Via the GIS Doctor (in itself a fun blog) I got introduced to NY Times’ Opinionator. The Borderlines category on the Opinionator is maintained by author/blogger Franc Jacobs who “writes about cartography, but only the interesting bits.” Borderlines writes about interesting stories around country borders. So far, I’ve read the superbly entertaining and well informed … Continue reading Where’s Europe?
Chicago Press gives away History of Cartography as PDF for free! If you are a cartography buff, you have to check out this offer. Topics span: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies Cartography … Continue reading “History of Cartography” for free
“Einigkeit und Recht und Frei-ei-heit…!” But before we get to that, as explained earlier, there are different levels in my ZIPScribble Maps: Level 1 ZIPScribble Map: Only the first digit of the postcode is compared. Thus, a discontinuity is detected, for example, between postal codes 8679 and 9000, but no discontinuity is detected between 8399 and 8400. … Continue reading ZIPScribble Map Germany
“Allons enfants de la patrie…!” But before we get to that, as explained earlier, there are different levels in my ZIPScribble Maps: Level 1 ZIPScribble Map: Only the first digit of the postcode is compared. Thus, a discontinuity is detected, for example, between postal codes 8679 and 9000, but no discontinuity is detected between 8399 and 8400. … Continue reading ZIPScribble Map France
Today’s xkcd features a sociology of map projections. Hilarious! :) Mercator? You’re not really into maps. Take that, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Mapquest, …! PS if you’re not an xkcd regular: Don’t miss the mouseover caption. Continue reading What your map projection says about you
Maps chart territory and can thus be used and abused, for example, to convey one’s own interpretation of a territorial dispute. In such cases maps exhibit their considerable potential to invoke political disputes. With the advent of online mapping and the gripe very few large companies have on it (think Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and very few … Continue reading When mapping is political
See the wide channel that runs from left to right with the windy river in it? You are looking at one of the most amazing stories in geological history ever. I’d like to tell you about it. Over on Scienceblogs, Greg Laden has a great article. He starts by looking at above map and digs … Continue reading A tale of times long gone
Generalisation… The London Tube map is known for its iconic design. However, as most later public transport maps adhering to some or all of Harry Beck’s original design principles, the Tube Map features marked spatial distortions. They are introduced through the adopted simplification or schematisation which, for example, strives to orient public transport lines in … Continue reading Distortions of the Tube map visualised
A while ago I reported on a collection of historic maps of undersea cables. In today’s post I’d like to highlight an interactive and up-to-date version of such a map: For every undersea cable, Greg’s Cable Map by Greg Mahlknecht shows characteristics such as a list of landings of said cable, bandwith, length, construction date and … Continue reading World’s wiring scheme in an interactive map
The New York Times’ Abstract Sunday of this week features the World Map of Useless Stereotypes by Christoph Niemann of I LEGO N.Y. fame. Obviously, the geography has been messed with a little. And New York and its five boroughs (minus Staten Island) are prominently displayed completely out of scale with the rest of the ‘map’. … Continue reading The World Map of Useless Stereotypes
A while ago I blogged about The Real Underground, a website which allows visitors to morph the current London Underground Map into the famous 1931/1933 design by Harry Beck and into a geographically accurate depiction of the Underground network. Now, The Economist presents a reworked version of the Harry Beck design by London-based Designer Mark … Continue reading A new take on London’s underground
Till Nagel has a tutorial on using custom maps as backgrounds in Processing sketches. The solution uses TileMill, a map design environment which allows you to export a customised static map as an image for use in Processing. For advanced users, Till Nagel also describes the procedure for interactive tiled maps. That latter solution relies on an … Continue reading Using customised basemaps in Processing
