Akihabara-Japan's Electronics Market

My September, 2008 issue of Nipponia magazine features Akihabara. This district of Tokyo has become the world's largest collection of electronics stores as well as a lifestyle mecca for fans of manga, anime and video games.

The printed copy has a large centerfold map of the district-here's a copy from their web site.

The red and dark blue dots are electronic stores and parts stores. Orange are computers and peripherals. Pink dots are pop culture stores and light blue dots are places that sell mini cars, train sets and robots. The map also shows you where you can get canned bread, o-den ("chunks of food") and other delicacies.

The green dots are maid cafes. These are cafes where you can live out your video game fantasies (aka cosplay) by being served by maids who will refer to you as "My Lord and Master" or "Your Ladyship" and may cast spells or draw pictures in ketchup on your food. Most customers are male - big surprise!

Indoor Living - Part 2

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

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.

Map of the Weekend-Your Fall Foliage Travel Guide

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!

Bruce, Bruce and Tom-A Musical Journey

I've always been interested in the geography of musicians-where they come from, where they get discovered, and where they choose to reside when success allows them that choice. I've found a few nice musician maps over the last couple of years. These three artists were chosen because someone made maps for them, more than for any personal preference.

Bruce Cockburn was born and raised near Ottawa but has spent most of his musical career in Toronto. He currently resides near Kingston, Ontario according to his web site. Here is a clickable map of his life in Toronto:

If you prefer the other Bruce, here is a map of  Springsteen's New Jersey titled "Bruceville." Bruce Springsteen is that rare musician who's never needed to stray too far from home and has always remained true to the Garden State.

This map is more fanciful than accurate. The only places that really seem to be located correctly are the Boardwalk, Highway 9 and his father's house. Little Eden is Millville? "The River" is the Delaware? "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" is about Tom's River? * I have my doubts about these things. Thanks to Strange Maps for this.                                                        * After consulting Wikipedia, the undisputed source of all knowledge, it turns out the "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" may actually refer to 10th Avenue in Belmar. If true then the map is close.

Shortly before his Super Bowl XLII appearance, LA Weekly published this map  of Tom Petty's Los Angeles by illustrator Scott Gursky. Although a native of Florida, Petty moved to LA at the beginning of his career and has remained in the area ever since. The article details each place on the map.

 

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Map of the Week-Tasty Wine Maps

I don't know much about wine. My keen sense of taste tells me that some wines are "better" than others. I do know that my local liquor store is decorated with some nice, colorful maps including this one.

This map is huge and takes a long time to download so I only show a section of it above. It is available online here (click the "Quality Wines map" link) if you want to wait for it. The store also has nice regional maps of France, but I could not find those online. However, I did find lots of other maps. Here is a nice general map of France for people like me who only know the most basic distinctions.


Those with a keener palette may want to dig into a detailed region such as the Loire.

If you're planning some wine tourism you might want a detailed map like the one below of Madera, California. I mainly included this map because it is, in my cartographic opinion, cute. You might get lost if you actually try to use this map as its accuracy seems to get lost in all the cuteness.

L'Chaim!

Treasures from the DeLorme Store

Some nice maps are found in yard sales for pennies (previous post) but sometimes it's equally nice to browse through a map store and spend some money. A highlight of any trip to Maine is a visit to the DeLorme Map Store in Yarmouth. Not only does it have the world's largest rotating and revolving globe, it also has a great selection of maps and a budget bin full of surprises. I spent $42 and got lots of good stuff including:

















Mount Washington trail map by The Wilderness Map Company. Nice clean lines and use of color. Printed on heavy stock to stand up to a snowy hike.

Afghanistan and Surrounding Territory by Oxford Cartographers. Includes all of Pakistan and Tajikistan. A good map to have with so much of this area in the news regularly.

Unfortunately the back side is blank - what a rip!

Miami Popout Map by Compass Maps. Yes popout maps are gimmicky and only show the touristy places but the cartography's well done and who doesn't like a good popout?


Oregon by Rand McNally. If you have the road atlas, then you have this map but it was in the budget bin and has some goofy tourist blurbs along with the city maps. I couldn't resist that. Who would have guessed that Salem has "governmental and agricultural activity"?


Map of Kennebec River trails (Augusta-Gardiner, Maine) produced for the Friends of the Kennebec River Rail Trail. This is a very attractive map/brochure with contributions from numerous conservation agencies. The detail above shows downtown Augusta.



Santa Monica Mountains - National Geographic's Trails Illustrated series. Printed on waterproof paper!

Santa Monica Pier from same map - Happy 100th birthday!

Map of the Week-Dining in Gallup

Before Interstate 40, there was Route 66. Before Route 66 was the Atchsion, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Before Denny's there was Fred Harvey and the Harvey Houses, the world's first restaurant chain. Fred Harvey was an entrepreneur who opened restaurants in depots along the ATSF line under a contract from the railroad company. Many of these restaurants evolved into hotels.
When trains began to include dining cars Fred got the contracts to run those also. Eventually the company moved into airports, bus and ferry terminals and highway rest areas before being sold off. Most of the Harvey Hotels have been demolished, victims of the highway age.


This postcard mapped the Fred Harvey empire at an unspecified time period. The card includes mileages between cities and the motto "3000 Miles of Hospitality from Cleveland to the Coast." Thanks to Card Cow for the image.

Map of the Week-Dining in Knoxville

User Friendly Maps won both second and third place in the Recreational/Travel category of this year's Map Design Competition from the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. Here is the second place entry, a plate shaped map showing where to eat in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.

At first glance I was unsure about this design but examining it more closely, I think it really works well. The author has made a large amount of information clearly legible by spinning the text out to the edges of the plate. There is a "B" code for restaurants that have bars in the blue ring. The white area indicates the style of food. If there was some generalized color codes for these it might help out the visitor who is looking for a specific type of food but otherwise it works well.
This map also accomplishes what a good visitor map should by making me want to visit Knoxville, stroll along Market Square and sample some Nuevo Latino or Asian French cuisine.

Map of the Week - Ski Profiles

Ski.com provides some nice 3D profiles for 23 resorts around the world. Below is Steamboat in Colorado. Click the map, wait 12 seconds or so to load it and you'll get tools to pan, zoom, rotate and go to specific areas.

Here are the views from above and below. Happy virtual skiing!

Map of the Week-Strolling Baby Through Weird Alternate Realities

Here's a delightfully odd marketing strategy. Bugaboo strollers (right) has enlisted some avant-garde artists to make a series of day trip maps for cities in Europe, North America and Australia. They have points of interest you can click on to get more info. Apparently "third world" places such as Asia, Africa and Philadelphia don't rate with them.

One of the more interesting ones is Mina Monnee's Portland. I especially like how she wrapped the river around it.



I also like Prague by Dustin Arnold.

Robert Nakata has some of the most "artistic". Here are his renderings of Toronto and Brighton (England)

Map Channels - Useful Content!

Map Channels is a service that lets you embed a custom map into your website or blog. In addition they have numerous "channels" to look at local events, book hotels and look at street views. They also have a nice function to compare Google Maps with Virtual Earth.
When you get past the flashy "cool" stuff there's actually some very useful functions here. Going to Los Angeles? Need to know what's happening? Below is a map of upcoming events. What's really nice about this is it's actually current to today! Usually these things are months out of date. Oh, and they have your city too. I know because I've checked.

Need a hotel? Here's a map of available hotel rooms in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. Click a dot and make the reservation!





Here's another cool "channel" - free things to do in London. OK so most of them are parks - I can live with that.

Map of the Week 126-The Olympic Torch Relay

The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee has put together a nice interactive map of the torch relay route.
You can click on any city on the map and get some pictures (like this one from Wuzhishan in Hainan) and some other basic cultural and demographic information.
Clicking China gets you details from each province. If you want to follow the torch or go protest the government's treatment of Falun Gong, Tibetans or Chinese here's how you know where to go.
As of this post they are either in Suzhou or on their way to Nantong, just north of Shanghai. So light the passion and share the dream!

Schmap of the Week

Schmap is a Widget you can add to your website to post info about your team, band, city, or other interests. Better to show then tell.



Below you can see the latest exploits of my favorite pathetic hockey team - the Flyers. Click a puck and see how they did in that location - you can also look at the arena - this works better in baseball when you're not looking at roofs. If you don't like them, which you probably don't, you can change the team or even the sport by clicking the buttons up top. Above, for a more international perspective is everyone's favorite French league team Paris St Germain.



You can also put up a city tourist guide - I picked Baltimore in honor of the Baltimore Festival of Maps.



Or you can follow your favorite musician such as Avril Lavigne - well she's not really my favorite but I sure like that heart-bone logo.

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.