The Map Room

Why should the London Underground map get all the attention (see previous entry)? The New York Times has a brief story (usual registration caveats) on the origins of the current New York subway map, which dates to 1979. Thanks James.

Last year there was a story about the people on the ground who do the surveying for the online mapping services (see previous entry). Now there’s a story about the people who do something similar in the middle of nowhere, checking to see if dirt roads are still drivable or whether they even exist any more.

Now this is odd. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library has scanned the text of a whole whack of documents from the Civil War era that “demonstrate the Confederate States of America’s unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state.” One of these is an 1864 school geography textbook, A Geography for Beginners, by K. J. Stewart. The entire text and images have been reproduced. It’s a fascinating insight into mid-nineteenth-century pedagogy. Cringe at how geography was taught! (Questions: “Who provided metals, &c., for mankind? Did He provide enough of them?” Answers: “God” and “yes”, if you know what’s good for you. No cracks about whether this text is still in use in Mississippi.) Via The Cartoonist.

This site about the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (now a part of Union Pacific) has a better-than-average collection of maps: not only system maps, but also USGS relief and topo maps, insurance maps, and more. More than enough for anyone truly obsessed with Colorado railroading. Via The Cartoonist.

A private school in Texas is using maps in its curriculum as a means of combining art, history and science instruction, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram reports.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has a profile of Fuat Sezgin, the director of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He’s just released three new books on cartographers during Islam’s Golden Age of Science.

Sezgin says it has long been recognized that Muslim navigators undertook sea voyages over vast distances, which gave them a more complete view of geography than the ancient Greeks and Romans.

But he says he believes he is the first to compile a comprehensive collection of evidence showing how Muslim cartographers combined the navigators’ information with studies of astronomy and mathematics to compile maps of astonishing precision for their day.

Old Hampshire Maps consists, as you might imagine, of scans of old maps of Hampshire, from the 1500s to the 1800s. Via MetaFilter.

If you’re curious about what goes on behind the scenes at map stores, today’s edition of the Arizona Republic has a story about the growth of a Phoenix-area chain — that’s right, chain — of stores, Wide World of Maps. (Do something about that web site, folks. Ouch!)

SixDegreesofVoting.com has an animated map that shows the last 100 signups and their connections to one another — this is a Kevin-Bacon-style project that aims at getting people to encourage their friends to vote. (And they told two friends, and so on, and so on … ) Thanks Richard.

MultiMap uses JavaScript to toggle between maps and satellite images of a given locale. One of a part of London has been making the rounds of the blogosphere this week (see Boing Boing and MetaFilter).

I’ve been having a lot of fun with Flickr lately. Here are all the photos that Flickr users have tagged with the keyword “maps”. Not only that, but you can get them in an RSS or Atom feed, too.

The BBC’s Civilisations is a Flash-based interactive map that shows the rise and fall of empires and civilizations: select the cultures and the speed, press play, and watch the map change as the years go by. (I’m reminded of the movie at the end of the Civilization computer games.) The maps seem a little imprecise at times and there are occasional errors — Newfoundland is still British? — but it’s a beautiful concept.

The Shorthorn Online covers last weekend’s Garrett Lectures at the University of Texas at Arlington (see previous entry).

Wired has a story about how GIS is being used to increase voter turnout.

Now, get-out-the-vote organizers have started overlaying information from registered voter lists, attaching data such as voter history, party registration or time in the community to every physical address on a map. Downloaded to PDAs, the information can be toted door to door.

“It’s pretty amazing technology,” said James Gimpel, an associate professor of government at the University of Maryland. “You can basically call up information on a door you are about to knock on.”

SatBlog is a blog about satellite imagery; since its restart last August it’s been focusing mainly on the Middle East (especially Iraq) and on all those bloody hurricanes. A lot of news stories can be illuminated by satellite photography — I’m sure there will be something about Mt. St. Helens in due course. (Thanks rg.)

The New York Times has put together an informative map of all the attacks in Iraq over the past 30 days — 2,368 in all. With breakdowns by type: small arms, homemade bombs, etc. Via MetaFilter.

A neat map of media offices’ New York locations — they do seem to be cheek by jowl, but that just might be Manhattan. Via Things Magazine.

An Economist article on the controversy about electronic voting equipment in the United States has an interesting (albeit small) map showing what equipment is being used where across the country, from paper ballots and lever machines to punchards and touchscreens. Via Paper Vote Canada (thanks Richard).

This ambitious Spanish site presents historical maps of the modern period, with the goal of showing the changes in territorial boundaries. It looks like it’s a long way from being complete, but promising nonetheless.

The art of Mary Daniel Hobson involves the use of collages on images of the human body. Many of the collages are of old maps; browse the gallery and see what you can find.

As early mapmakers used pen and ink to chart the surface of the world, I use collage to navigate the inner world. I print images of the body on kodalith, because black and white transparencies render the surface invisible. I collage in layers using real objects. I delight in insect wings, needles, fishhooks, matches, traintracks, and door hinges because they are so very tactile and convey multiple meanings.

Via wood s lot.