Big Maps

Chicago Model City
Chicago Model City is a 320-square-foot model of downtown Chicago. The models were printed by a 3D printer from digital files. It’s on display at the Chicago Architecture Foundation; free admission. Above, a video of a visit to the…
Because Atlases Should Be Bigger than You
If the 18½×24-inch, $4,000, limited-edition Earth atlas wasn’t exclusive or enormous enough for you, how about the six-foot-by-four-and-a-half-foot, 264-pound, $100,000, 31-copy platinum edition? Klencke’s got some competition, I see. Coverage in the spring 2011 issue of ArcNews. Previously: World’s Largest…
National Geographic Giant Traveling Maps
On paper, the idea of National Geographic’s Giant Traveling Maps seems almost ludicrous. These are truly giant maps — 26 feet by 33 to 35 feet (8m by 10-10.7 m) — that ship folded and rolled in tubes 10 to…
Lego Map of Europe
Wow: a huge relief map of Europe made of Lego — 53,500 bricks’ worth — with monuments added (not to scale). Via MAKE….
Huge Relief Map of California in Storage for 50 Years
British Columbia’s Challenger Map is by no means the only very large relief map to be hidden away in storage. The San Francisco Chronicle has the story of a relief map of California that was once displayed in San Francisco’s…
The Electric Map to Continue on Film
Don’t look now, but the Gettysburg National Military Park’s defunct Electric Map may be making a comeback of sorts: the presentation was recorded before the map was dismantled earlier this year, and the Park plans to show it alongside another…
The Globe and Mail on the Challenger Map
An update on the Challenger Map, a portion of which is now being used “to familiarize visitors and security officers from other parts of the country with the intricate, geographical contours of the Olympic security zone,” from the Globe and…
Challenger Map Back on Display, Sort Of
The amazing Challenger Map, the giant relief map of British Columbia that was on display at the Pacific National Exhibition until 1997 but has since languished in storage, is back on display, sort of. The Vancouver Sun reports that…
More on the Mapparium
Curious Expeditions visits the Mapparium, the three-story walkthrough glass globe that was built in 1935 for the headquarters of the Christian Science Monitor; they also have a Flickr photoset. Via Cartophilia. Previously: The Mapparium….
Mapping the Inauguration: A Roundup
Last month, the Armed Services Inauguration Committee revealed to the public a 40×40-foot map used to plan the inauguration (via Vector One); another view is here (thumbnail above; via MapHist). New Google Earth imagery for Washington, D.C. finally de-pixellates…
Elections on Ice!
Those of you watching NBC or MSNBC for your dose of election coverage last night may have noticed that they transformed the ice rink at the Rockefeller Center into an election map; apparently they did this the last time,…
Shanghai in 2020
We’ve seen this scale model of Shanghai before, but Neatorama provides some more information: “On the third floor of the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, there is what probably is the world’s largest scale model of a city. The room-sized…
Lights Out for the Electric Map
Like many large map installations, the Electric Map of the Battle of Gettysburg has gone the way of the dodo. The 30×30-foot map has been illustrating troop movements during the battle using more than 600 light bulbs since it opened…
More About Restoring the World’s Fair Map
The New York Times has more about the continuing efforts to restore at least part of the so-called Texaco Map, the terrazo map from the 1964-65 World’s Fair; see also this related blog entry about the return of a missing…
Another Challenger Map Update
Don Young writes to tell us about the Challenger Map’s new website, which means that my old links are now broken. “This is a renewed site from the Challenger Map Foundation updating the status of the map and the…
Challenger Map Update
Melissa writes, “Since you bring it up, here’s an update on the Challenger Map” — which, you will recall, has been in storage since 1997. From yesterday’s Vancouver Sun: Now efforts are about to begin to restore the 196-piece…
B.C. Living Map Moves
The large, 12×22-metre Living Map, a showpiece of the apparently defunct “B.C. Experience” exhibition in Victoria, British Columbia, is being moved to an agriculturally themed tourist attraction in nearby Saanich. (This map should not be confused with the older…
Challenger Map Gets Reprieve
A highlight of Vancouver’s Pacific National Exhibition grounds was George Challenger’s massive — at 26×24 metres — exaggerated-relief map of British Columbia, which was on display at the B.C. Pavillion until that building was torn down in 1997. Saved…
Giant Lego Map of the U.S.
Boing Boing reports that, at the World Children’s Festival in Washington, DC this past weekend, Lego set up a “building event” in which kids contributed to a giant Lego mosaic map of the United States. (Thumbnail at right; see…
The Living Map
Cartography draws our attention to the Living Map, a huge, three-dimensional map of British Columbia now on display as part of the “B.C. Experience” exhibition that just opened in Victoria’s Crystal Garden. The 40-foot-by-74-foot map even models the curvature…