In response to competition from the online mapping services, National Geographic Maps is restructuring, moving away from producing general-interest maps and towards specific niches, such as recreation, emergency, geology and other field work, the Denver Business Journal reports (via All Points Blog and GeoCarta). NG Maps, a taxable subsidiary of the Society, is largely based in Evergreen, Colorado, thanks to its heritage: National Geographic bought Evergreen-based mapmaker Trails Illustrated in 1997 and folded it into its operations. More on NG Maps from a local perspective from the Canyon Courier; thanks to Robert Norheim for the link.

Some upcoming map and map-related exhibitions to tell you about:

Silver Spring, Maryland: From a NOAA press release: “Artifacts representing nearly 200 years of science, service and stewardship by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its ancestor agencies will be on public display at the agency’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., February 6-11, 2006 during the second annual NOAA Heritage Week.” The exhibit will include early instruments, maps and charts. Free admission. More from GeoCarta.

Versailles, France:: An exposition at the Orangerie de Madame Élisabeth in Versailles features 17th- and 18th-century maps from the departmental archives of Yvelines that are, strangely enough, maps from outside Yvelines. Until February 19. Via Kartentisch.

Miami, Florida: At the Deering Estate until March 26, Cuba and the Caribbean in Old Maps, an exhibition of 16th- to 20th-century maps from Claude Alix’s private collection. Free admission. Via GeoCarta.

Bangkok, Thailand: Until March 31 at the Jim Thompson House, an exhibition of a collection of 17 newly discovered cloth maps of southeast Asia dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries: “Covering Siam, Burma, Cambodia and China, they are rich in detail and beauty, showing terrain studded with hilltop temples, trees and forts. They show lakes and rivers teeming with fish and Chinese junks. But more importantly, they are unique in Thailand: other than a topographical copy of a map dating back the reigns of Rama I and II, the only other maps of that era were cosmological ones.” Via Cartography; thanks also to Robert Norheim for the link.

We’ve seen before how suburban growth in some U.S. regions can be so fast that the digital mapping companies can’t keep up. The implications of living in an area so new that it’s not mapped yet are surprising: GeoCarta points to an article in The Herald (of Rock Hill, South Carolina) that profiles people having trouble getting newspaper delivery, submitting a change of address, or giving friends directions to their homes because they’re not in the system yet.

I’ve been off my feed a bit this past week, so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll start with a few random links from here and there about this and that.

From the Google Blog: “Not only have we added extensive 6-inch imagery for many parts of the U.K., but we’ve updated the Google Local database to match the coverage we have in Google Earth, and (drum roll, please) … we’ve added two more zoom levels in Google Local’s Satellite mode!”

Alan Glennon asks if Microsoft is planning a competitor to Google Earth that combines satellite imagery with the Flight Simulator engine.

A controversial Mexican map for illegal migrants, aimed at reducing the death toll and showing highways, rescue beacons, water caches, and the distance a person could travel in a day, has been suspended due to concerns that it would help anti-immigrant groups pinpoint migrants (via Cartography).

Software MacKiev’s Mac-only applications, which include 3D Weather Globe and Atlas (see previous entry), are now available as Universal Binaries, which means they’ll be able to run natively on the new Intel-based Macs.

Rich has been reviewing a number of GPS receivers on his blog; here he outlines the differences between PDAs with integrated GPS and standalone units: “The bottom line is that [PDAs] can be a good solution for automotive navigation or paperless geocaching, but they aren’t a good choice for backcountry navigation.”

In response to Glenn’s complaint about a dearth of maps showing the results of the 2006 Canadian federal election, Cartography whips up a couple of beautiful maps showing the 2004 and 2006 results, with intensity indicating the percentage.

Meanwhile, the preliminary results (i.e., the final results barring recounts) are available from Elections Canada in this very official, very big map (4.6-MB PDF); thanks to d in the comments.

See previous entries: Canadian Election Maps: Before the Vote; Canadian Election Results.

Update, 1/26 at 9:13 AM: The relevant Wikipedia entry also has a number of electoral maps in a similar vein (via Cartography).

Olivo Barbieri’s model world: “It’s often hard to convince people that Olivo Barbieri’s aerial photographs are real. They look uncannily like hyperdetailed models, absent the imperfections of reality. Streets are strangely clean, trees look plastic, and odd distortions of scale create the opposite effect of what we expect from aerial photography — a complete overview, like military surveillance.” Via various sources; see also BLDGBLOG.

The polls are starting to close in the Canadian federal election, and no doubt there will be a plethora of election maps in fairly short order. In the meantime, while we wait for the results, there are already a number of maps showing the electoral boundaries, candidates, poll results and so forth. And since approximately 43.7 per cent of all map bloggers are Canadian, none of them have been missed, I think.

The always excellent Cartography blog has done a whole series of posts on election maps: 1, 2, 3, 4. (I particularly like this big (3.4-MB) PDF from Elections Canada; it shows the 2004 results and is probably the gold standard for print-based electoral maps.) And Google Maps Mania points to a couple of Google Maps hacks (unfortunately, this one, a mashup with a very Web-2.0-ish poll site, crashes Safari, and this one, which aggregates polling data, is down for the evening).

There will no doubt be more over the next day or two.

See previous entry: Canadian Election Results (from the 2004 election).

A clickable map of Tlingit tribes, clans and clan houses in the Pacific Northwest. Via Plep.

MapPoint B2B on the future of MSN Maps and Directions, viz., none: “The time has come to say good-bye to MSN Maps and Directions and say hello to Windows Live Local. The product team has decided that in order for everyone to appreciate Windows Live Local, users need to stop using MSN Maps and Directions and be force fed WLL in order to love it … And they will!” Cheeky. Via All Points Blog.

They’re there, they’re gone, they’re back again — or did they never leave? SearchEngineWatch reports still seeing blue pins in Google Local, and there’s a report of paid listings in Google Earth as well, which Google confirms is part of their limited testing. Via All Points Blog; cf. Ogle Earth. Meanwhile, the Virtual Earth blog points out that you can see billboards in their oblique imagery — fine for the ads-seen-from-the-air meme, not so good for the Big-Brother-is-watching meme; see previous link roundup.

The St. Petersburg Times has a review of The Map Book (see previous entry).

Ted Czarnecki writes, “I am a teacher and our school is trying to improve students’ knowledge and familiarity with geography. Does anyone know of a large 3-D (hands on) map that we could purchase and install on a hallway wall? The bigger the better.” What would you call this — a textured relief map?

While procrastinating the big post on the Chinese map, I’ve moved and revamped the map questions RSS feed: it now shows all open questions (they stay open for 30 days), as well the answers to those questions. (I’ve also been tuning up the questions page a bit.)

I’ve got to hunker down and produce a big post about the controversial Chinese map that purportedly proves that the Chinese discovered the Americas, but in the meantime, here are a few links about satellite images, online maps and advertising.

This AP wire story about satellite images and privacy raises the same privacy concerns that we’ve seen before (see previous entry) — i.e., that we, individually, can be under surveillance, despite the relatively low resolution in most cases (A9 and Virtual Earth’s oblique and aerial imagery might be an exception) and the very real time lag between photo and publication, which in all but the most exceptional cases is months if not years. It does point out that Microsoft “would not rule out” using live imagery in certain cases, but for the most part this is getting very close to an artificially generated controversy. Many people still believe — or expect — that this stuff is coming to them real-time; it’s not hard to spook people out under such circumstances, and I suspect people will try.

Instead of worrying what people will do if they can see their rooftops, some companies are putting ads there in the expectation that they’ll be turn up in the satellite images offered by online mapping services (via Boing Boing). Just be sure you’ve got the same logo and company in a year or two — these things get updated faster than the photography sometimes. (Update: Jason suggests that airline passengers, not computer users, are Target’s target audience — the airport is nearby.)

Meanwhile, the blue-pushpin ads in Google Local (see previous entry) are gone again. This was only a test; had this been a real advertising rollout …

The first public build of Virtual India (the Microsoft Research project with imagery that satisfies Indian security concerns; see previous entry) is now online, according to the Virtual Earth blog. Four languages; street maps for Bangalore only; works in Firefox but not in Safari.

The Hartford Courant’s Kim Martineau has been on the Forbes Smiley case for months, and has generally led the reporting on the story (see the Map Thefts category archive for earlier coverage). In today’s edition, she has a story that looks at the fallout from the case at the library from which Smiley is accused of stealing maps: Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In addition to a discussion of making high-resolution digital copies of the rare maps (and concomitantly limiting access to the originals), which is the focus of the somewhat misleading headline, and the FBI’s attempts to retrieve the stolen maps, there are the following points of information about the Beinecke:

The fallout has quietly circled back to Yale. In November, Fred Musto, the curator who oversaw the map collection for about a decade, was cited for gross mismanagement and fired, according to sources. At about the same time, Yale closed its collection and began painstakingly picking through its maps, sheet by sheet. …

The inventory is probably long overdue. The reading rooms were full of nooks beyond view of the curator and his assistant and folders filled with maps would sometimes be given to patrons without the material being counted before and after use, according to dealers and a professor who has used the collection. In a recent posting on an online map discussion group, a former map curator at Yale, Barbara McCorkle, said she would have welcomed an inventory had she been given the resources.

The curator fired, the library closed for inventory — these are serious responses.

Dr. William Bowen writes to tell us about his project, the Utah Atlas of Panoramic Images: “This latest web publication includes 887 photorealistic mathematical simulations of Utah’s complex landscape.” He adds that “it is important to realize that the panoramas are not photographs. They are photorealistic, mathematical simulations created from satellite data that have been interpreted by computer calculations.”

Recently I’ve received several questions relating copyright and reproducing other maps, so I thought I’d deal with them all at once. The first question deals with reproducing maps that may or may not be in the public domain; the second deals with using reproductions of old maps that themselves are out of copyright; the question is the copyright status of the reproductions.

First, Drew writes:

I’m interested in reproducing the Tokyo subway map on a product that I will be selling online. Things like t-shirts, postcards, etc. I want to use the official Tokyo Metro version from their website. I can’t find any contact info for them though. Do you know anything about the ability to reproduce this map? Is it in the public domain? If I use it without an offical answer would they just tell me to stop if they didn’t want it used, or would I face a copyright lawsuit? Thanks in advance for any help and I look forward to your reply.

The maker of subway maps for the iPod ran into trouble for distributing iPod-friendly digital versions of official subway maps, and he wasn’t even asking for money. The answer to your question will depend on Japanese copyright law, about which I know nothing. But considering that people run into trouble when they aren’t making money from it, there is probably considerable risk involved if you try to sell tchotchkes based on official maps. You really ought to try to get a hold of them. Which, I admit, is not much help; can anyone add to this?

Next, Cynthia writes:

1. Are all (if any) antique maps copyrighted? And if so, could you tell me how to go about gathering information about particular maps?

2. I am interested in one map in particular that I would like to use as wallpaper on my website. I don’t know the name of it but I could send you a link to it or a jpeg of it. It is in Atlas Maior by Peter Van der Krogt, so I suspect that it is not entirely public domain but would like to find out for sure before giving up. The web in general and antique maps (always loved them, am just beginning to learn about them) are both pretty new to me so any guidance would be greatly appreciated! I would love info on how to go about checking copyrights on maps as I would much prefer not to get in trouble! I am more than happy to do the research, I just have not had luck yet in discovering where to even look … I thank you in advance!

Another question I received last month states the point more succinctly:

Regarding the copyrights of old and antique maps prior to the 1923 convention: Do exact scans of an original print have any actual copyright weight?

So, for example, maps from Blaeu’s Atlas Maior may be out of copyright, but is Van der Krogt’s edition of it (see previous entry) protected? Or, to take another example, is a digital image of an antique on a library web site copy-protected? I suspect it is, and that scanning the book rather than the original, or using someone else’s scan, may be problematic, but I could be wrong. Can anyone offer any insight here?

See previous entry: Copyright Traps.

Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum).

MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities — it’s the capital of Alberta, for those who don’t know — and some Edmontonians are spitting about it, or at least the Edmonton Journal is. This can be a touchy subject in Canada; see previous entries: PureCanada Map Errors, Off the Map, Out of Mind and Pure Canada Update; Regional Reactions.

For Bill Bumgarner, Google Earth’s mapping features are amazing but he’s disappointed with the user interface on the Mac version (via Daring Fireball).

PlaceMap’s list of five books to change the world (or at least how we draw it) has been getting some attention; it looks like the PlaceMap Project itself (blog, about) should get some attention too: there’s an ongoing workshop on spatial application design.

Noel Jenkins’s Digital Geography, which looks at technology in the British geography curriculum, is a successor to (but does not wholly replace) Juicy Geography.

Claus Moser has begun a German-language map blog: Kartentisch: Die Welt ist ein Atlas. This looks promising and I will keep an eye on it, my badly atrophied and rudimentary German notwithstanding.

If I make these posts a regular occurrence, I’ll have to come up with a catchier title. Anyway, onward, with a few things about online maps and a couple of conferences to tell you about:

Ads appearing on Google Maps? We kind-of, sort-of knew it was coming. Blue pins representing paid ads have been spotted on Google Local; they apparently represent “a limited test” (via and more from All Points Blog, Ed Parsons and Glenn’s GISuser Weblog).

For Mac users of Google Earth, a Google Earth Mac OS X support forum (via Google Earth Blog).

Microsoft Research India unveiled a prototype digital map of India with all the sensitive bits — the ones that got Google fulminated against — removed: “Special care has been taken to keep defence installations and other strategic locations out of the scope of these maps.” Pussies.

Blaine Bell’s thesis looks at the problem of legends and popups blocking important information in online maps.

Where 2.0 2006 will be held June 13-14 in San Jose, California (via Ed Parsons). See previous entries on the 2005 conference: Summing Up Where 2.0; Where 2.0.

A little closer to home: the 2006 GeoTec Event, a geospatial technology conference, held June 18-21 in Ottawa. This year it’s held alongside meetings of the Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives, the Canadian Cartographic Association, and the International Cartographic Association, so my attendance may not be optional. (Expensive, though — media credentials?) Thanks to Richard for the link.

More radio news. Our friend Mike Pegg of Google Maps Mania was on NPR’s All Things Considered today, talking about Google Maps mashups, bien sûr; here’s the story page, from where you can listen to the audio.

In referencing this story, Adena points out that there have been a lot of geospatial/mapping stories on NPR lately. Probably a reflection of the overall media interest in the subject of late.

See previous entry: BBC and NPR Do Maps.

Our friend Frank Taylor of Google Earth Blog has put together a page of Google Earth Basics for people new to Google Earth. That’s basically me: while I’ve been reporting what I could about Google Earth since its launch, I haven’t played with it until this week (I didn’t download the Mac beta). So now I’ve got Google Earth. So now what? So now I go back and try some of the things I’ve heard about, and Frank’s page seems a good place to start.

As an experiment, a lot of new links at once:

A new Google Earth blog with a rather unwieldy title: Using Google Earth for Earth Science and Remote Sensing (via Ogle Earth).

The Prejudice Map is built by querying Google with phrases like “Germans are known for” and pasting up the results (via Jason).

Many people say they’re heartily sick of talking about map thefts and the Forbes Smiley case, but not everyone. Tony Campbell noted this week that Smiley was supposed to be in court this week, but neither he nor I have yet seen any media reports about it. Meanwhile, MAGERT will be discussing library security at its meeting (schedule) at the ALA midwinter conference in San Antonio (via MAPS-L).

Also via MAPS-L (and thanks to Angie): China has published a new atlas showing definite boundaries of administrative divisions; apparently there had been no consensus on where the borders between districts were, resulting in much squabbling.

The Register makes a point of having fun at Microsoft’s expense with mapping errors; the latest involves a hotel that MapPoint locates in the middle of the English channel. See also Cartography; see previous entry: Where Do You Want to Go Today?

A busy day for Mac users, and not just because of the Macworld keynote. Google Earth for the Mac is now officially available (via GPS Review). Key system requirements: OS X 10.4 (Tiger), a 400-MHz processor, and 16 MB of video RAM, minimum — essentially, even a G3 iBook from mid-2002 should be able to handle it — but they recommend more than 1.5 GHz, 32 megs of video and a fairly speedy broadband connection. I’ve been restraining myself from acquiring the leaked beta, but I’m going to download it now. Excuse me for a bit.

See previous entries: Early Reviews of Google Earth for OS X; Google Earth for OS X Being Developed: AppleInsider.

Update, 4:02 PM: Google Blog announcement; also note that the PC version is now officially out of beta (a major event in Google terms, I think); also, you can’t upgrade to Google Earth Plus in the Mac version.

Update, 7:23 PM: Stefan’s usage notes for the official Google Earth release.

In a press release, Garmin announced today “that it will immediately begin to make its line of GPS and mobile electronics devices compatible with Mac OS X version 10.4 ‘Tiger.’ This makes Garmin the first major GPS designer and manufacturer to announce direct support for Mac OS X.” Training Center and MotionBased.com will be compatible by the spring; all then-current hardware and software will be compatible by the end of 2006. This is excellent news. (GPS Review, MacMinute.)

See previous entries: Mac Geocaching and GPS Software; MacGPS Pro 6.1; Question: GPS and the Mac; Mac Software Updates; GPSNavX; GPS Connect for OS X; Mac Mapping Software.

At last weekend’s meeting of the American Historical Association, there was a session on GIS and History, the papers presented at which are available as PDF files (on the page, click on the name of the presenter). Historians regularly import methods from other disciplines to solve historical problems, and this is no different: the papers from this panel are mostly examples of how GIS (rather broadly defined) are used in the presenters’ work; an exception is the very fine paper by Anne Kelly Knowles, which talks about GIS and historical research in wide-reaching and accessible terms. Thanks to Duane on MapHist.

Anthony Doerr in The Morning News: “We are mapmakers, all of us, tracing lines of memory across the spaces we enter. We embed memories everywhere; we inscribe a private and complicated diagram across the landscape; we plant root structures of smells and textures in the apartments of girlfriends and the station wagons of friends and in the living rooms of our parents.”

Very Spatial reviews Making Maps by John Krygier and Denis Wood, an unusual book that is in my review queue as well. (I’m so profoundly behind on reviews it’s embarrassing, but a review of this book is forthcoming.)

Here’s a reprint of an article from The Irish Times that looks at two hefty, illustrated books: Blaue’s Atlas Maior, which we’ve talked about previously; and The Map Book, edited by Peter Barber, which I knew about but did not have occasion to mention before, it seems.

See previous entries: Guardian Feature on Map Books; Blaeu’s Atlas Maior (1665).

• Buy Atlas Maior at Amazon.com
• Buy Making Maps at Amazon.com
• Buy The Map Book at Amazon.com

I’ve been fiddling with the site again (see previous entry), so periodic bouts of weirdness may have been appearing over the last few days and may continue to appear. (I’m flouting web design best practices by coding live rather than on a test version.) Starting with the first entry of 2006, I’ve been adding tags to entries: at the moment those tags appear on the individual entry pages and on the full-text RSS feed; it’s for Technorati purposes for now, but it might have other applications later on. I’ve also been tinkering with the full-text feed, the individual entry pages (especially the comment form), and the footer at the bottom of each page.

Never mind the Soleto Map: pottery doesn’t count as maps, apparently. The City of Turin (Torino), as part of its celebrations related to next month’s Winter Olympics, will have on display the first-century-BC Papyrus of Artemidorus, which, while several centuries younger than the Soleto Map, is, it’s argued, the real world’s oldest map. Because it’s more like a real modern map — it’s on paper, for one thing. (Let’s debate this in the comments.)

From the ANSA article:

The parchment, which is over 2.5 m long and 32.5 cm wide, was found by chance at the end of the 20th century. Its importance has been compared to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It features the account of a trip to Spain of a previously obscure Greek geographer, Artemidorus of Ephesus, and the map, which is unfinished and impossible to relate to any particular region.

But what counts is that it shows roads, rivers and settlements in an attempt to depict realistic spatial arrangements; something which makes it the first example of the kind of map used today.

Older “maps” have been found — like the scratched-on-ceramic Soleto Map, which shows towns in the southern Italian region of Apulia and dates back to the 5th century BC — but they do not have the characteristics we would associate with a modern topological map.

The Papyrus will be on display in Turin between February 8 and May 7 at the Palazzo Bricherasio.

See previous entry: The Western World’s Oldest Map.

Chandu Thota announces that his new book, Programming MapPoint in .NET, which covers APIs for MapPoint 2004, MapPoint Web Service, Microsoft Location Server and Virtual Earth, is now available. A sample chapter is available via O’Reilly’s online catalogue, and there’s a support site for the book as well. James Fee is enthusiastic. As for me, I work on the Mac side of the fence and I’m certainly no programmer (least of all using C# or .NET), so I’m fairly sure that this book would do nothing but bewilder me. Still, it looks like a significant book for map programmers.

• Buy Programming MapPoint in .NET at Amazon.com

I got Hacking Movable Type for Christmas and it’s been giving me all kinds of ideas for this site.

First, I’ve set up a new RSS feed that tracks the most recent reader comments. Now that comment spam has been vanquished for some time (knock on wood), I’d like to focus on encouraging more commenting on entries here; this might help.

I’ve also reorganized the comments, trackbacks and navigation on the individual entry pages a bit, hopefully for the better.

Nominations for the 2006 Bloggies — the sixth annual weblog awards — are now open, and close on the 10th. Since I have neither shame nor subtlely, may I do what every other attention-whoring blogger does at this time of year humbly suggest that The Map Room might be an interesting candidate for the best topical weblog category. For your consideration and all that.

On a somewhat less self-serving note, given the growth in map and geospatial blogging this year, I think it’d be really neat if we could get a mapping blog — any mapping blog — on the ballot in at least one category. The Google, geospatial and ESRI/GIS blogs would not be out of place in the tech category, and there are plenty of blogs that would qualify for the new weblog category. (And we shouldn’t forget the podcast category, either!)

What do you think? Can we get a map blog on the ballot? (My guess is, the more nominations, the more likely the blog will make the list sent to the panels.) We’ve got until next Tuesday.

See previous (unsuccessful) entry: 2005 Bloggies.

A collection of maps of undersea cables, beginning with Atlantic telegraph cable maps from 1858 and finishing with a world cable map from 1992. Most of the maps are older, though, and quite interesting. Via Things Magazine.

Two Gadling bloggers are dead keen on Oxford’s Atlas of the World, Deluxe Edition; see Erik’s post and Kelly’s earlier post. I had thought that the gold-standard atlas was the Times Comprehensive (at least that appeared to be the consensus on Ask MetaFilter). Also, during the holidays a number of you bought expensive atlases through the Amazon links on this site (thanks muchly), and the most popular one by far was the Times. Personally I haven’t been able to take a look at either atlas yet; I haven’t been in a map store for a while (for shame, but also for my own financial safety) to browse through one, and I don’t at present have the funds to spring for either or both. (I know, what kind of hobbyist am I if I’m unwilling to spend money I don’t have?) Still, the enthusiasm out there is contagious, and I’m bound to succumb sooner or later.

See previous entries: Followups: Wall Maps and Atlases; Question: Best World Atlas?; Times Atlas.

• Buy the Oxford Atlas of the World: Deluxe Edition at Amazon.com
• Buy the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 11th Edition at Amazon.com

Coincidentally, two public-radio programs had items on digital maps and geospatial technologies today. Both have already aired but you’ll be able to listen to them online.

On BBC Radio 4, Shop Talk had a program on digital mapping with about a half-dozen guests from the cartographic and geospatial fields. I goofed up my time zones but managed to catch the last ten minutes of it live, but you can find it here for the next week or so. I’m listening to it now. (Thanks to Steve Chilton, who was one of the guests, for the heads-up.)

Once I’ve finished listening to that, I’ll turn to NPR’s On Point: this morning’s program talks about the implications of all the new mapping and geospatial technologies. Via Allan Doyle.

A followup to the AP wire story that made the rounds last week, by the same writer, looking at what Google et al. do with the digital mapping data: Roads, highways are just the beginning for digital maps. Via GPS Tracklog.