Friday, October 31, 2003
My Home Town
Finally, the Shawville web site seems to be accessible, so I can link to a map of Shawville — my new home town — and a map of Clarendon, which surrounds it. Both are surprisingly good as such things go. Now my enemies can hunt me down.
National Geographic Topo Maps for the Mac
National Geographic’s Topo! State Series is, as of yesterday, available for the Mac. (via MacSlash)
Maps and Territories
Maps and Territories is a new map blog by Chris Corrigan, who lives in B.C. Another Canadian map blogger, in case I wasn’t enough. Welcome to the party, Chris. (via Here Be Dragons)
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Ottawa Airport Maps Get the U.S. Wrong
Ottawa’s airport has large display maps that put U.S. destinations in the wrong state, reports the Ottawa Citizen. What seems to have happened is that an artistic rendering of the destinations was made without state lines. Those lines were added later in an attempt to make the maps clearer, but because (like subway maps) the original map was neither to scale nor on a projection, things went all kerblooie. (Thanks to Owen for locating this; I saw it in the paper version of the Citizen but couldn’t find it online.)
(By the way, IE 6 users should find the repeated forwarding bug fixed on this site. My bad. Seemed like a good idea at the time.)
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Social Mapping and Minorities in Ottawa
The City of Ottawa is using social mapping to determine if there is a geographical disconnect between where immigrants and minorities live and where the services targeted to their needs are located. From the Ottawa Citizen article:
When [geography professor Dan] Hiebert, who teaches at the University of British Columbia, mapped out where immigrants were living in Ottawa-Hull, he discovered they were spread around more than in any other Canadian city.
“As such, there is no significant ghetto phenomenon in Ottawa-Hull,” he concluded. However, the dispersal of immigrants in many small groups throughout the city also created a unique challenge in terms of delivering services.
The article also goes on a bit more about social mapping, citing a telling example in which social activists showed a direct correlation between school closings and neighbourhood incomes.
Miscellaneous Map Exhibitions
Map exhibitions! Map exhibitions! We’re too late for Robert Smithson: Mapping Dislocations at the James Cohan Gallery in New York in late 2001 (via Here Be Dragons), and Landscapes of Myth at the Getty in late 2002/early 2003 (via Plep). Open now at the University College, London: Paper Cities: Topography and Imagination in Urban Europe, c. 1490-1780 (via Here Be Dragons).
1839 Pocket Map of Michigan
The Tourist’s Pocket Map of Michigan, 1839. “In the unsurveyed portions of the state, tourists would have been hard pressed to find their way using the map.” (via Plep)
Thursday, October 16, 2003
El Pais; Spanish Blog Map
Apparently I have been linked to by El Pais, which explains the uptick in traffic today. In honour of the sudden onslaught of hispanophone readers, here is a map of the Spanish-speaking blogosphere, submitted by Julien. (See previous entry on blog maps.)
The Megalith Map
Jennifer writes in to tell me about a site she stumbled upon while researching a trip. The Megalith Map is an index to nearly 1,000 stone circles and rows; it divides the map into 100-km squares for greater detail. The design is a little clunky, but there’s lots of meat here.
Ancient World Mapping Center
The Ancient World Mapping Center at UNC Chapel Hill seems to be from the same folks who brought us the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (about which see previous entry). They also have a collection of high-resolution downloadable maps that boggle the mind. (via muxway)
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Times Atlas
Speaking of atlases, the Times Online pimps the new Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 11th edition, which was published this week. Buy it at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca — the Times isn’t the only one capable of pimping. (via Here Be Dragons)
State of the World
John Emerson looks at Myriad Editions’s State of the World atlas series.
Online Maps at the National Archives of Canada
They’re sending me press releases now:
Library and Archives Canada has been acquiring, preserving and commemorating the cartographic heritage of Canada since 1872. Today, these holdings include some of the earliest-known images of Canada and make up the largest cartographic description of our country.
Researchers can access now these national treasures through an online catalogue on the Library and Archives Canada Web site at www.archives.ca and clicking on ArchiviaNet.
The catalogue provides bibliographic information on some 50,000 early maps, plans and charts; maps date from the early 16th century to the mid 1980s.
Some 1,500 of the maps have been digitized at a high resolution and then reduced in size using image compression software. With the click of a mouse, researchers can magnify the maps without loss of resolution. Further scanned images will be added to the catalogue on an annual basis.
Here is the direct link to the map collection’s search page.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Language Maps
Check out Jon’s post at Cartographica Here Be Dragons about language maps. Many links. Paging Mr. Language Hat!
Mapping Nuclear Fallout
John Emerson writes:
Just wanted to send some words of praise for your blog and to let your know about an article I just found.
It’s about a big GIS project undertaken a few years ago by the National Resources Defense Council. The project tried to map the U.S.’s plan for nuclear attack against Russia, the “Single Integrated Operational Plan,” to measure the civilian impact, and determine just how many nuclear warheads we would really need to for said plan.
John has a bit more to say about this article in his own blog, which incidentally now has a mapping category.
Monday, October 13, 2003
Exploring Africa
Another special collections exhibit featuring maps: Exploring Africa: An Exhibit of Maps and Travel Narratives. “The exhibition begins with a series of very beautiful Renaissance maps, showing the tracing of the African coastline in the late fifteenth century, by Portuguese
Insert Joke Here
Captioning this rather, ah, unique map of the world I will leave as an exercise for the reader. Not for the prudish, easily offended or work-monitored. (via Manifesto Multilinko)
Friday, October 10, 2003
Here Be Dragons
Because the University of Toronto Press got snippy about the use of the same name as one of its journals, Cartographica (the LiveJournal community) has been renamed Here Be Dragons. The URL is the same, though. I should also point out their RSS feed, while I’m on the subject.
Old Airline Route Maps
The Airchive: The Webmuseum of Commercial Aviation has a collection of vintage airline schedules (covers only) and route maps: A to H, I to P, R to Z (via kottke.org remaindered links).
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Adding Walklines to the London Underground
My, but the London Underground gets a lot of online map loving. At least that’s my impression from six months of map blogging. Here’s some more from Rodcorp, who’s added walking connections to the Underground’s map.
I made some small additions to the London tube map to show which stations are 500 m apart or less. Because sometimes it’s a lot easier and quicker to walk.
(cf. Boing Boing)
Boston Public Library Maps
Joe Hughes says, “There was an interesting editorial in today’s Boston Globe about the Boston Public Library’s recent efforts to put more of its sizable historical map collection on display.” That’s a collection of 350,000 maps, incidentally. An exhibit opens today.
Most of the library’s 350,000 maps have been piled away in boxes and drawers for years. [Boston Public Library president Bernard A.] Margolis admits that “the maps have been a stepchild, more or less shunted aside.”
But the old map room has been renovated into a Map Room Café, and the new exhibit will run for months in an adjacent hall.
Good name. Heh.
Ghost Towns
Towns can disappear from the landscape long before they disappear from official maps, The Charlotte Observer reports. (via Cartographica)
I’m reminded of Underhill, Manitoba, just east of my family’s town of Hartney on Highway 23. It had maybe seven buildings, but it was on the map. Then there was Argue — between Underhill and Elgin, to the east. (West of Elgin the CNR subdivision paralleling the highway was torn up in the early 1980s, I believe.) Argue had two buildings and a grain elevator, and I’m not sure they were in use even then. Underhill is still on the map — see Map 1 (PDF) — while Argue is not.
The Mapparium
Jeff Patterson writes in to tell us about the Mapparium:
The Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy library in Boston is a big stained glass inverted globe built in the 1930s. You walk through it. Almost as impressive as the workmanship is the freaky acoustics within a spherical glass room.
Wow. Don’t miss the photo gallery.
Mapping Media Attention
“GAP — the Global Attention Profiles project — tracks the attention that selected news media outlets pay to different nations of the world.” A remarkable collection of world maps showing media attention by colour, with archives back to last June. For some strange reason, scant attention is paid to Mongolia, Suriname and Turkmenistan. (via Rebecca’s Pocket)
California Recall
A map showing the results of California’s gubernatorial recall vote, by county (via moxie.nu).
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Ursula K. Le Guin
Maps of Earthsea (small, 38 KB; large, 700 KB) and unpublished maps of Kesh (from Always Coming Home) at science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin’s official web site (via MetaFilter).
Map Community on LiveJournal
Owen has started a LiveJournal community about maps called Cartographica, and already there are some interesting links on it. Sign up if you’re a LiveJournal member; check it out anyway if you’re not.
The Map Room is a blog about maps by 
