A lot of fun can be had at Florian Ledermann’s Map Projection Playground, which loads up nearly a hundred map projections for you to manipulate: controls enable you to change the centre meridian and several other parameters. You can even overlay a simplified Tissot’s indicatrix! [Maps Mania]
Category: Cartography
Hachure Maps in QGIS
I’m always fascinated to see old mapping techniques replicated in modern mapping software. For an example, see Robin Hawkes’s tutorial on creating hachure maps in QGIS. Which Patrick McGranahan followed to create this map of San Marino.
Latitude, Longitude and Decimal Points
Vladimir Agafonkin’s post, which demonstrates just what latitude and longitude to x decimal places looks like, is a visual complement to xkcd’s comic about coordinate precision: both tell you that when it comes to latitude and longitude, more than a few decimal points is pointless. “As you’ve probably guessed, 6 digits should be enough for most digital cartography needs (spanning around 10 centimeters). Maybe 7 for LiDAR, but that’s it.”
A Flurry of New Book Announcements
News about upcoming map books has been thin on the ground of late, which is hardly surprising given the havoc the pandemic has wreaked on the publishing industry as a whole. But in just the past two days we’ve seen three significant new book announcements.
Kenneth Field’s long-awaited Thematic Mapping: 101 Ways to Visualise Empirical Data, which takes as its starting point a map of a single event—the 2016 U.S. presidential election—will be out from Esri Press as an ebook on the 31st of August, Ken announced yesterday. Pre-order: Amazon (Canada, UK).
You might remember James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti’s amazing 2016 book Where the Animals Go. Their next book of data visualizations, Atlas of the Invisible, will be out in September from Particular Books in the U.K. and in November from W. W. Norton in North America. Pre-order: Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop.
The Quarantine Atlas: Mapping Life under COVID-19 is the byproduct of CityLab’s 2020 project soliciting hand-drawn maps of life under quarantine (previously here and here). In the book version, Laura Bliss matches 65 of those submissions with original essays. Due out in April 2022 from Black Dog & Leventhal. Pre-order: Amazon (Canada).
I’ve updated the Map Books of 2021 page with these books; that page still looks awfully sparse compared with previous years. If there’s a map-related book coming out this year that I haven’t listed, please let me know.
Esri’s New Giant Globe
“When you are a global Geographic Information Technology company with a globe in your logo, you don’t shy away from the opportunity to have a great big glorious 8.5-foot diameter illuminated rotating globe in your new office building. But what sort of globe cartography do you design? How should this gigantic model of our lovely home planet appear?” John Nelson and Sean Breyer explain the design and construction process behind Esri’s new globe—a custom Earthball manufactured by Orbis World Globes.
The Unicorn of Map Projections
It’s a shame that Sarah Battersby’s essay in The International Journal of Cartography, “The Unicorn of Map Projections,” is behind a paywall: it looks at the recent rash of map projections that purport to solve “all our mapping problems.” There have been more than a few that have claimed the title of “most accurate map”; Battersby refers to these projections as a class as unicorns. The most recent example of this I dismissed as the cartographic equivalent of a spherical cow; five years ago there was also Narukawa’s AuthaGraph map; and of course there was the Peters map.
The Spherical Cow Projection
Today is The Map Room’s 18th anniversary. When I started this blog back in March 2003, it was as an exercise in self-education: I liked maps a lot, but knew very little about them, and thought that the blogging process would enable me to learn things and share what I learned with my readers. The idea that I’m some kind of map expert is just silly: I have no professional credentials whatsoever, not in cartography, not in geospatial, not even in illustration. (I haven’t even taken geography since high school.)
But that’s not to say that I haven’t picked up some knowledge: I’ve turned my longstanding interest in fantasy maps into a few published articles (with more still in the works or in press), so I will concede the point on that front. But in general what I do have is exposure. Over the past 18 years I have seen just about everything to do with maps, and so I know a little bit about just about everything. Not enough to be employed at any map-related job, but 18 years of paying attention, of synthesizing everything I’ve seen and read, has afforded me some perspective.
Enough to call out obvious horseshit when I see it.
Upcoming Workshops
Two workshops/courses coming in June:
Australian author and illustrator Kathleen Jennings will teach a workshop on fantasy mapmaking in June: the focus of Map Making and World Building is “on story and art,” the mapmaking illustrative rather than cartographical, and in general it seems to be about the relationship between map and story. The workshop will take place on 19 June both in-person (at the Queensland Writers Centre in Brisbane) and via livestream; tickets range from A$35 to A$100, depending.
A History of Maps and Mapping, a short introductory online course taught by Katherine Parker as part of the London Rare Books School’s program of summer courses, “will challenge students to destabilize and broaden the traditional definition of ‘map’, and to recognize maps as socially constructed objects that are indicative of the values and biases of their makers and the cultures that created them. Students will learn how to analyse and catalogue maps for a variety of research purposes, and to discuss changes in map technology and style without recourse to a progressive narrative of scientific improvement.” Matthew Edney will supply a guest lecture. The course runs from 29 June to 2 July and costs £100 (student) or £175.
Edney Reviews ‘When Maps Become the World’
Matthew Edney reviews Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther’s When Maps Become the World (University of Chicago Press, 2020), a philosophy of science book that engages with maps and representation—with what Winther calls “map thinking.” Edney isn’t convinced by Winther’s approach: “Winther remains committed to outmoded and deeply flawed concepts of the nature of ‘the map’ that, to be honest, call into question the entire project.”
Map Projections for Babies
Late last year Dan Ford launched a Kickstarter to create a board book (i.e., a children’s book printed on paperboard) about map projections called Map Projections for Babies. Presumably intended to be in the same vein as other board books on surprisingly advanced science topics (Chris Ferrie has a whole series of them; Quantum Computing for Babies is a typical title), Map Projections for Babies “explains how we unwrap the round Earth to make flat maps. This guide for babies (and their loved ones) describes a complex concept in kid-friendly terms. […] This project began last year, when I was inspired threefold by my daughter’s curiosity, my love for maps, and a growing number of board books that condense complex concepts for babies.” The Kickstarter was successful, the book is now at the printing stage and is on track for delivery in April; additional orders will be accepted at some point. [Geography Realm]
Maps at Year’s End
Kenneth Field has posted his favourite maps from the past year—something he’s been doing since 2013. Quite a diverse set, from the Johns Hopkins coronavirus dashboard to a Lego model of Manhattan: you won’t have seen all of them.
CityLab has posted a selection of reader maps that explore how their lives were affected by 2020. Coronavirus, change and disruption are recurring themes. “We hope these maps offer readers a sense of solace and solidarity, a chance for reflection or provocation, and perhaps even a breath of creative inspiration.” (Previously: CityLab Wants Your Homemade Map of 2020.)
Fifteen Ways to Depict Elevation on Mars
How do you depict elevation on a map of Mars? Earlier this year, Daniel Huffman posted a roundup of hypsometric tints for Mars.
I have a peculiar hobby of collecting Martian hypsometric tinting schemes: those sets of colors that cartographers use to depict elevations on the Red Planet. It’s a fascinating cartographic frontier. While the classic (and somewhat flawed) way of showing Earth’s elevations is to use a color scheme that starts with green lowlands, and then proceeds through some combination of brown/yellow/orange/red until it reaches white in the highest areas, there’s no standard yet for Mars. Maybe centuries from now, one of the schemes below will become that standard.
Huffman looks at fifteen schemes in total in the post, and in this video on YouTube:
BCS 50th Anniversary Book Available to Download
The British Cartographic Society’s 50th anniversary book, which came out in 2013, is now available as a free download (68 MB PDF). “This beautiful book, lavishly illustrated with over 130 maps, is presented in double-page map spreads for each year from 1963 to 2013, one map illustrating a UK event and the an overseas event for each of the fifty years.”
Field’s Virtual Talk on Election Mapping
Kenneth Field’s virtual talk on the cartography of elections, given to University of South Carolina students on 25 September 2020, is now available on YouTube. “It explores the way in which map types and their design mediate the message, and using examples from elections shows different versions of the truth.” Also includes material from Ken’s forthcoming book.
Mapping with Purpose
In “Mapping with Purpose,” Heather Smith of Esri uses blueberry crops in Canada to make a very good point about mapmaking. “You have data, but that’s not enough to make a map. You also need a purpose. There’s no point in making a map unless you have something to say.” In other words: If you’re going to map blueberry production, why? Is it to compare the acreage of blueberry-producing regions? To compare it to other berry crops? A map is a statement: what are you trying to say? [Kenneth Field]
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