Thirty Day Map Challenge - Part 3

Here is the final batch of maps for the #30DayMapChallenge. The first ten maps are here. The second installment here.

Day 20 -  Theme: Movement

The first plane trip I ever took. PHL to HOU with an hour layover in Atlanta.

Day 21 -  Theme: Elevation

I learned that you can make quick elevation profiles using Google Earth Pro and was curious what the Finger Lakes, some of which are very deep, would look like. Most of the work was in annotating the hills and valleys.

Day 22 -  Theme: Boundaries

At my day job I was asked to emulate a project from  the City of Columbus. When I first encountered that crazy boundary I didn't know what I was looking at but here it is. Many cities such as Detroit and Los Angeles surround well known enclaves but I've never seen anything close to this. Had some fun with the magnifying glass on the locator map.

Day 23 -  Theme: Data Challenge 3: Global Human Settlement Layers (GHSL)

Like many, I was completely unfamiliar with this data set. I still don't know much about it but I downloaded their built-up areas and drew them as if they were elevation, hills being the settled areas. I looked around for a good pattern and found Quebec City. In retrospect, I could have done a better job lightening the greys and changing the elevation quotient but there's only so much time in a 30-day challenge. I played around with some additional data layers in GIMP to create this image.

Day 24 -  Theme: Historical Map

I did some recent tutorials on how to create a historic looking map in GIS software.  The least historic place I could think of was Las Vegas. I got the buildings layer from the City of Las Vegas upon which I discovered that the main strip (including the casinos) is not even in the city but rather in Paradise, Nevada. Unable to find their buildings, I drew my own. I added an ad for wagon lumber. The text was inspired by other maps from that era. The title block was taken from a map of Las Vegas, New Mexico via the Library of Congress. Some image manipulation was used to change "N.M." to "NV" and the elevation from 6,400 feet to 2,000.

Day 25 -  Theme: Interactive Map

I enjoy hockey so I was curious about the world's second major league, Russia's KHL. Without reinventing the wheel, I made a similar interactive map to my previous ones of transit tokens and for New Year's Eve. Wikipedia was extremely helpful for providing both an already usable data set and the team logos. Above is just a screen shot. The interactive map can be seen here.

Day 26 -  Theme: Choropleth Map

For anyone that doesn't know the jargon, a choropleth is a map with areas colored based on data. In this case I tried my hand at a bivariate (two data variables) choropleth. This was based on a Tweet from the European Commission showing the relationship between COVID-19 vaccination rates and death rates. These maps can be hard to follow but the expected pattern should be yellow (low death rates, high vaccinations rates) to dark blue (opposite). The lack of red or orange shows that countries with high vaccination rates do not have high death rates. The confusion of the map is compounded by needing to flip the legend so that the high vaccination rates are at the bottom of the legend.

Day 27 -  Theme: Heat Map

It took 27 days but I finally thought to reuse a data set and made a heat map of Day 25's KHL data. I did not love the look of the original map (below) so I tried to hand draw it. It looks sort of nice but I misplaced the Moscow area and had to make up for it by adjusting some of the other locations. Here is the original computer generated version.

Day 28 -  Theme: The World is not Flat.

Once again working with the KHL data I tried my hand at a spherical map projection. This data is good for this because of the impressive longitudinal reach of the league. Those players do some long traveling!

Day 29 -  Theme: NULL

Going back to the theme from Day 26, I noticed that certain countries routinely had null data values for their vaccinations. Here they are.

Day 30 - Theme: Metamapping Day

I thought it would be fun to use this theme to show the locations and software used for my other 29 maps. However, the wheels came off the bus or I ran out of gas or some metaphor. I had numerous unexpected technical problems and finally just had to throw up my hands and put this mess out there. A couple of days got buried in the data or otherwise lost, the legend needs work and the US inset map is almost unreadable. 

This has been an excellent learning experience. I can't imagine going through this again which means I'll probably be back at it next November.

I highly recommend checking out other people's entries into the #30DayMapChallenge. There is some beautiful and wonderfully creative stuff out there.

Gerrymandering the EU for Funds and Profit

There's a good article in The Pudding showing how countries like Hungary have been able to increase their share of European Union development funds by splitting the most economically developed regions. This creates "have not" regions within the "have" regions that are more likely to meet the threshold for aid.

In the map above the entire Budapest region is shaded in green (above average development) whereas the rest of the country is shaded pink for below average development. By making a tight ring around Budapest and calling the rest of the region "Pest", the country now has one more below average region that can receive aid, while Budapest has a more concentrated (greener) level of development.

This is a similar process to the gerrymandering so familiar in the United States. Lithuania and Poland have also done similar splits. The maps below illustrate nicely the difference between development at a larger scale (country wide) and at a regional scale.

You can really see how one or a few cities can change the balance, most notably in France. The article does this great "scrollytelling" bit that shifts between these two maps and then with further scrolling send each region flying over to its position on a graph.

To get the full effect and see much more go here and scroll away.

Theoretical Nation States of Europe

I came across this map recently showing the possible sovereign nation states of Europe. The full map can be linked here.

There's lost of fine detail with most of today's countries being carved up into smaller units.

Even smaller states such as Latvia and Lithuania are subdivided.

The map extends far enough east to include the ethnic jumble of the Caucasus.

They were able to find capital cities for most places, even tiny little Morpeth in Northumberland, but nothing for Basque Country.

Of course a map like this is by nature subjective and bound to upset people, especially those fighting for or against independence. Here are a few things I wonder about:

• Is England really that divided?
• Is Ireland really that united?
• When did Athlone become the capital of Ireland?
• What country includes the midlands of England - is it really part of the Isle of Man?
• Is Occitania really that different from France?
• Seems like northern Italy is divided into the medieval city states but not the South.
• I think there are biases towards and against certain countries here but I don't want to speculate too much not knowing much about the origin of this map.

Culinary Horrors!

I mostly avoid posting stuff from the Atlas of Prejudice despite their popularity. Lazy cliches are fun but a bit predictable:

However, I am quite fond of some of the maps listed under "Our Collective Eating Disorder"
For example, the Culinary Map of Europe According to Italy.

Beyond the delightfully ridiculous non-realistic concentric circles, there are other nice details like the names of the parallels and meridians. Also, the subtle digs at the US and China (didn't they invent pasta?)

The Culinary Horrors map is also fun, though I have no idea how accurate it is.

 Now back to my duck blood soup.

Europe 1914

This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the "Great War." Here are several maps of Europe as it appeared in 1914.

The simple map - BBC

More complicated maps showing ethnic groups and some random* provinces.

 An even more complicated map showing more random* provinces - from AltHistory.

BibliOdyssey has a nice collection of satirical maps. This one called "Dogs of War" has a very long winded explanation of how the war started. Some of it is below - the complete text is here. 

The Dogs of War are loose in Europe, and a nice noise they are making! It was started by a Dachshund that is thought to have gone made -- though there was so much method in his madness that this is doubtful. [NOTE FOR THE IGNORANT: The German for Dog is Hund. The English for German is Hun. Dachshund means badger-dog -- and he is sometime more badgered than he likes.] Mated with the Dachshund, for better or for worse, was an Austrian Mongrel. By the fine unwritten law of Dogdom big dogs never attack little dogs. There are, however, scallywags in every community, and, egged on by the Dachshund for private ends, the Mongrel started bullying a little Servian. And the fat was in the fire, for the little Servian had a great big friend in the form of a Russian Bear, and he stood up for his pal. And that was what the Dachshund wanted. He hoped that a big row would ensue, and in the confusion he intended to steal a bone or two that he had his eye on for some time. He got what he wanted -- and a little more. For the Russian Bear had friends too. There was a very game little Belgian Griffon, and there was a great big French Poodle, a smart dandified fellow, and there was a Bulldog. Rather a sleepy chap this last one, and the Dachshund despised him because he was not always yapping and snaring. But the Bulldog has a habit of sleeping with one eye open, and, when he is roused, he grips and won't let go.

If none of this makes you understand the point of this "great" war don't worry - few of us do understand it.

* Why some provinces are outlined or labeled and others not is not always clear.

Dug Tries Open Source Mapping

I was asked to make some maps showing a family's escape from Nazi-occupied eastern Europe during World War II. I've gotten used to relying on ESRI's expensive mapping software but nowadays there are many good open source tools available and many of them are platform neutral, meaning I can use them at home on my MacBook, or at work on my Windows PC or laptop. I hope to use more of these tools for personal and work projects.

I looked at some good tools for creating interactive (clickable or animated) maps, but this project only required a simple printed map. After some research I settled on the MapQuest API. This creates a map by entering a line of text in a web browser. For example this URL (the full text is below) creates a map showing the two towns in Belarus (variously under Polish, Russian and Lithuanian control at the time) where the grandparents came from.

http://open.mapquestapi.com/staticmap/v4/getmap?key=Kmjtd%7Cluu7n162n1%2C22%3Do5-h61wh&size=1200,1000&zoom=7&center=53.35,26.1&pois=yellow_1,53.219784,26.68405,0,0|red_2,53.489738,26.738491,0,0

The code above includes the image size, zoom level, center (in latitude, longitude) and two points ("pois" in the code) whose coordinates can be found by entering the name of a place or address in various online mapping services - Bing Maps is particularly easy to use to get these coordinates. The map above is oddly missing country names and needs the two points labeled. This is easy to do by saving the image and bringing it into Paintbrush, a free Mac program, or Paint if you're using Windows.

The same process resulted in this map of five addresses in Warsaw.

The map looks fine but doesn't really tell a story. To illustrate the forced relocations and disappearing family members, I used Inkscape, an excellent free program but with a steep learning curve, to create arrows and some text effects. The bubble text was done using my Mac's native Preview app, though this can also be done in Powerpoint, Inkscape (with difficulty) and other software packages.

Click on the map above to see the entire picture or look at this detail to get the idea.

I look forward to making the rest of the maps showing the family's difficult journeys through France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Mexico and finally to the United States. It's been a good learning experience both about the mapping tools and the horrible past that we're lucky to have escaped.

I Saw a Peutinger Map Replica at ISAW

This weekend I was in New York City and had a chance to wander over to the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) to see their exhibit, Measuring and Mapping Space: Geographic Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity.  The exhibit features a 1:1 scale digital replica of the Peutinger Map, the only known surviving world map from the Roman Empire. This is a medieval era copy of a map from Roman times housed at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The map is over 22 feet long and only about 13 inches wide. The digital replica takes up one wall of the gallery. Here are some photos from my phone. 

The map is centered on Rome. Above are the roads radiating out of Rome, including the Appian Way. It is meant to show a schematic road network and the extent of the empire's control from the British Isles to India and Sri Lanka. The geography is highly distorted to fit the dimensions with the areas closer to Rome much larger and more accurate. Expanses of open water are reduced to narrow channels. Small cities are represented by twin towers while larger ones show temples and other complexes. The largest cities, Rome Constantinople and Antioch are shown with more elaborate symbols. Below is a section in Mesopotamia.

You can see these areas much more clearly on the ISAW map viewer. This allows you to pan and zoom around the entire map, except for the far western edge - missing from the original map. You can also add lines and text digitized from the original for clarity.

Wikipedia also has a cleaned up high resolution image of the map. The missing western areas were reconstructed by Konrad Miller in 1887-88 and show up with a white background. The original parts of the map are shaded in yellow. The preview image below gives you an idea of the map's crazy dimensions.

The exhibit at ISAW only goes until January 5th, but hopefully the online resources will remain available.

Some Excellent Subway Inspired Maps

Summer's here, the kids are getting out of school and the NHL's ridiculously long playoffs are finally over. Time to start making vacation plans - if you actually have any spare time or money. Cameron Booth has some wonderful schematic subway style maps to help you plan your journey. Here is his U.S. Routes as a Subway Map - click to see a legible image.

This map has been accepted into the NACIS Atlas of Design. A close up view of it shows a different look at the U.S. than we are generally accustomed to,

The important cities are at the highway junctions and ends. Larger cities such as Detroit and San Francisco are pretty unimportant looking whereas Shamokin Dam and Hurley are major crossroads. Buffalo doesn't even rate on this map.

If you prefer higher speed travel and bland scenery here are the U.S. Interstates.

This time some of the important places are Cove Fort, Utah and Florence, South Carolina. Oh and some place called Chicago. Buffalo, New York is on this map but Buffalo, Wyoming is much more important.

If you prefer a ride on the train here's the Amtrak system. Finally some respect for Buffalo!

If you're in Europe there's the E-Road Network...

or the TGV trains.

In addition to being pretty to look at, these maps might actually be helpful for planning your itinerary. Happy vacation season!

More Bike Month-EuroVelo

Bike month is coming and going quickly-so here's a bonus, two posts in one week!

EuroVelo, the European bicycle route network, is a project of the European Cyclists' Federation. Much of this text has been lifted from their web site. EuroVelo is made up of 12 routes, totaling over 66,000 km, of which about 45,000 km is already in place.

The EuroVelo routes are made up of existing and planned bicycle routes at a regional and national level. Their web site includes implementation guidelines for on-road and greenway routes. There are also guidelines for signage. Examples abound!

Some of the routes have their own web sites. Route 6, the Atlantic-Black Sea (Schwarzes Meer) route has an interactive map. If you click a section of the route... well, nothing happens! But hopefully they are working on details about each section of the route.