Blogging about maps since 2003
Preliminary images are in from the newly launched NISAR Earth-observing radar satellite. A joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), NISAR will use L-band and S-band synthetic aperture radar to produce images of land cover, soil moisture, vegetation, sea and ice and so forth at resolutions of five to ten metres. (For comparison, SRTM’s resolution is one arcsecond—30 metres at the equator.)
Geographical has an article about Oculus Mundi, the online home of the Sunderland Collection, a private collection of 13th- to 19th-century maps amassed over the years by its eponymous founder, Neil Sunderland, that sat in storage before the decision to digitize it and make it more accessible. I’m glad the article is here to introduce us to the collection, because the Oculus Mundi site is a bit over-designed and can be a challenge to navigate, especially at first. But making private map collections digitally accessible is always a good and laudatory thing, and in this case there’s plenty of good stuff to browse: try starting with this link.
Last week Andrew Middleton (he of The Map Center) gave a presentation at the Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield, Massachusetts. Titled “How Maps Lie,” it’s the kind of introductory talk that can never be done too much: about what maps actually do, and the distance that can exist between the map and the territory. The video is an archived livestream; the talk itself stars about 15 minutes in.
VoteHub has released a precinct-level map of the 2024 U.S. presidential election results that includes vote density as well as margin—in other words, taking into account how many votes are in a district, not just by how much (tempering the fact of winning 90% of the vote in a district with the fact that there are only 100 votes to be had in the district, say). [Maps Mania]
Meanwhile, VoteHub is also tracking the unusual and hinky attempts at gerrymandering U.S. congressional districts outside the usual census cycle, with a map showing which states are involved and what the potential impact might be.
Two books out this year, both from Batsford, explore London through maps. Vincent Westbrook’s Modern London Maps focuses on more than 60 maps from the 20th century. Like many books of this kind, Modern London Maps draws primarily from a single source: the London Archives. Mapping London reviewed it last month: “probably quite close to the book that we would have published.” And out next month, The Boroughs of London collects Mike Hall’s “boldly coloured, highly detailed maps of every London borough, inspired by classic 1960s graphic design,” pairing it with commentary by Matt Brown.
Related: Map Books of 2025.
Matt Harrison explains how his firm, Transport Designed, redesigned the network map for Northern, a train company that handles passenger services across northern England, from Liverpool to Newcastle.
Northern’s historic network map, whilst representing the sheer size and scale of the train operator’s network, didn’t actually show you where you could travel to and from.
It represented the network as an amorphous blob of interconnected dark blue lines, but did nothing to communicate the intricacies of how to actually get between any two places.
That was our starting point.
How do you represent such a vast network, and make it make sense in a way that customers can quickly and easily understand?
The fifth biennial Ruderman Conference on Cartography, which will be held 8-10 October 2025 at Stanford’s David Rumsey Map Center, focuses on the cartography of “anything but the earth’s surface,” viz., astronomy, geology, oceanography. Schedule, speakers and abstracts on the website; tickets (free) here.
With the organizers of the Great North Run apologizing for printing t-shirts and medals with a map of Sunderland rather than Newcastle, the Guardian takes the opportunity to look at recent instances of map mistakes, from dangerous routings to a too-short marathon route to a phantom supermarket in Wales.
Lots of coverage at Polish news network TVP World on suspected Russian GPS jamming in the Baltic region. A report submitted by the Baltic states to ICAO found that 123,000 flights were disrupted by GPS jamming in the first four months of 2025; 27.4 percent of flights were disrupted in April. Sweden’s transport agency says it’s getting near-daily reports of GPS jamming from pilots: “Since late 2023, reported GNSS disruptions to the Swedish Transport Agency have surged from 55 in 2023 to 495 in 2024, with a preliminary count of 733 incidents in 2025 as of August 28.” GPS disruptions in the region have been traced to a facility in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The USGS announced a new, more detailed national geologic map last week.
The new USGS map, called The Cooperative National Geologic Map, was created using more than 100 preexisting geologic maps from various sources and is the first nationwide map to provide users with access to multiple layers of geologic data for one location. This feature allows users to access the multiple data sources included in the map to look at or beneath the surface to understand the ancient history of the nation recorded in rocks.
Of note: the USGS cites automated processes to speed up the integration of data from its various sources (e.g., state geologic surveys), resulting in a new map after only three years of development.
Jennifer Mapes created a large corkboard map to illustrate the history of Kent, Ohio’s South End, a neighbourhood inhabited by railroad workers, immigrants, and African Americans moving north during the Great Migration.
I purposefully created this project as something that could be done cheaply, as a form of “analog” GIS, where students are asked to think spatially and consider how regional and national history played out in their own community. I am particularly interested in showing South End kids how the people who lived in their current homes contributed to Kent’s past.
The map is 60″×60″ and includes 350 3D printed transparent houses representing 25 different house styles in Kent’s South End. I’ve wired the map to light up based on answers to questions about the history [of] each house’s resident based on census records.
The map is currently on display at the Kent Free Library.
On the Geographical magazine website, Tim Marshall explains how a 1907 topographical map fuels a current-day border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. And without any imagery of the map at all (right). It’s about the lands around the Preah Vihear temple; the temple itself was assigned to Cambodia in a 1953 ruling. (And not to be confused with Preah Vihear the province or Preah Vihear the provincial capital, which is some distance from. A reference map would have helped, honestly.)
Russia is suspected of engaging in GPS jamming that disrupted the navigation systems of a plane carrying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on a flight to Plovdiv, Bulgaria: BBC News, The Guardian, Reuters. It’s the latest incident in which Russia has been accused of jamming or spoofing GPS signals in nearby states.
Previously: The Russians Are Spoofing! The Russians Are Spoofing!; Russia Accused of Jamming Civilian Flights’ GPS; CBC News on Russian GPS Jamming.
A short video about the Map Center, the Rhode Island-based map store that, you will recall, Andrew Middleton took over two years ago. The video came about, Andrew says, when a customer came back and insisted on filming it. (“Is this the highest form of flattery? Most people just leave a review!”) What I appreciate most about it is being able to see what’s on his shelves and walls, especially since I can’t visit it in person right now.
Previously: Paper Maps: New Business, Lost Loves; A Map of Map Institutions; TPR on the Map Center.
The USGS has posted a “geonarrative” (i.e., a StoryMap) that delves into great detail about the seismology of the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that took place on 29 July 2025 off the Kamchatka Peninsula, providing history, context and so many detailed maps about the event. [Ryan Hollister]
