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.

A Topographic Map of Titan

May 16, 2013 • The Cassini team has released a global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan. What makes this map interesting is the fact that, due to its thick atmosphere, Titan can only be mapped by radar during Cassini’s close flybys. As… Read more →

Google Maps Redesigned

May 16, 2013 • Google announced a complete redesign of Google Maps at their I/O developer conference yesterday. The new maps are vector-based, take up the entire browser window and change based on the context — highlighting certain streets, for example, based on a… Read more →

OpenStreetMap’s New Map Editor

May 8, 2013 • OpenStreetMap has launched a new map editing interface that runs, for the first time, in HTML5. (Potlatch, the previous web-based map editor, uses Flash, and JOSM runs in Java, which I always thought was ironic for an open project.) The… Read more →

Fictional Worlds Map-Making Competition

April 21, 2013 • A map-making competition asking participants to submit maps of their fictional worlds? That’s precisely the sort of thing I should bring to your attention, now that it’s been brought to mine. First announced in February; deadline May 21…. Read more →

The KickMap Comes to London

April 4, 2013 • In 2007 Eddie Jabbour released the KickMap, a map of the New York subway system that tried to square the circle of various competing and controversial New York subway map designs. The KickMap later became an iOS app; I… Read more →

Mapping Manhattan

April 3, 2013 • A new book collects hand-drawn maps of Manhattan submitted by both anonymous and notable New Yorkers: Becky Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers. It started with Manhattan in the summer… 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)