The Map Room

The Map Room is a blog about maps by Jonathan Crowe. It was published between March 2003 and June 2011, and covered everything from antique map collecting to the latest in geospatial technology. The Map Room came to an end on June 30, 2011, but you can still browse more than 4,000 entries in the archives. I also still post occasionally to The Map Room’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

I haven’t given up on maps: I make an occasional blog post about them on my personal blog: see the Maps category; the most recent entries are below. I’m also working on several map-related projects, including research into the use of maps in fantasy and science fiction.

Four Map Stories

January 20, 2012 • I have not forgotten my Maps in Science Fiction and Fantasy project, though it’s lain fallow for a bit while I juggled other things. Here are a few short stories about maps that I’ve encountered over the past few months…. Read more →

A Map of Rising Global Temperatures

January 20, 2012 • This animated map from NASA (Flash-only, sorry) illustrates global temperatures since 1880: “reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average.” News flash: the planet’s getting… Read more →

Personal Geographies

December 10, 2011 • If you’re interested in maps as art, you probably already have copies of books like You Are Here and The Map as Art, excellent collections of map art curated by Katharine Harmon (if you don’t have these books and… Read more →

Historical Atlas of Washington and Oregon

November 27, 2011 • Last week I received in the mail a review copy of Derek Hayes’s latest book, the Historical Atlas of Washington and Oregon. Now, except for a day trip to Mount Baker in 1993, I haven’t so much as visited… Read more →

A New Lunar Topo Map

November 16, 2011 • A new topographic map of the Moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: “Today the LROC team releases Version 1 of the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) topographic map of the Moon. This amazing map shows you the ups and downs… Read more →

Maphead

November 16, 2011 • Word first came in early 2009 that Jeopardy whiz Ken Jennings was writing a book “exploring the world of map nuts and geography obsessives.” That book, Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, came out in September, and… Read more →

Older entries →

• OpenStreetMap (Ramm, Topf and Chilton)
  (Reviewed on June 1, 2011)
• Infinite City
  (Reviewed on April 28, 2011)
• Maps in Comics: In Maps & Legends
  (Reviewed on February 15, 2011)
• National Geographic Atlas of the World, Ninth Edition
  (Reviewed on November 22, 2010)
• From Here to There
  (Reviewed on October 26, 2010)
• The Power of Place
  (Reviewed on March 16, 2010)
• The Fourth Part of the World
  (Reviewed on December 7, 2009)
• Paris Underground
  (Reviewed on November 24, 2009)
• Map Addict
  (Reviewed on October 7, 2009)
• Two Inexpensive Star Atlases
  (Reviewed on February 20, 2009)
• Cartography Design Annual #1
  (Reviewed on September 15, 2008)
• Rhumb Lines and Map Wars
  (Reviewed on July 22, 2008)
• Lost States
  (Reviewed on July 15, 2008)
• Transit Maps of the World
  (Reviewed on March 5, 2008)
• Canada Back Road Atlas
  (Reviewed on February 15, 2008)
• Longitude
  (Reviewed on January 22, 2008)
• Our Dumb World
  (Reviewed on January 14, 2008)
• The Geist Atlas of Canada
  (Reviewed on November 20, 2006)
• From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow
  (Reviewed on July 26, 2006)
• Seeing Through Maps
  (Reviewed on July 25, 2006)
• How to Lie with Maps
  (Reviewed on May 29, 2006)
• Walking with Your Ancestors by Melinda Kashuba
  (Reviewed on May 8, 2006)
• Making Maps by Krygier and Wood
  (Reviewed on March 29, 2006)
• GPS Mapping by Rich Owings
  (Reviewed on February 10, 2006)