Saturday, May 31, 2003
Canadian Electoral Boundary Redistribution
Its patently obvious to anyone reading The Map Room that I have a serious electoral district map fetish. Elections Canadas Federal Representation 2004 site is enough to have me committed to rehab. Its really well done, though its not immediately clear how it works. Instead of presenting you with maps of the new ridings, youre given a somewhat complicatedand maybe just a bit over-engineeredinterface that, in the end, does work. You navigate down to your current electoral district and, at the click of a button, the proposed new boundaries appear, which is a really spiffy effect.
Noise Map of Paris
Ive got a doozy for you this morning. The Mairie de Paris (City Hall) has published an online map of road noise; it shows, in decibels, the amount of noise generated by traffic in a given Parisian neighbourhood. Six years ago I stayed in the southeast corner of the 14th arrondissement, which seems to be one of the quieter areashardly surprising, given that its mostly taken up by the Cité universitaire, Parc Montsouris, and the Hôpital Sainte-Anne. (via Iconomy; see also Stumbling Tongue and Ad Usum Delphinorum)
Thursday, May 29, 2003
A List of Map and Mapmaking Books at Amazon.com
An Amazon user going by the name agnostictrickster has put together an interesting list of books about maps and mapmaking. (Note that the link contains my Amazon Associate ID. I have no shame.)
State Redistricting Pages
Ikram Saeed writes, about my Texas redistricting post,
I saw on your blog you wanted to look at Texas redistricting maps, but couldnt find anything. I suggest you look at this website, which has links to redistricting web pages for every state. Whats cool is that different states have different map tech. Texas has a very good website, and you can take a look at the old Repub proposal, which I think is De Lays proposal, and the judicial compromise currently in force.
For some reason I get a 404 when I click on the Texas link, though. Also, the Alaska redistricting boards domain appears to have been hijacked.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Ethnological Map of Siberia
Plep (who else?) links to an old-looking ethnological map of Siberia. Of interest more for its age than for its utility.
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Old New York Maps
Finally, through Wilfrieds links page, a collection of very old maps of New York, some dating back to the 17th Century.
Cartographic Congress
Wilfried also points me to the Cartographic Congress currently going on at the very Wiki-like University of Openness.
Psychogeography
Wilfried Hou Je Bek sends along a link to his database cartography page, which, like his Toronto walks page, Im still trying to figure out. This is my first introduction to psychogeography, as much bastard-child of the Situationists as academic discipline, about which Wilfried has a helpful main page.
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Texas Congressional Redistricting
One of the things Id like to do with this weblog is dig up maps relevant to current news stories. With that in mind, I tried to find a map of the proposed and controversial Texas Congressional redistrictingnow defunctthat triggered the walkout of the Democratic members of the Texas State Legislature (see Google News). Let me tell you, it wasnt easy. The state web sites I found didnt have anything I could use, and youd think that Democrats pages condemning the redistricting would show us a little graphic or something. No such luck, and I cant help but wonder whether there is anything more to that. Fortunately, I finally found that the Houston Chronicle has reprinted a graphic of the districts, both before and after, from the paper edition.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
Antique Map Catalogue
Antique maps for sale at the Philadelphia Print Shops web site, with lots of clickable images. (via Iconomy)
Paris Metro
Excellent maps of the Paris Metro, bus and RER (regional commuter train) routes can be found via the RATPs web site (the maps are official but hosted off-site). PDA versions are also available. The maps on the Paris Pages are too low-resolution and out of datethe RER map doesnt include the new E-line.
Trans-Siberian Railway Maps
Lots of tourist web sites have little maps of the Trans-Siberian Railway (heres a nice example), but the best maps of the railway that Ive been able to find so far are on the TransSibs own web site. Heres a map of the current network and a smaller, historical map. I stumbled across this map, which looks like an orphaned page, while Googling around; its ostensibly about the railway, but it looks like most of the effort went into the relief further south.
Friday, May 16, 2003
Map History/History of Cartography
Tony Campbell writes in to shamelessly plug his Map History/History of Cartography site, which he describes as [a] tightly organized global overview of the history of cartography, aimed at surfers or scholars, spread over about 100 pages. The site provides reference information and lists activities, opportunities and resources. There are also leads to the collecting of early maps. The regularly updated listings of map image sites and web articles are the only comprehensive ones of their kind. Dig in!
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Tindales Tribal Boundaries
Tindales Map of Aboriginal Tribal Boundaries: Tindale worked on this map for fifty years. When he began that project during the 1920s the popular view was that Aboriginal groups roamed across the landscape, with no fixed territories. This map is therefore a crucial document in Australian cultural history; graphic evidence that no part of Australia was terra nullius, empty land. (via you-know-who)
Friday, May 09, 2003
Electoral Maps of Manitoba and New Brunswick
Since both Manitoba and New Brunswick are facing elections soon, I thought Id follow up my earlier post about Quebecs electoral districts with links to the online maps provided by their respective electoral offices: Manitoba, New Brunswick. Im just surprised to discover how poorly done these maps are.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Viewing Maps on Handhelds
A year or two back, I tried to upload maps to my Palm, with poor results: the low resolution meant that the map was too small (and unreadable) or too tightly focused to be of real use. If youve ever been daunted by viewing a map on a handheld computers tiny screen, youll be interested in what the folks at PARC have come up with. Though it may take some work to grasp what it is, exactly. (via Gizmodo)
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Map Collections, 1500-2003
Old map aficionados should run, not walk, to Map Collections: 1500-2003, an online collection of digital images from the Library of Congresss Geography and Map Division. Even though they say its a small fraction of the 4.5 million items in their collection, its still a dangerous place to lose time. (via plep)