The Map Room

James Bunting wrote in with a link to this map of the Greater Tokyo railway network; the user’s Flickr account has other railway network maps showing the systems of other Asian cities, now and in 2020. (No indication whether the Flickr user is the author of said maps, or is republishing them from another source; I’m hoping and assuming it’s the former.)

Korean design firm Zero per Zero has done some interesting things with urban transit maps; in addition to subway maps of Seoul, Osaka and Tokyo that look like Beck diagrams through a fisheye lens, they’ve done a rather unique heart-shaped map of the New York subway. Via Kottke.

NASA’s Earth Observatory has a page of photos of cities at night taken from space; at right, Tokyo. “Astronauts circling the Earth have the wonderful vantage point of observing the nighttime Earth from 350-400 kilometers above the surface, taking in whole regions at once. Onboard cameras and a bit of experimentation allow astronauts to take highly detailed images of our cities at night and share them with the rest of us.” In addition to photos, an explanation of how it’s done. Via Kottke.

I don’t usually post press releases, but this one had a line that brought a smile. Yesterday Streetwise announced their Tokyo map; here’s an excerpt from their press release:

“It had to be done,” says Michael Brown, President of STREETWISE Maps. “Tokyo is the Mount Everest of cartography — without oxygen.” Streets with no names, a street grid resembling a noodle bowl and the fact that only a small portion of signage is in English all contribute to the map making altitude sickness other companies have encountered.

That bad, huh? Interesting.

Nicolas Jasson has submitted a frighteningly impressive number of links to Japanese rail and transit maps. His e-mail, which I’ve edited to incorporate links into the text, is as follows:

I am very interested in railways and transit and Japanese mapping is usually very accurate and always up-to-date. A few samples:

JR East Tokyo local network [PDF]. This is a fraction of the whole rail network of the Tokyo area: it shows only the JR-East network, not the subways, not the numerous private railways.

Official 3D map of Tokyo station [PDF] requires Japanese-enabled Adobe Reader, otherwise as a GIF.

Mapion is probably Japan’s best map website, recently upgraded with Mapion BB (BroadBand). The Tokyo station area with Mapion, part of a fully-interactive map coverting the whole of Japan, every single building or house is accurately shown, together with its number in the block (the basis of the address system).

The new version of the Tokyo subway map, where each station has been allocated a code, the first letter for the line, and a sequential number: English version [PDF]; all Japanese (1, 2) [PDF]; central Tokyo [PDF], with added graphics for the principal monuments.

There is a vast quantity of transit maps on the web, like this one for the Hankyu, a local rail company operating in the Kansai region. [second link added]

Map of the last surviving tram line in Tokyo. Original Japanese map.

A knowledge of Japanese is required for many of these links. I’m astonished at the work Nicolas put into this.

Ben Tesch has posted subway maps for Oslo and Tokyo on Flickr, which is handy….  •  Continue reading this entry.