Mapping Errors

Inaccurate SBA Map Excludes Eligible Firms
“The Small Business Administration relies on an outdated, inaccurate map to maintain its billion dollar HUBZone program that is rife with fraud, according to a government report,” according to the Washington Post’s small business blog: The report said the map,… »
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 12:56 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors
TV Program Shows Nepal as Part of India
Television stations routinely make cartographic errors in their graphics, but I bet none have backfired quite like this. An Indian television program’s logo erroneously showed Nepal as part of India; Nepal was not pleased. Via GeoCarta…. »
Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:12 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Two Longviews
The Daily News of Longview, Washington, has a piece about another Longview, Washington that is causing some confusion online: “It may be a field rather than a city, but that other Longview has established its place on the Internet, often… »
Posted on Sunday, May 25, 2008 at 11:34 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Errors in Online Maps
Top Causes Of Errors In Online Mapping Systems: “Causes of internet map errors range from digital mapping methodology, data errors, data interpretation errors, usability errors, and errors in interpreting user queries.” Detailed. Via Slashgeo…. »
Posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 6:56 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Online Maps
Monmonier on Mapmaking Mistakes
On today’s edition of Weekend America, professor and writer Mark Monmonier is interviewed about mapping errors, beginning with GPS navigation errors — blame the maps, not the GPS signals — and moving on to what, the interviewer asks, the three… »
Posted on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 7:49 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Podcasts & Audio
War Museum Refuses to Fix Mapping Error
Two and a half years ago, Bill Schroeder found a mapping error on a globe at the new Canadian War Museum. The globe depicted the Boer War, and labelled Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) as Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). He’s been… »
Posted on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 9:03 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Trap Street Found
Oh, look: Owen found a trap street — a fictitious street inserted by a mapmaker to trap plagiarists. A cul-de-sac present in the 2000 edition of an Oxford map disappears in the 2005 edition; Owen investigates on the ground and… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 9:43 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Why Do People Follow Bad Directions?
Nicholas Forbes writes with an interesting question about why people follow bad directions — covered here ad nauseaum — that is above my pay grade: I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Nottingham UK. I have been running… »
Posted on Sunday, June 17, 2007 at 10:10 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Questions
A Year or More for Corrections and Updates
Don’t expect instant results when you submit errors to a mapping data provider. A dentist whose office is not on the map discovers that NAVTEQ can take as much as a year, if not more, to process corrections or new… »
Posted on Friday, May 25, 2007 at 10:19 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Online Maps
Apparently I’m a Pundit Now
Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a writer for iPass who was working on an article about the accuracy of driving directions on online mapping sites. I provided some pithy comments. Her article is now online and to my… »
Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors
Housing Development Built in Wrong Place, Map Blamed
What difference does three metres make? Plenty, according to a story from the Edinburgh Evening News: a mistake in the location of old flats on an Ordnance Survey map is being blamed for a new housing development being built in… »
Posted on Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 8:39 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Surveying
The Quebec-Labrador Border
GeoCarta notes the news that a boundary dispute between the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador has flared up over Quebec wildlife maps that show part of Labrador as belonging to Quebec. This is not new. The Quebec-Labrador… »
Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 at 3:09 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Around and Around and Around and Around
Google gets a bit confused on the road to North Brunswick, New Jersey, Valleywag reports. Update, 1/23: Google has corrected the directions, but Chad has screenshots if you missed it…. »
Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Online Maps
New Zealander’s Campaign to Correct Geographic Names
A retired public servant in Wellington, New Zealand is on a campaign to correct spelling mistakes in New Zealand place names, the New Zealand Herald reports. He’s made a total of 60 submissions to the Geographic Board pointing out errors… »
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 at 1:48 PM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Toponyms
Spelling Errors Persist on Devizes Tourist Map
The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald: “A tourist map of Devizes which is littered with spelling mistakes is still on display more than two years after they were pointed out.” Oops — they were supposed to be changed more than a… »
Posted on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 9:58 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Update: The Kims Used a Paper Map
As I noted in an update to my earlier post, the body of James Kim was found yesterday. But online maps or GPS navigation systems cannot be blamed for the Kim tragedy, as some have surmised (based on little more… »
Posted on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 10:28 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Were the Kims Led Astray by Online Maps?
On the other hand, sometimes stories about being led astray by navigation systems aren’t so amusing. The tech community has been concerned about the disappearance of CNet senior editor James Kim and his family while on vacation: his family was… »
Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 10:00 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, Mapping Errors, Online Maps
State Forest Inadvertently Renamed
Oops. Thanks to a proofreading error, the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest appears as the “Brenda Bryan State Forest” on recently issued AAA maps of New Jersey. Byrne is a former state governor…. »
Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 at 8:03 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Map Error Blamed for Israeli Strike on UN Observers
CBC News: “An incorrect map and communications failure led to an Israeli air strike on a UN observer post that killed four peacekeepers. … According to [the IDF’s] confidential report, Israeli artillery were using a hand-drawn map that identified the… »
Posted on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 10:37 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Tourist Map Inflames Argentina-Chile Border Issue
The government of Chile is complaining about an Argentine tourist map of the Andean Southern Ice Field, the boundaries of which do not conform to a 1998 border agreement between the two countries’ presidents. The exact nature of the boundary… »
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 at 8:56 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Thomas Guides, Navteq on KPCC
On Friday the 7th, there was an item on mapping on Patt Morrison’s afternoon show on 89.3 KPCC, a public radio station based in Pasadena, California. On deck were representatives from Thomas Brothers Maps and Navteq; much of the focus… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 at 12:24 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors, Podcasts & Audio, Publishers, Roads, Surveying
Crackpot Directions Send Drivers Along a Cliff
BBC News: “Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village called Crackpot have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100-ft cliff.” Another entry in the annals of errors made by in-car navigation systems. Via Slashgeo. See… »
Posted on Sunday, April 9, 2006 at 4:06 PM
Categories: Driving Directions, GPS, Mapping Errors
Link Roundup for January 14
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… »
Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 8:32 AM
Categories: Blogs, Books, Cartography, Education, Mapping Errors, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Russian Maps Mislead Foreign Businesses
The International Herald Tribune looks at the disconnect between the official maps handed out by the Russian authorities to foreign businesses, with gridlines diverging from true north and the latitudes and longitudes blotted out, with the relative ease that the… »
Posted on Friday, December 2, 2005 at 8:53 AM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Mapping Errors
Copyright Traps
Publishers frequently use “copyright traps” to prove that someone plagiarized their work. Without evidence of the actual act of plagiarism, it’s difficult to prove that someone publishing a rival phone book, dictionary or encyclopedia didn’t just copy material wholesale from… »
Posted on Friday, November 25, 2005 at 9:51 AM
Categories: Cartography, Copyright, Mapping Errors
Seminar on Errors in Early Maps
A seminar about errors in early maps takes place this Saturday in Annapolis, Maryland; topics for discussion include extra islands in John Smith’s maps of Chesapeake Bay (see previous entry) and maps showing California as an island…. »
Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2005 at 8:01 PM
Categories: Antique Maps, Mapping Errors
Campus Orientation Maps
I misspent three years at the University of Alberta; this opinion piece in the student newspaper there, The Gateway, has this to say about the quality of the campus orientation map: “It sucks.”… »
Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2005 at 8:45 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
Counterfeit Maps, Lost Drivers
To save money, some Chinese GPS manufacturers use counterfeit maps instead of official ones; as a result, Shanghai drivers who buy the cheaper units are getting lost. Via GeoCarta and Very Spatial…. »
Posted on Friday, September 23, 2005 at 9:24 PM
Categories: GPS, Mapping Errors
Wrong Map Costs City $15,000
Via GeoCarta, a report that an inaccurate map was responsible for the city of Gearhart, Oregon encroaching on private property during bridge construction. From the article: “City Manager Dennis McNally told the City Council Wednesday the city had poured the… »
Posted on Saturday, September 10, 2005 at 8:47 AM
Categories: Mapping Errors
More About Flood Maps
Forbes reports that FEMA’s outdated flood maps meant that many people in Hurricane Katrina’s path didn’t have flood insurance because, according to those maps, they weren’t in a flood plain and didn’t need it. More generally on inaccurate flood maps… »
Posted on Thursday, September 8, 2005 at 9:43 PM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, Mapping Errors, Weather & Climate
Protected Forest Logged, Mapping Error to Blame
A protected forest in Tasmania was accidentally logged due to a mapping error, ABC News (Australia) reports. Via Cartography; see also GeoCarta. Update, 10:40 PM: From ABC News, “Forestry Tasmania general manager Kim Creek says the error was caused by… »
Posted on Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 8:16 AM
Categories: Energy & Resources, Environment, Mapping Errors

Note: Entries from 2003 were not categorized and will not appear in the category archives. Please consult the monthly archives.