is south of Minneapolis but when they show Boston, Worcester and Dartmouth, Mass all being in the western part of the state then it starts to bug me.

I clipped out the Northeast section of the map for clarity and we only school we only lost Arizona, Tulane and Miami. I had attached a list of all the location numbers so you could see how bad some were but I'm not sure that's worth doing on a blog page.

This paper has used my maps in the past but I don't know who's responsible for this one.

MOTW #80

Yes it's another toilet map. But this one's cool because it shows you how much use they get. It's also helpful to me as I go by Langone Field often on my bicycle and didn't know I had that option. All the fields should have these as I recently watched a softball game and we all had to take turns sneaking into the woods. The Aquarium toilet gets an awful lot of use considering how often it's out of service. This map is from the Boston Globe.

MOTW #79

Nikolas Schiller is a slightly eccentric map nut who has done a lot of interesting stuff including creating a series of "Quilt Projections". These are aerial photos that are mirrored to look like quilt patterns. The link below is just one of many-this one shows quilts for various state capitol buildings. Warning - these take a long time to download so go get a beverage or something while you wait.

MOTW #78

If you like to obsess about how dangerous the world is at any given moment here's your map. It shows all kinds of incidents from bombs in Pakistan to exploding tennis balls in Connecticut to suspicious packages at Cobbs Hill Reservoir. You can also click on an incident and get details and a link to the full story. If you feel like your region of the world is left out check back in a few days and it probably won't be anymore. Unless you live in some sane place like Australia.

MOTW #77

Nina Katchadourian is an artist who does lots of stuff with maps. The map below links to pictures of moss maps. If you click the "Next Project in Maps" you'll get lots of other interesting map art she's done.

MOTW #76

With summer coming up many of you will probably be taking long drives to distant counties. Here's a license plate map to help you get there. There's lots of other good maps at this site too.

MOTW #75

The text below is from the original posting back in May (this is actually being written in August). It now appears that the map has been taken off the web page of La Voz de Galicia. I tried searching with my non-knowledge of Spanish using the words vertederos and mapa and all links to the map seem to be gone. Too bad because it was a good one. The original text:

Way back in 1990 I participated in a project mapping and cataloging illegal dumps in Slovenia. Here's a technologically more advanced version for Galicia in northwestern Spain. You can click on any dump and get a photo. Here's the mapper's description:
"The Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia invites readers to send in photos and descriptions of illegal garbage dumps. Photos and descriptions are plotted on an interactive map of the country. The intent seems to be embarrassing officials into cleaning it up."
This page allows those of you who know Spanish to practice while giving those of us that don't the opportunity to be tolerant.

MOTW #74

The California Coastal Project was a project where a pilot and photographer flew over the entire coastline of California taking aerial pictures every few hundred feet (except for Vandenberg Air Force Base which was off limits). They took GPS readings for each picture so you can click anywhere on the map and get the photograph for that location. Barbara Streisand unsuccessfully sued them for violating her privacy by photographing her Malibu estate. You can access details of the suit at this site if you really care.

MOTW #73

This is a simulation of real time births, deaths, carbon emissions and other info about the countries of the world. Interesting details can be found by clicking on the "about" button - I learned that it would take 4.1 earths to support everyone if everyone lived my lifestyle.

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 #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 #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 #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.

MOTW #65

For a very different take on mapping look at the Marshall Islands. They construct "stick charts" that emphasize ocean swells as much or more than geographic locations. Click the image and the page shows some examples and gives you more information about them.

MOTW #64

Watch counties evolve across the USA with this cool animation.

MOTW #63

Here is an interactive map of Biodiversity Hotspots published by Conservation International.
Click on an area to get maps, photos, statistics and a boatload of other worthwhile information.

MOTW #62

This map is from the Immigration Portal - their description follows:
The map above reflects the number of donations received by possibly the largest anti-immigration organization in its 2006 year-end fundraising campaign (source: NumbersUSA). We observe two points from this map (the map represents House
Districts, hence it is controlled for population). Firstly, the
map shows that anti-immigration sentiment is not prevalent across the country but is regionalized, with the West and Southwest more anti-immigrant (red, orange, and yellow shaded areas) and the East, Midwest, and most of the South more pro-immigrant (gray, purple, green, and blue shaded areas). Perhaps because of the
fact that the Southwest is a hotbed of the anti-immigrationists, prominent politicians of that area (Gov. Schwarzennegger, Sen.McCain, and Rep. Flake) support legalization. They grasp that the
problem is not immigrants but their legal status. Secondly, the red parts in the map correlate well with areas of recent Mexican immigration. To the extent that these immigrants assimilate, we should expect this map to cool in the future. On the other hand, if tensions between recent migrants and natives remain, we should expect the cooler areas to heat up as immigration to these areas increases in the future.

MOTW #61

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a really good map showing 2006 murders in the city. If you click the map below you can go to the interactive map. Click on any dot to get details about the crime - victim, race, time , weapon, etc. You can also use these as filters to see only daytime murders or murders by "hand". Keep in mind that this a an entire year 's worth of data and in most of the city murder is really not that common an occurrence. Really we have lots of nice neighborhoods! I'm serious!