The Map Room

Cartographer David Imus is in the news again: The Oregonian has an interview. Imus’s map, The Essential Geography of the United States of America, won the 2010 best of show award from the Cartography and Geographic Information Society.

Previously: David Imus’s Map of Oregon; The Best Map of Alaska?

Martin Dodge writes to let us know about The Map Reader: Theories of Mapping Practice and Cartographic Representation, a collection of essays he co-edited with Rob Kitchin and Chris Perkins. “The volume excerpts over 50 key pieces of scholarly writing on cartographic representation and mapping practice from the last few decades, along with five new interpretative essays,” he writes. The publisher’s page has a couple of downloadable excerpts in PDF.

• Buy The Map Reader at Amazon.co.uk

John Krygier reports that the second edition of Making Maps, the manual of map design he co-authored with Denis Wood, is now shipping. My review of the first edition.

Previously: Second Edition of Making Maps Coming Next Year.

• Buy Making Maps (2nd ed.) at Amazon.com (Canada, UK)

Via Daniel Huffman comes word that David Woodward’s relief map of Wisconsin, first published in 1971, is now available for download on the Shaded Relief Archive. The archive, the brainchild of Tom Patterson, who previously gave us the Shaded Relief website (previously), and Bernhard Jenny, is a collection of scanned manually shaded relief maps — relief maps before computers came along.

Our dual goals are giving cartographers a stylish option to generic digital shaded relief — manual relief often provides a clearer picture of major terrain features, especially at small scales, as shown in this comparison. And scanning the best hand-drawn relief before it is permanently lost. We are in a race against time. Mapping organizations having now shifted to digital production are discarding photomechanical materials, including manual shaded relief. Much of this beautiful art deserves to be used by future mapmakers.

Some lovely stuff in there.

The problem with cartograms is that they can be difficult to interpret: distorting a country to be larger or smaller isn’t helpful if you don’t know the size of the country in the first place, or can’t recognize it when you’re done. None of which applies, however, if you distort a flat map along a third axis — i.e., a three-dimensional cartogram. And if you happen to do it with Lego bricks, well, that just adds an extra veneer of awesome. Via @dvdhns, among others.

The Ordnance Survey Blog has the first of a three-part series that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the OS’s cartography team. The team, says the blog, is “responsible for deriving and maintaining cartographic databases, and providing the finished data…  •  Continue reading this entry.

On the Making Maps blog, John Krygier adds to the increasing volume of posts on typographic maps, but also has a few things to say about map typography — i.e., how text is used on maps — including some excerpts…  •  Continue reading this entry.

This is interesting: a second edition of John Krygier’s guide to map design, Making Maps, is coming out in February or March of next year. I reviewed the first edition way back in March 2006. John Krygier says that…  •  Continue reading this entry.

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Evans stops by National Geographic’s map division in this short video; it’s a bit of a puff piece (“best place on Earth for maps” and all that) but an interesting, if brief, look behind…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Several interesting (and really well-illustrated) posts about map design on Jim Hughes’s blog, Codex 99: H. C. Berann’s cartographic panoramas, Eduard Imhof’s maps of Switzerland, and a two-part look at mapping Mount Everest here and here. (More on Berann; more…  •  Continue reading this entry.

ESRI Press is reprinting Arthur Robinson’s first book, The Look of Maps (1952), which was based on his doctoral research. (Robinson, you may recall, went on to co-author a widely used textbook, Elements of Cartography, create his own map projection,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Andy Woodruff discusses the value-by-alpha map, an alternative to the cartogram that he, Robert Roth and Zachary Johnson have developed (and have written a paper about in The Cartographic Journal): “[V]alue-by-alpha is essentially a bivariate choropleth technique that ‘equalizes’…  •  Continue reading this entry.

I’m horrifically overdue (as usual) in mentioning the Bizarre Map Challenge, a map design competition for high school, college and university students in the United States, with prize money and everything. According to the competition’s rules, “bizarre” “refers to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Alejandro Polanco Masa, author of La Cartoteca (which in my view is one of the best map blogs out there, despite the fact that he writes in Spanish and I can barely understand it), has announced a personal project:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A map’s scale can be expressed in several ways: as a ratio (e.g., 1:50,000) or by comparing units (e.g., one inch equals one mile). Converting between the different methods isn’t difficult, but it does take a little math. Free Geography…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Rutgers University cartographer Mike Siegel (he prefers “mapmaker”) gets a profile in the Star-Ledger’s online “I Am NJ” series. Siegel creates maps for two dozen scholarly books each year, but he also produced the maps for a new atlas that…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Colorbrewer is a web-based tool that provides colour advice for your maps. Looks quite useful, especially for people creating choropleth maps and the like: it has colour schemes for sequential, divergent and qualitative data, with options for colour-blindness and photocopy-suitability….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Independent has a piece on careers in cartography….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Collins Map Blog mentions the British Cartographic Society Awards, in no small part because Collins Geo picked up a couple of them. To view current and past winners, select each award from the BCS’s page; there does not appear…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Google Alerts are funny sometimes. A short item in the Tumbler Ridge News — Tumbler Ridge is a remote small town in northeastern British Columbia — about how a local writer contributed to a backroad atlas that won a…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Both the first- and second-prize winners of this year’s National Geographic Award in Mapping are graduate students from the University of Wisconsin, Madison — a fact that the university’s geography department trumpets. Rising Skyline: The Tallest Buildings in Europe,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Mary Spence may be a familiar name to many thanks to her complaint about Internet mapping at last year’s Royal Geographical Society conference (and the dust it kicked up online), but the past president of the British Cartographic Society is…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The ESRI Mapping Center blog points to a new booklet from the British Cartographic Society: Cartography: An Introduction, co-written by Giles Darkes and Mary Spence, is part of the BCS’s Better Mapping Campaign (see previous entry); its aim “is…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Two researchers are criticizing a map found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report because it “failed to follow several cartographic principles and effectively display information, despite its important content.” In their view, the map misleads because…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Independent’s “I Want Your Job” feature features a cartographer — namely, Iain MacDonald of Collins Geo. Swoon at the exciting life of a cartographer: tedious painstaking research! No, seriously: after reading this I want to be a cartographer; keep…  •  Continue reading this entry.

TypeBrewer is a site about font choices in mapmaking. “TypeBrewer offers a quick and easy way to explore typographic alternatives and see the impact that various elements of type have on the overall look and feel of a map….  •  Continue reading this entry.

When we last heard about cartographer David Imus, he was getting rave reviews for his map of Alaska. Now the revised edition of his map of Oregon is getting similarly favourable reviews, at least if this article in today’s Eugene…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Examples of exaggeration in maps. The problem is that the maps’ pixels are larger than the points they depict: space junk appears larger, entire neighbourhoods seem to be under foreclosure and — in the above case, a map of…  •  Continue reading this entry.

ScapeToad is software for making cartograms. André Ourednik, its development supervisor, writes: “ScapeToad is a cross-platform, open-source application written in Java, designed and using the ESRI Shapefile format for input and output. It also exports maps in SVG format and…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The ESRI Mapping Center has some guidelines for the design of inset maps….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Topographic map symbols for historic topographic maps: “Presented here is a collection of symbols used on USGS Topographic Maps printed from the late 1890s. The styles of the symbols have changed dramatically since this time, and the beginning of their…  •  Continue reading this entry.

John Krygier looks at the history of the cartogram, beginning with an “apportionment map” from 1911 that he says is “one of the earliest cartograms I have seen” and continuing with a discussion of the history of the term:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The ESRI Mapping Center blog reports on a new book from ESRI Press: Designed Maps: A Sourcebook for GIS Users. It’s by Cynthia Brewer, who also wrote Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users (see previous entry). The…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Ralph Jackson writes, “I was a cartographic scriber in the United States Air Force a few decades back. I was quite fast and accurate with this skill. Is scribing still used anywhere in map production today or has it gone…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Waldo Tobler, according to his Wikipedia entry, coined the first law of geography in 1970: “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” Now a retired geography professor at the University of…  •  Continue reading this entry.

On the Making Maps: DIY Cartography blog, John Krygier has a post about nautical symbols, both past (circa 1957) and present….  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle profiles local city planner Tom Conoscenti, who “could easily be considered the Brooklyn cartographer these days. As a city planner with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Conoscenti is responsible for producing telling and informative maps of all…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Krygier and Wood are also involved, as two of several authors, in another cartography blog, CartoBlog, which seems to flow from the CartoTalk forum. The most recent entry, Allelopathic Maps and Google’s “My Maps”, is a good one: it argues…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Mapping 2007, the British Cartographic Society’s annual symposium, takes place at the University of Chester this September. The agenda includes a one-day cartography workshop for beginners as part of the Society’s Better Mapping campaign (see previous entry). Press release….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Next month, ESRI Press is reprinting Eduard Imhof’s classic Cartographic Relief Presentation, which was first published as Kartographische Geländedarstellung in 1965 and translated into English in 1982; it’s been out of print since then. Press release: GISuser.com, Directions. Update,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The National Geographic Society sponsors several awards for cartography students through cartographic societies. 2007’s winner of the National Geographic Award in Mapping, awarded to undergraduate and Master’s-level students through the Association of American Geographers, is Cassie Hansen of the University…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Flow maps show movement from one location to another; migration maps are probably the most commonly encountered example. Researchers at Stanford University have developed a method to generate flow maps by computer; prior to this, they say, most flow…  •  Continue reading this entry.

KVOA, a Tucson, Arizona television station, has the story of a Flagstaff cartographer, Alex DiNatale, who has reverted to drawing maps by hand, in the style of late 19th-century surveyors’ maps: “This is like a lost art,” DiNatale said. “It’s…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Washington Post had a brief profile of the National Geographic Society’s chief cartographer, Allen Carroll, earlier this week; if you think it reads a little funny, note that this was published in the paper’s children’s section. Via GeoCarta and…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Much book-related news has been accumulating over here; past time I shared it. Surveying, Mapping and GIS reviews Dava Sobel’s Longitude, a book about John Harrison, who discovered how to determine longitude. I think I need to read this book….  •  Continue reading this entry.

“I have produced a relief map of my part of the world using SRTM30 in Global Mapper — it is my first attempt at published cartography,” writes Chris Berens of South Africa. It’s an interesting map that eschews national…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The deaths of the following people associated with cartography were reported recently: Tom Devine (1927-2006) spent 32 years working as a cartographer for the USGS; he was a mountain climber and stereographic photographer in his off-hours. Via Maps-L. Bradford Washburn…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The New York Times Magazine’s year-end retrospective on deaths of notable people in 2006 includes a profile of Marie Tharp, the oceanographic cartographer who died earlier this year (see previous entry). David Tiley places her career struggles in context:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program, looks at the geographic changes over the past year — new parks, new countries, old cities with new names — that cartographers will have to deal with when they update…  •  Continue reading this entry.

In addition to the Map Designers conference next month in Glasgow (see previous entry), the British Cartographic Society is running Better Mapping 2006, four day-long seminars on map design: London, Oct. 30; Cardiff, Nov. 7; Liverpool, Nov. 23 and Edinburgh,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The program for the 2006-2007 series of “Maps and Society” lectures at the Warburg Institute, University of London has been posted; they take place one or two Thursdays a month and are free to attend. Via MapHist. See previous entry:…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The theme for the fifth biennial Virginia Garrett Lectures on the History of Cartography is “Mapping the Sacred: Belief and Religion in the History of Cartography.” They take place on October 7 (lecture program) at the University of Texas at…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Symbols and map patterns from National Park Service maps are available for download, in PDF and Adobe Illustrator formats. Potentially useful for anyone making maps. Via Kottke….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Tarek Kahlaoui, who is working on a Ph.D. dissertation on Islamic cartography in the 13th to 16th centuries at the University of Pennsylvania, has just started a blog on the subject that will include, over time, a bibliography of the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Columbia University reports the death yesterday of Marie Tharp, an oceanographic cartographer who worked on the first world map of the ocean floor; she also co-discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge’s rift valley. She was 86. A pioneer of modern oceanography,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

How to Lie with Maps (Second Edition) by Mark Monmonier University of Chicago Press, 1996. Softcover, 220 pp. ISBN 0-226-53421-9 While reading this modern classic by Syracuse University geography professor Mark Monmonier (see previous entry), I was struck by how…  •  Continue reading this entry.

S. P. Low from the University of Singapore, looking for software to make cartograms, writes: We are working on a project that attempts to track the global construction market using cartograms, such as those rectangular cartograms used by the World…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Another page about the four-colour theorem, this one focusing on a new geometrical proof of the theorem (well, relatively new — the page is dated 1995). Lots of math, no maps. If you recall, the four-colour theorem says that you…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Making Maps: A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS by John Krygier and Denis Wood Guilford Press, 2005. Softcover, 303 pp. ISBN 1-59385-200-2 I love this book. It’s just so neat. Although Making Maps is aimed at a GIS…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Worldmapper is a collection of cartograms developed using a new algorithm (creating cartograms — “density-equalizing maps” — is extremely complicated; more details here). There are 56 cartograms on the site so far, all global in focus, with more to…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Significant Blogspot outages rendered several favourite mapping blogs unavailable for portions of last weekend, including Cartography and GeoCarta. The city of North Platte, Nebraska, its police department, and surrounding Lincoln County all use different GIS and CAD software to generate…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum). MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities…  •  Continue reading this entry.

A few quick links for the Map Site Directory: Via MapHist, I’ve learned about the British Cartographic Society and its journal, The Cartographic Journal. ArcDeveloper is a new blog that should be of interest to ESRI GIS developers. Via Spatially…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Publishers frequently use “copyright traps” to prove that someone plagiarized their work. Without evidence of the actual act of plagiarism, it’s difficult to prove that someone publishing a rival phone book, dictionary or encyclopedia didn’t just copy material wholesale from…  •  Continue reading this entry.

To follow up on my previous post, here’s the home page for this year’s ICHC, held last July in Budapest, which its coordinator, Zsolt Török, wanted me to point you to….  •  Continue reading this entry.

Cisalpin is a relatively new font specially designed as a standard font for maps; its page on Linotype, in addition to being the place to buy the font, outlines some of the typographic requirements of cartography. Via Cartography….  •  Continue reading this entry.

FCW.com: “The U.S. Geological Survey, which issues most official maps, is considering outsourcing or eliminating most of its major mapping technology operations because commercial remote-sensing products and other advanced technologies have replaced field surveyors.”…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Georgia Straight, Vancouver’s alternative paper, has a profile of Jack Joyce, who runs International Travel Maps and Books, a map store with a publishing arm. The article focuses exclusively on the latter, and, more specifically, on how maps are…  •  Continue reading this entry.

John Resig writes, “It seems to have been a while since The Map Room talked about Universe Transverse Mercator. I’ve written up my experences learning this alternative coordinate system along with a brief overview of how the system works. For…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Another unfortunate result of the Ordnance Survey’s copyright on its mapping data: the Journal of Maps announced last week that, because of the Ordnance Survey’s restrictive licencing, “we are currently unable to accept any maps based upon OS data.” (See…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Richard writes to draw our attention to a new online scholarly journal, the Journal of Maps, which launched last year and had their first issue this month. From their about page: The Journal of Maps is a new inter-disciplinary online,…  •  Continue reading this entry.

I’ve been meaning to post Tom Patterson’s Shaded Relief site for a while: this is a massive site that deals with the technical issues of creating relief maps. Way too technical for me, but the detail is absolutely fascinating. From…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The Anchorage Daily News profiles cartographer David Imus, whose new, highly detailed map of Alaska he modestly calls, as the article puts it, “the best overall map of the state ever made.” Based on the article, which goes into some…  •  Continue reading this entry.

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…  •  Continue reading this entry.

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

If you’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or will be this Friday and Saturday, you might want to check out the two days of cartography lectures at the University of Texas at Arlington: on Friday it’s the Fourth Biennial Virginia…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Further to my earlier post on proportional election maps, Science News had an article last month about the art of map distortion in general. Using the example of using a map to show the incidence of a particular disease, the…  •  Continue reading this entry.

Making Maps Easy to Read is “a research project that set out to discover some of the factors that make maps easy to read and to use.” Relief, symbols and typography are some of the issues explored. The pages contain…  •  Continue reading this entry.

The History of Maps, a course reading from Geography 101 at California State University, Northridge (via muxway)….  •  Continue reading this entry.