Tag: Geography For Fun And Profit
Bars vs. Grocery Stores, Mapped
by Eva Holland | 03.16.10 | 1:11 PM ET
Flowing Data offers up a map showing that some parts of the U.S.—we’re looking at you, Wisconsin—have more bars than supermarkets. Equally interesting? Spotting the areas on the map that seem to have precious few of either. (Via @julia914)
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Yahoo! BuzzHow to Remap the World
by Michael Yessis | 03.15.10 | 2:03 PM ET
Parag Khanna believes eliminating arbitrary borders and redrawing the world map in the next ten years is a “moral, economic and strategic imperative.” His guiding star? The European Union.
Leaders seeking to respond to the global economic and underemployment crises should take a lesson from the world’s most successful instance of a subordination of arbitrary borders: the European Union. The E.U. is the world’s most peaceful multinational zone and its largest economic bloc, combining 27 countries, 450 million people and a $20 trillion GDP. The solution to the hundreds of lines that scar our political geography is to physically build the lines that connect people across them. If we spend just 10% of what we do on fighting over and defending borders on transcending them, the next decade—and the decades beyond—will be better than the last.
The success of the E.U. benefits travelers, too. World Hum contributor Eric Lucas explains.
Mapped: The Hokey Pokey, an Omelet and Rumsfeld’s Iraq
by Michael Yessis | 03.11.10 | 2:09 PM ET
Last year Christoph Niemann rendered New York landmarks and experiences in LEGOs. Now he’s mapped “the most accurate routes for all occasions,” including the Hokey Pokey, an omelet and Rumsfeld’s Iraq.
Clever stuff.
Facebook and America’s Social Geography
by Eva Holland | 02.09.10 | 12:45 PM ET
Here’s a fascinating map put together by PeteSearch, showing the regional connections between America’s Facebook users. The data creates some unexpected clusters and movement patterns: For instance, users in the northeastern states—dubbed “Stayathomia”—tend to have more local and fewer long-range connections, while users in the “Nomadic West” generally have more far-flung friendship networks. (Via Kottke)
The First Travel Photo and the Future of Photography
by Jeff Pflueger | 01.28.10 | 11:15 AM ET
Jeff Pflueger on the intersection of geography and photography
Reviewed: The Matteo Ricci World Map
by Michael Yessis | 01.20.10 | 3:39 PM ET
Commissioned in 1602, the Matteo Ricci World Map is the first written in Chinese to show the Americas. It’s currently on display at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Edward Rothstein reviews the exhibition:
Ricci created two earlier versions, beginning in 1584, drawing on atlases and materials he took with him on his journey from Italy. But this third version is the earliest to survive and the first to have combined information from both eastern and western cartography. It is also the oldest surviving map to have given the Chinese a larger vision of the earth.
Even the sturdiest of wall maps tend to have limited life spans, but this large, segmented map is so rare that for centuries it was uncertain if this copy even existed, which is why it has been nicknamed the “impossible black tulip” of maps. It is one of six known copies.
Mapped: America’s Netflix Rentals
by Eva Holland | 01.11.10 | 1:20 PM ET
The New York Times has mapped the top 10 rentals, zip code by zip code, in 12 major U.S. cities. Jason Kottke ponders: “I wonder if you could predict voting patterns according to where people rent ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop’ or ‘Frost/Nixon’.”
What’s That Smell?
by Paul Lynch | 01.07.10 | 4:48 PM ET
iStockPhoto Paul Lynch explores the intersection of travel and the nose
Travel Predictions for 2010
by Tom Swick | 01.05.10 | 10:02 AM ET
This just in: The Jersey shore will become the new Hamptons!
The World’s Language Density, Mapped
by Eva Holland | 12.22.09 | 3:10 PM ET
Over at Gadling, Aaron Hotfelder’s come across a fascinating Swedish map of the world that shows countries re-sized in proportion to the number of languages they’ve produced. The biggie? Papua New Guinea.
Video You Must See: Hollywood Teaches World Geography
by Eva Holland | 12.17.09 | 5:09 PM ET
(Via Andrew Sullivan)
Video: Black Carbon Travels the Globe
by Eva Holland | 12.16.09 | 1:39 PM ET
Wired has a video simulation (and brief explanation) of the movement of black carbon—the emission from diesel, wood and coal burning—around the earth’s surface. Who knew pollution could look so cool?
‘Unfordable River Town’ and Other True Place Names
by Eva Holland | 12.14.09 | 12:09 PM ET
The Telegraph has a fantastic slideshow from the Atlas of True Names, a collection of maps that displays alternate place names taken from the literal meanings and early origins of the official nomenclature. The result? Familiar places become “Ferry on the Bank of the Mighty River,” “Market by the Yawning Estuary,” and “Unfordable River Town”—otherwise known as London.
Malaria in post-Civil War America, Mapped
by Eva Holland | 12.08.09 | 1:08 PM ET
We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
Political Geography and the Jordanian Gerbil
by Eva Holland | 12.03.09 | 1:38 PM ET
Foreign Policy takes a look at a fascinating study that suggests political boundaries could have an impact on the development of animals living on opposite sides of the line. One of the test cases: Israeli and Jordanian gerbils. From the story:
A second study revealed that Israeli gerbils are more cautious than their Jordanian friends… The agricultural fields on the Israeli side of the border not only create a gulf between habitats and thereby cause an increase in the number of species in the region, but they also hail one of the most problematic of intruders in the world: the red fox. On the Jordanian side, the red fox is far less common, so that Jordanian gerbils can allow themselves to be more carefree.
(Via Kottke)
Cartography: A ‘Nether Region Between Science and Art’
by Michael Yessis | 12.02.09 | 4:13 PM ET
More to love from the world of strange maps: Slate has a slideshow and essay about “cartographic curiosities,” courtesy of author Frank Jacobs, whose book of strange maps we blogged awhile back.
The Puzzle of ‘Cool Cities’ and Migration
by Eva Holland | 12.01.09 | 3:16 PM ET
New Geography’s Aaron M. Renn explores a paradox of the 2000s: Why do America’s “cool cities”—“the ones that are supposedly doing the best, the ones with the hottest downtowns, the biggest buzz, leading-edge new companies, smart shops, swank restaurants and hip hotels - the ones that are supposed to be magnets for talent”—experience a higher rate of domestic outmigration than the cities with less cache? In other words, why are people moving to Dallas instead of San Francisco? It’s a slightly dense, interesting read. (Via The Morning News)
Photos: Accidental Geography
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.09 | 1:37 PM ET
Strange Maps just posted another amusing batch of photos where the familiar shapes of continents, countries, states and the like appear in things like shower tiles, cracks in floors, fruit and other random places. Here’s the first batch from last year. (via Coudal’s Fresh Signals)
Senators, Draw Your States!
by Michael Yessis | 11.17.09 | 2:44 PM ET
Love the way National Geographic is celebrating Geography Awareness Week. It invited all U.S. Senators to “draw a map of their home state from memory and to label at least three important places.” The first batch of maps are in, including one from Minnesota’s Al Franken.
Drawing his home state from memory was simple. Remember, this is the guy who can do all 50 from memory in under two minutes.
Travel Movie Watch: ‘Risk’
by Eva Holland | 11.05.09 | 11:13 AM ET
News broke yesterday that a movie version of the classic board game is in the works, with Will Smith as a producer and possible star. Blogger Colin Boyd is excited about the project, but I’m not so sure.
My favorite thing about the game was always the board itself—if you haven’t guessed that I’m a map geek by now, you haven’t been paying attention—but I can’t imagine how a movie would capture that global sweep, the bird’s-eye view of people moving across the continents. I can only hope the producers care enough about that element of the game to try.
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