Redistricting Mini Golf

To show the absurdity of congressional district shapes, Dylan Moriarty and the Washington Post have designed this wonderful miniature golf game you can play online. 

Above is the Ohio 1st District. Republicans split Cincinnati into three districts to dilute that city's voting power. While not nearly the trickiest hole to play you have to squeeze the ball through the narrow gaps of Cincy.

The game begins in Wyoming, a state with only one district, therefore not one that can be manipulated. You can see from the layout that each district, or hole has an info box describing its demographics and voting patterns. 

The Illinois 4th District is famous for its "earmuff" shape, packing the Hispanic vote into the Midwest's only Hispanic-majority seat.

Indiana 7 is a trick hole. While the district looks very regular in shape, it is still designed in a highly political way by packing all of Indianapolis into it.

The toughest to play, by far is Maryland's terrible third. The water traps are completely unforgiving. 

You can see how I struggled with it by looking at my score sheet. Even with a generous par of 26, I was up to about my 50th stroke when I got caught in an impossible water situation and had to bail out.

Here is my final score sheet. I accidentally skipped the bonus hole-the original Gerry-mander in Massachusetts. This was my second go around so my scores on the other holes were pretty good. You have to play it at least once to get the hang of it. Have fun!

The Mysterious "P"

Help Montgomery County, Maryland solve a mystery. They are trying to figure out what the "P." abbreviations stand for on a Martenet & Bond 1865 map of the county.

The map was produced by S.J. Martenet & Co. in Baltimore. The "P" appears next to the names of property owners. It could mean "principal", "plantation", "place", or something completely different.  The company does not know because their records were lost in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. Here is another example image with the "P"'s after some of the Dr. Washington Duvall lands.

If you have any ideas you can help county historians by putting them on this Google Doc.

This post was largely stolen from the Montgomery County Planning Blog.

Look North

Going through my recently acquired road maps, I was intrigued by the many different north arrows. Many are gas stations maps-the work contracted out to map publishing companies such as Rand McNally and H.M. Gousha. Oil companies put their names on the map and often their logo on the north arrow.

Here's an example from the Gulf "Richmond Tourgide" - their cutesy misspelling, not mine. Rand McNally produced this map. Here are some more:

Flying A Service Metro D.C. Street Map- Gousha.

Cities Service - I don't know who they were and it was hard to get a clear picture of their logo. This is from their Maine map (Bangor inset). You can see the H. M. G. Co. (Gousha) text.

Before Arco, there was Atlantic - From a Tampa-St Petersburg map-Rand McNally










American - Greater Miami Street Map and Mobil Travel Map of the San Fernando Valley, California - Rand McNally

Two Gousha's - one from the Hertz/American Express Chicago map and one from their own branded New Orleans city map.

AAA's maps used this globe north arrow. They liked to put them in the water.









Here is one from Rand McNally's Los Angeles map. It appears on the LAX airport inset. This map looks very different stylistically from the rest of the map and the Thomas Brothers north arrow explains why.

The other sections of the map all have this dull, understated e.e. cummings- style "n"










Some state tourist agencies.

Maryland - I don't love Maryland's schizophrenic flag, but I like how they incorporated it into their north arrow.

Virginia - very detailed.

Montana-now that's a quality north arrow!





















Best of all - South Dakota with its compass ring showing where the needle would point at the center of the state. Two rings, one for true distance and one for magnetic variation, plus the state seal!

 Here are some more

Greenbar Africa

 When I was a child, my dad would bring me computer drawings from work on greenbar paper. An early computer map of Maryland that appeared in Cartographic Perspectives reminded me of those drawings.

I began to wonder how I could re-create such a map using modern GIS tools. It turned out to be remarkably easy. Here it is again, enlarged a bit.

Baltimore 1815

Bearings of Baltimore Circa 1815 is a fantastically detailed interactive historic map of Baltimore. This 2.5 billion pixel image was created from a 3D model that was a 2+ year collaboration between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the Maryland Historical Society. The map is set in 1815, shortly after the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 (though this battle took place late in 1814).

When you click to go to the interactive map, you get a warning about needing Google Chrome, but it's worked for me in various other browsers and mobile devices. If you click on the sites at the bottom, you get automatically zoomed to that part of the image. The level of detail is pretty spectacular.

The highlighted text has pop-ups with more information about each site - including my favorite, the Mud Machine.

 There is also a 2014 overlay showing some of the current buildings for better orientation.

 Thanks to Maps Mania for alerting me to this fantastic site and distracting me for hours from what I really should be doing. Enjoy exploring!

The title BEARINGS is actually an acronym for Bird's Eye Annotated Representational Image/Navigable Gigapixel Scene.

Big Ten Games of Thrones Map

Like many Americans, I spent way too much time Monday night watching the NCAA Championship football game. While not paying total attention, this commercial for the Big Ten Conference really jumped out at me. The commercial is called "Maps" and is based on the Game of Thrones intro (with the same music.)

It constructs a flyover of the US, starting at the Rose Bowl. As you pass by iconic buildings, stadiums and landmarks pop up from the landscape. Here is a tour using screen grabs from YouTube.

From the west coast you fly across the mountains to Nebraska, the current westernmost outpost of the conference.

Next comes Iowa, then Minnesota, then Wisconsin.

One of the most dramatic moments is watching the Chicago skyline pop up in front of the Northwestern logo. Note the theater references for Northwestern and Iowa. The mist coming off the Ohio River adds to the medieval theme.

The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is about as big as it gets.

From there, it makes the jump to the east coast to cover the conference's recent acquisitions. Here are Penn State and Maryland with east coast icons such as the Capitol building, Washington Monument, LOVE statue and the Liberty Bell.

The flyover heads over the Atlantic and turns back to the west to include Rutgers the "birthplace of college football" (according to the ad) along with the NYC skyline and the ferris wheel at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I like the reflections off the water.  

The full video is at the top - enjoy!

The Pennsylvania-Maryland War

My mother reads Now I Know by Dan Lewis. She recently sent me his post about Cresap's War, a border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The map via Wikipedia effectively illustrates the competing claims.

Pennsylvania's charter references the Twelve Mile Circle* around New Castle, Delaware and it's intersection with the 40 degree latitude line as its southern boundary. However, the circle is well south of 40 degrees. Both colonies used this error to try and extend their claims. Maryland claimed up to the 40 degree parallel (the northern red line on the map), thus including Philadelphia, the capital of Pennsylvania at the time. Pennsylvania proposed that the charter's error should be compensated for by moving the border further south. Britain issued a proclamation in 1724 prohibiting the establishment of new settlements until the border issue was resolved.

The resolution of this border did not come easily and hostilities broke out throughout the 1730's after Marylander Thomas Cresap set up settlements and ferry service across the Susquehanna River while collecting taxes for Maryland. His presence was not welcomed by the Pennsylvania settlers. An agreement between the colonies was reached in 1732, and then reneged upon by the governor of Maryland. After much nastiness and many failed attempts to capture him, Cresap was finally arrested by the Lancaster County sheriff. As he was paraded through the streets of Philadelphia with "his spirit unbroken", he announced, "Damn it, this is one of the prettiest towns in Maryland!**"

King George II intervened and in 1738 the parties signed a peace treaty in London. The 1732 agreement was upheld and the border was set at 39 degrees, 43 minutes and various seconds (it is not purely a line of latitude.) Mason and Dixon surveyed the line from 1763-1767 and it went on to greater fame as a political, cultural and metaphorical line.

* The Twelve Mile Circle is also an interesting historical anomaly, with it's own border disputes and may be worthy of a future blog post - stay tuned.

 ** This quote is from John Gibson, ed., History of York County, Pennsylvania via Wikipedia - the link to the original text is broken.

Boring Personal Note:  At the time of Cresup's War, all of Philadelphia lay south of the 40th parallel, now the line is well inside the city. When I lived in Philadelphia, I liked to imagine that when I was traveling up Bustleton Avenue, I'd cross from Kansas (home of my grad school) into Nebraska at Grant Ave - same latitude in other words. However due to an error, either on the map I was using, or my interpretation of it, I was pretty far off. The line is well to the south, approximately at Tioga Station on the elevated Market-Frankford subway line, or if you prefer, the corner of Broad and Clearfield. It also runs through the area depicted on this blog's header image.

"Dangerous" Mapmakers

The October 2012 issue of the Atlantic has an article by Robert Draper about redistricting called The League of Dangerous Mapmakers.The article profiles experts at drawing maps to the advantage of their political party. It also discusses how GIS software has enabled amateurs to get in on the action, often with messy or even counterproductive results. An example being the messy situation in Texas that cost that state an early primary, highlighted here in January. The illustrator (uncredited, possibly the author) had some fun with the districts.

Antietam Animated Map and Video

Monday was the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. It was the bloodiest single day battle in American History. The Civil War Trust created a fantastic video and interactive map. Here are some screen shots.

After watching the video, this interactive map appears. Click on the points for details

Map of the Week-Shipwrecks of the Delmarva

National Geographic features Shipwrecks of the Delmarva on their maps page. I never would have guessed that the chicken farms on Route 13 were perched on such treacherous soil. Here is a detailed view from the Zoomify interface.

From the web page:

Developed by renowned marine archaeologist and accomplished author Don Shomette, and designed by award-winning cartographer Robert Pratt, Shipwrecks of Delmarva is a stunning cartographic piece based on years of research and expert visual design.

I can't resist a few more detailed views.

The burning ship in this last one represents the amazing 2011 Phillies playoff run. Or maybe the gently sinking Rose is the better metaphor - it's just downstream from the stadium.