Map of the Week-The Olympics GeoView

I love the Olympics. Especially the Winter Games. However, the Official Vancouver 2010 site seems to lack a basic map showing the various event locations. Each venue has a diagram and map of the immediate area but there's nothing that shows the whole picture*. For example, where is Cypress Mountain? Is it on the way to Whistler? These are the kind of questions that maybe only I care about.
*Note: it turns out there are some better maps - see update at the end of this post

There is an interactive map but when you click it you get this googly mess:

It's way too busy (until you use the filters) and you have to click each site to get the name. Also when you click a site it changes your view to accommodate the large block of googleized text.

OK - enough complaining. What they do have that is interesting is the GeoView. This is an interactive world map showing the countries by medal count, events and number of athletes with various filters. So for example you can see the number of ski jumpers per country or the total number of female athletes in the 1984 Olympics. Here are the countries by total number of athletes at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France.

This is the same map for the 2010 Olympics.

I also like the cute sustainability diagrams. Here is one for Whistler Creekside. An explanation is here.

And of course who can't resist the Google Earth views with building models?




 


Or the Google street views?

Finally, here is the current medal count (subject to change at any minute).

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Update (Feb 25th) :

There are some decent maps after all. I'd like to think they made these available because I complained, but probably they've been up on the site all along. They're just difficult to find. You have to go to the Transportation section of the site. These are large Acrobat .pdf files that may take some time to download. Here are the thumbnail images.

Map of the Week-Take the Long Way Home

Today is Day 90 of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay. It's a long way from Victoria to Vancouver. You could just take the ferry but that's no fun! This route takes 106 days and goes through every province, territory and major city in Canada.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic web site has an interactive map where you can see the route details and link to events, photos and stories. The route looks more like a child's connect the dots drawing than a map but cartographic accuracy is not their first priority. Here is today's route through British Columbia from Revelstoke to Salmon Arm and then on to Kamloops.

Clicking the red dot at Kamloops brings up a detailed map showing this evening's route and festivities. The detailed maps also feature cartographic accuracy!

Map Changes for 2010 and beyond

New State in India?

 

New transit line for Vancouver                                           

  - opened in August, 2009


















Proposed Purple Line would serve the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.  The line would run from Bethesda to New Carrollton.

Rerouting the Chicago River? 

Michigan's attorney general has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to seal off the most direct routes from the Chicago River into Lake Michigan to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.










Stay tuned for these and other exciting map stories as the year progresses.