iLounge’s Jesse Hollington looks at the changes coming to Maps in iOS 10, the next release of Apple’s operating system for the iPhone and iPad. “Functionally, it doesn’t quite incorporate the kind of sweeping changes we’ve seen in prior years, but instead focuses on redesigning the user experience and adding a few useful iterative features.” (Thanks to James Fee for the link.)
Author: Jonathan Crowe
Jonathan Crowe blogs about maps at The Map Room. His essays and reviews have been published by AE, Calafia, The New York Review of Science Fiction, the Ottawa Citizen, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. He lives in Shawville, Quebec.
The Origins of North at the Top of Maps
BBC Future’s Caroline Williams explores the following question: why do modern maps have north at the top? “Given such a long history of human map-making, it is perhaps surprising that it is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently considered to be at the top.” Early European maps had east at the top (orientation is derived from orient, or east); Islamic maps faced south. When maps changed to north-at-top is difficult to pinpoint, or at least the article has difficulty in doing so, but it came relatively late in history. (Thanks to Denis Dooley for the link.)
A Fantasy Map of North America
The latest map of the real world done in the style of fantasy maps (remember: fantasy maps have a distinct style), at least that I’ve encountered, is this map of North America offered by Etsy seller Aoraki Maps. (They also have one of the southeastern U.S.) The style is very fantasy map, with cursive labels rather than the (older) Didone-style lettering. [Boing Boing]
Previously: Fantasy Maps of U.S. Cities; A Fantasy Map of Ireland; A Fantasy Map of Great Britain; A Fantasy Map of Australia; A Fantasy Map of the U.S.
With Here Maps About to Go Away, Microsoft Updates Its Windows 10 Maps App
After Here Maps was sold to a consortium of German automakers, it announced that it was dropping support for Here Maps on Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile, with the workaround that kept those map apps going expiring at the end of this month. Yesterday Microsoft announced a major update to its native Windows 10 Maps app; among its new features is a tool to import favourites from the obsolescent Here apps. [Engadget]
Hillary Clinton in the Primaries: 2008 vs. 2016
Geoffrey Skelley compares the percentage of the Democratic primary vote won by Hillary Clinton in 2008 with the percentage she won in 2016: among other things, she was up sharply in the Deep South and down sharply in the industrial Midwest and Appalachia. “While the universe of voters participating in 2008 and then 2016 changed considerably thanks to mobility, interest, and mortality, our map suggests that many ’08 Clinton voters became ’16 Sanders voters, and many ’08 Obama voters became ’16 Clinton voters.” [Daily Kos]
Fantasy Maps: Middle-earth vs. Westeros
In the latest instalment of Hannah Stahl’s series of posts on fantasy maps at the Library of Congress’s map blog (see previous entry), she takes as a starting point my argument that Tolkien’s map of Middle-earth is the progenitor map from which the modern fantasy map design is descended, and compares that map to maps of Westeros from George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series.
Previously: The Library of Congress Looks at Fantasy Maps; Review: The Lands of Ice and Fire.
The Princeton Braillists
The Princeton Braillists publish tactile maps and atlases for a blind readership. Several books of maps are available: world and regional atlases, maps of U.S. states, and others.
Maps and drawings are created by hand in an aluminum foil sheet. The metal is embossed with a variety of tools to produce raised lines and areas of varying height, texture and width. The maps are labelled with key letters that are identified on the pages preceding each map. The master drawing is duplicated by the Thermoform process to make clear, sharp copies. The 11×11½-inch plastic sheets are bound into volumes with cardboard covers and spiral plastic binders.
Mapchart
Mapchart is a quick and dirty way to make choropleth and other coloured outline maps for online use: choose a map (world, continents, some countries), assign a colour to the state, province or country, build a legend, export to image. [Boing Boing]
Unique Perspectives: Japanese Map Exhibition in Chicago
Opening this Saturday, 25 June at the Art Institute of Chicago and running until 6 November, Unique Perspectives: Japanese Maps from the 18th and 19th Centuries “showcases the beauty of Japanese printmaking. The 18th- and 19th-century maps on view feature the world, the Japanese archipelago, and the country’s major cities, including Osaka, Yokohama, Edo, Nagasaki, and Kyoto. Highlights include works from trustee Barry MacLean’s comprehensive collection.” [WMS]
Fast Company Profiles Ed Parsons
Fast Company profiles Google’s geospatial technologist Ed Parsons, whose name should be familiar to longtime Map Room readers. (I first encountered his work when he was still at the Ordnance Survey; he joined Google in 2007.) In some way the profile uses Ed to understand Google’s mapping ambitions, which Ed discusses at length. Understanding the corporate via the personal, as it were. (Parsons was also the subject of a similar profile in The Independent in 2014.) [Owen Boswarva]
Hennig and Dorling on ‘Seven New Maps of the World’
“Seven New Maps of the World,” a presentation by Benjamin Hennig (Views of the World) and Danny Dorling (People and Places), both renowned cartogrammers, will take place on the opening weekend of the Oxfordshire Science Festival Sunday, 26 June 2016 at 1 PM, at the Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford. Tickets £5. [Benjamin Hennig]
Update, 20 June: And here are the seven maps in question.
Fifteen Years of Migrant Deaths
Moris Büsing’s interactive map chronicles the deaths of migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe over the past 15 years—more than 32,000 deaths in all. [Boing Boing]
The Library of Congress Looks at Fantasy Maps
The Library of Congress’s map blog, Worlds Revealed, has begun a series of posts about imaginary maps. “We’ll be exploring all of these types of maps and imaginary worlds this summer. Come revisit the Hundred Acre Wood and the other worlds of your favorite children’s stories, spend some time in medieval Europe, and run from White Walkers in Game of Thrones.” So far we have an introduction and a look at maps from the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, with Tolkien’s map of Middle-earth next on the schedule. [WMS]
Historical Maps and Geographical Errors
Victor van Werkhooven’s cartographical pet peeve: historical maps of Europe that include Flevoland, which didn’t even exist until the 20th century. (Polders. Dikes. Land reclamation. You get the idea.) It’s not often that the physical shape of the world—the coasts, the shorelines—has to be taken into account when creating a historical map, but this is one such case. [Mapfail]
KQED on the Rumsey Map Center
More on the David Rumsey Map Center, which opened last April: KQED Radio’s Michael Krasny interviews David Rumsey and the Center’s head and curator, G. Salim Mohammed (28 minutes).
Previously: Stanford’s David Rumsey Map Center Opens Today; David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford Opens April 19.