Saturday, May 31, 2003

Canadian Electoral Boundary Redistribution

It’s patently obvious to anyone reading The Map Room that I have a serious electoral district map fetish. Elections Canada’s Federal Representation 2004 site is enough to have me committed to rehab. It’s really well done, though it’s not immediately clear how it works. Instead of presenting you with maps of the new ridings, you’re given a somewhat complicated—and maybe just a bit over-engineered—interface 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.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 2:13 PM

Noise Map of Paris

I’ve 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 areas—hardly surprising, given that it’s mostly taken up by the Cité universitaire, Parc Montsouris, and the Hôpital Sainte-Anne. (via Iconomy; see also Stumbling Tongue and Ad Usum Delphinorum)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 10:58 AM

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.)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 12:10 PM

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 couldn’t find anything. I suggest you look at this website, which has links to redistricting web pages for every state. What’s 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 Lay’s 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 board’s domain appears to have been hijacked.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 7:17 AM

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.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 2:05 PM

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Old New York Maps

Finally, through Wilfried’s links page, a collection of very old maps of New York, some dating back to the 17th Century.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 8:56 AM

Cartographic Congress

Wilfried also points me to the Cartographic Congress currently going on at the very Wiki-like University of Openness.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 8:53 AM

Psychogeography

Wilfried Hou Je Bek sends along a link to his database cartography page, which, like his Toronto walks page, I’m 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.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 8:48 AM

Sunday, May 18, 2003

Texas Congressional Redistricting

One of the things I’d 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 redistricting—now defunct—that triggered the walkout of the Democratic members of the Texas State Legislature (see Google News). Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. The state web sites I found didn’t have anything I could use, and you’d think that Democrats’ pages condemning the redistricting would show us a little graphic or something. No such luck, and I can’t 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.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 9:56 AM

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Antique Map Catalogue

Antique maps for sale at the Philadelphia Print Shop’s web site, with lots of clickable images. (via Iconomy)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 11:57 AM

Paris Metro

Excellent maps of the Paris Metro, bus and RER (regional commuter train) routes can be found via the RATP’s 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 date—the RER map doesn’t include the new E-line.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 12:21 AM

Trans-Siberian Railway Maps

Lots of tourist web sites have little maps of the Trans-Siberian Railway (here’s a nice example), but the best maps of the railway that I’ve been able to find so far are on the TransSib’s own web site. Here’s 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; it’s ostensibly about the railway, but it looks like most of the effort went into the relief further south.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 12:03 AM

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!

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 2:29 PM

Saturday, May 10, 2003

Tindale’s Tribal Boundaries

Tindale’s 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)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 7:50 PM

Friday, May 09, 2003

Electoral Maps of Manitoba and New Brunswick

Since both Manitoba and New Brunswick are facing elections soon, I thought I’d follow up my earlier post about Quebec’s electoral districts with links to the online maps provided by their respective electoral offices: Manitoba, New Brunswick. I’m just surprised to discover how poorly done these maps are.

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 5:22 PM

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 you’ve ever been daunted by viewing a map on a handheld computer’s tiny screen, you’ll 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)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 7:53 AM

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 Congress’s Geography and Map Division. Even though they say it’s a small fraction of the 4.5 million items in their collection, it’s still a dangerous place to lose time. (via plep)

Posted by Jonathan Crowe at 8:42 AM