Making of the Moscow Metro map
A lovely visual look at redesigning the map for the Moscow Metro. (thx, matt)
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kottke.org posts about maps
Altered United States
Michael Crawford monkeys around with a map of the US. This piece is called Los Angeles Getting More Annoying as We Speak:
I also liked his alteration to a Chuck Close portrait: Rauschenberg Minus Nebraska.
Locals vs. tourists
Locals and Tourists is a set of maps showing where people take photos in various cities around the world. The results are broken down into tourist photos and photos taken by locals. Here’s NYC:
Blue points on the map are pictures taken by locals (people who have taken pictures in this city dated over a range of a month or more). Red points are pictures taken by tourists (people who seem to be a local of a different city and who took pictures in this city for less than a month).
OffMaps
If you’re travelling abroad with the iPhone and understandably wish to avoid AT&T’s ridiculously high data roaming charges when trying to find the train station in a new city, I would highly recommend OffMaps.
OffMaps lets you take your maps offline. It is the ideal companion for any iPhone and iPod Touch user, who wants to access maps when travelling abroad (and avoid data roaming charges) and who wants to have fast access to maps at all times. This app (and the icon) just has to be on the right hand side of Apple’s built-in maps app.
OffMaps uses OpenStreetMap that include a lot more information than simple road maps: from ATMs and train stations to restaurants and pubs! You choose which areas to download instead of buying a new app for every city you want to visit.
I used it for a week in Paris and it worked great; the GPS and compass both still work when data is off so locating yourself isn’t a problem. Just download the proper maps before you leave for your trip and you’re good to go.
New NYC subway map
Next month, the MTA will release a new subway map. The NY Times has a look at the new map.
The new subway map makes Manhattan even bigger, reduces Staten Island and continues to buck the trend of the angular maps once used here and still preferred in many other major cities. Detailed information on bus connections that was added in 1998 has been considerably shortened.
Manhattan will be shown on the map as nearly twice as wide as in real life. Cut back on the chili-cheese fries, my friend!
Ten maps that changed the world
The head of the map collections department at the British Library shares ten maps that changed the world.
5. Google Earth. Google Earth presents a world in which the area of most concern to you (in this instance, Avebury in Wiltshire) can be at the centre, and which - with mapped content overlaid - can contain whatever you think is important. Almost for the first time, the ability to create an accurate map has been placed in the hands of everyone, and it has transformed the way we view the world.
The other iPhone network
As our devices converge, the infrastructure necessary to support them grows and grows. The iPhone costs $200, fits in a pocket, and relies on “a vast array of infrastructures, data ecologies, and device networks” to function…from the mines where the indium for the touchscreen is mined to the cell towers that allow you to locate that coffee shop in Brooklyn.
Until we see that the iPhone is as thoroughly entangled into a network of landscapes as any more obviously geological infrastructure (the highway, both imposing carefully limited slopes across every topography it encounters and grinding/crushing/re-laying igneous material onto those slopes) or industrial product (the car, fueled by condensed and liquefied geology), we will consistently misunderstand it.
See also I, Pencil and this neat Harry Beckian map of the iPhone’s connections and capabilities. (via lone gunman)
Redrawn European map
The Economist redraws the map of Europe with some countries in new places.
In Britain’s place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.
The Beauty of Maps
The Beauty of Maps is a BBC series that “[looks] at maps in incredible detail to highlight their artistic attributions and reveal the stories that they tell”. The site also links to another maps blog: Amazing Maps. (via junk_deluxe)
NYC taxi flow infoviz
Nice timelapse map view of taxi traffic across Manhattan.
I’ve often wondered what an NYC version of Stamen’s Cabspotting project would look like.
Maps as metaphor
What a great way to start off this morning: a new series of map-based illustrations by Christoph Niemann. Reserve Battery Park is a favorite. So is this omelet recipe:
8-bit map of NYC
Fully draggable, zoomable, Zelda-like map of NYC…this is awesome. But where are the Octoroks? (via waxy)
Geotypography (or is that typegeography?)
I like these Alphaposters by Happycentro, especially the gorgeous Lowercase F Island:
Using Facebook to split up the US
Data from Facebook reveals how the United States is split up into different regions like Stayathomia, Greater Texas, Dixie, and Mormonia.
Stretching from New York to Minnesota, [Stayathomia’s] defining feature is how near most people are to their friends, implying they don’t move far. In most cases outside the largest cities, the most common connections are with immediately neighboring cities, and even New York only has one really long-range link in its top 10. Apart from Los Angeles, all of its strong ties are comparatively local.
(thx, dinu)
Aerial map of NYC from 1924
The interactive map on the NYC govt site has hi-resolution aerial photos from 1924 (click the camera and move the slider to 1924). Check out all the piers, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the old baseball stadiums, the LES (and everywhere else they built housing projects), Penn Station, and the skyscraperless Midtown. This is hours of fun.
Update: The NYC Oasis map features a satellite view from 1996 and an imagined sat view from 1609. (thx, steve)
Zoomable paper map of London
Map^2 is a zoomable paper street map of London…to zoom in, you fold down the quadrant of the map you’re interested in.
(thx, peter)
Interactive map of the Nazi invasion of the USSR
An amazingly extensive Flash presentation of the eastern front in Europe during World War II. It takes a while for the Flash to load because of all the resources but well worth the wait if you’re at all interested in WWII. (thx, reis)
Where the streets have your name
Stephen Von Worley wrote a nifty little web app for looking up US streets that share your (or your kid’s or your spouse’s) name. For instance, here are all the streets named Ollie and the streets named Meghan.
Map of Netflix nation
Fascinating map of Netflix rental patterns for NYC, Atlanta, Miami, and nine other US cities. I wonder if you could predict voting patterns according to where people rent Paul Blart: Mall Cop or Frost/Nixon. I wonder what the map for Napoleon Dynamite looks like?
Update: Here’s how the Times’ graphic was made.
Most of the interesting trends occurred on a local scale — stark differences between the South Bronx and Lower Manhattan, for example, or the east and west sides of D.C. — and weren’t particularly telling at a national scale. (We actually generated U.S. maps in PDF form that showed all 35,000 or so ZIPs, but when we flipped through them, with a few exceptions, we found the nationwide patterns weren’t nearly as interesting as the close-in views.)
The Known Universe
The Known Universe zooms out from Tibet to the limits of the observable universe. Dim the lights, full-screen it in HD, and you’re in for a treat.
Like Powers of Ten, except astronomically accurate. It’s not a dramatization, it’s a map; the positioning data was pulled from Hayden Planetarium’s Digital Universe Atlas, which is available for free download.
Since 1998, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium have engaged in the three-dimensional mapping of the Universe. This cosmic cartography brings a new perspective to our place in the Universe and will redefine your sense of home. The Digital Universe Atlas is distributed to you via packages that contain our data products, like the Milky Way Atlas and the Extragalactic Atlas, and requires free software allowing you to explore the atlas by flying through it on your computer.
Who Lives Here?
Who Lives Here? is an interactive map of New York City that shows income levels in the various neighborhoods of the city. (thx, tom)
Accidental geography
People find likenesses of states, countries, and continents in the oddest places.
Caricature map of Europe, 1914
Britain is an militaristic lion with a Roman Imperial italic-type helmet. It sits upon a mound of riches gathered from its Empire.
Drawn by Keith Thompson…prints are available if you like. (thx, zoe)
Thompson’s maps may have been influenced by this 1870 map of Europe. (thx, mark)
Harry Beck’s US Interstate map
Map of the US Interstate system in the style of the London Tube map.
Go large for detail. (via coudal)
Maps without labels quiz
From The Morning News, a collection of maps without labels or legend…can you guess what each map represents?
There and back again
A wonderful character interaction map of the Lord of the Rings trilogy drawn by Randall Munroe. Here’s just a little part of it:
Strange Maps
The Strange Maps book is out today. The book is based on the awesome Strange Maps blog, one the very few sites I have to exercise restraint in not linking to every single item posted there. The content of the book is adapted from the site, so of course it’s top shelf.
My only reservation in recommending the book is the design. When I cracked it open, I was expecting full-bleed reproductions of the maps, large enough to really get a detailed look at them. The maps *are* the book, after all. But that’s not the case…only a few of the maps get an entire non-full-bleed page and some of the maps are stuck in the corner of a page of text, like small afterthoughts. The rest of the design is not much better, cheesy at best and distracting at worst. I wasn’t expecting Taschen-grade production values, but something more appropriate to the subject matter would have been nice.
Human space exploration map
Beautiful map by National Geographic of human exploration of the solar system.
See also Race to the Moon at HistoryShots and Bryan Christie’s Mission(s) to Mars. (thx, byrne)
A three-year-old’s view of the NYC subway
This was my present to my nephew for his 3rd birthday. He loves, loves, loves the subway so my sister asked me if I could make a custom map with all the places that mean something to him on the poster.
Best viewed a bit large.
Update: There’s been a bit of confusion…this is not something that I made. I don’t even have a nephew.
Update: The subway map was made by Erin Jang.
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