Freelance cartographer Hal Jespersen has created more than 200 maps for various Wikipedia articles on battles in the U.S. Civil War. They are available for free download—both as PNGs and as source files—under a Creative Commons licence. [WMS]
Maps and Mistletoe
Before we’re completely out of the holiday season, I should mention that one of the 34 Christmas movies premiering on the Lifetime network just this year is relevant to our interests: Maps and Mistletoe,1 which premiered on the channel on 13 December. “Emilia Martin (Humberly González), a cartographer of school maps, has plans for a cozy Christmas at home until her boss has a last-minute project for her, designing a novelty treasure map of the North Pole. Emilia decides to seek out the expertise of North Pole explorer Drew Campbell (Ronnie Rowe), who reluctantly agrees to help her. As the two work closely, they discover more than either of them ever expected.” Not going to yuck what might be someone else’s yum. [MAPS-L]
The Map Lady and the Catholic Church
Earlier this year, the New Yorker published a profile of Molly Burhans. Burhans is the founder of GoodLands, a Catholic organization focusing on mobilizing the land and resources of the Church to address climate change and other environmental issues. Burhans, whose background is in GIS, began by wanting to analyse the Church’s property holdings; she soon found out that the Church’s own record-keeping was somewhere between out of date and nonexistent—and certainly not digital.
In the Office of the Secretariat of State that day, Burhans met with two priests. She showed them the prototype map that she had been working on, and explained what she was looking for. “I asked them where their maps were kept,” she said. The priests pointed to the frescoes on the walls. “Then I asked if I could speak to someone in their cartography department.” The priests said they didn’t have one.
Burhans, who became known as the Map Lady at the Vatican, was asked if she’d be willing to create a cartography institute at the Vatican; plans to develop one have been waylaid by the COVID-19 pandemic (Burhans came down with a significant case herself.) Fascinating piece depicting the gap between modern data and an ancient institution, and the notion of using data as a force for progress. Thanks to John Greenhough for sending me a copy of this article; apologies for taking months to post about it.
Map Book List Updates
One last update to the Map Books of 2021 page, thanks to a couple of titles in Esri Press’s gift guide that I’d previously overlooked.
Meanwhile, for even more titles, see Matthew Edney’s Map History Books of 2021.
La Pérouse’s Expeditions
The Library of Congress’s Carissa Pastuch has a blog post about the Pacific Ocean expeditions of Jean-François de Galaup La Pérouse, and the maps that resulted from them—including the above map by Buache de Neuville, made in 1785 so that Louis XVI could follow La Pérouse’s progress.
Apple Maps Update: Detailed 3D City Maps, AR Directions
Apple Maps’s detailed 3D city maps are now available for six cities: London, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco at iOS 15’s launch, San Diego and Washington D.C. last month, and now Philadelphia [AppleInsider, MacRumors]. Those cities also have augmented reality walking directions: AppleInsider has a tutorial.
The Spilhaus Projection for Designers
The Spilhaus projection has been available to ArcGIS Pro users for nearly two years. Now, to expand the Spilhaus’s availability beyond ArcGIS users, John Nelson provides vector assets suitable for designers working in, say, Illustrator.
Previously: The Spilhaus Projection Comes to ArcGIS Pro; Everything’s Coming Up Spilhaus; About the Spilhaus Projection.
16th-Century Globe Sells for £116,000 at Auction
A 16th-century globe bought for £150 at a Welsh antiques fair has sold at auction for £116,000. It had been expected to fetch £20-30,000. The globe, which dates to the 1550s or 1560s and believed to be by, or derived from work by, François Demongenet, includes sea monsters but not Australia (not yet discovered by Europeans) and is made of paper gores, which makes it both rare and fragile. More from the auction house here. Auction listing. BBC News coverage. (Image: Hansons Auctioneers.)
How Redistricting Is Changing the Congressional Map
The Washington Post looks at how redistricting has changed the U.S. congressional electoral map so far. “As of Dec. 15, half of the 50 states have settled on the boundaries for 165 of 435 U.S. House districts. […] The Washington Post is using the number of Trump and Biden voters within old and new district boundaries, according to data collected by Decision Desk HQ, to show how the districts have changed politically. As more states finalize their maps, we’ll add them to this page to give a fuller picture of what to expect in the midterms.”
Previously: A Redistricting Roundup; The Washington Post Examines Proposed Congressional District Maps.
Collection Donated to Leiden University Libraries
Two private collectors, John Steegh and Harrie Teunissen, have donated their collection of some 17,000 maps and 2,300 atlases and travel guides, mostly focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries, to Leiden University Libraries (linked page in Dutch).
This Map-Print Basketball Hurts My Brain
There is something decidedly off about a map-print basketball that stretches a Mercator projection across the basketball’s surface instead of, you know, doing it like a globe. Why? Why would they do such a thing?
It’s a Spalding ball exclusive to Urban Outfitters, it costs $29, and it hurts my brain. [r/Maps]
Apple Maps Asia-Pacific Update
Apple’s new maps have come to Australia [9to5Mac, MacRumors].
Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reports that “iPhone and Apple Watch users in China can no longer see their geographic coordinates and elevation on the Compass app, according to Chinese media reports and user comments. However, information including bearings and general location are still available.”
And according to a report in The Information (paywall) that was summarized by John Gruber, back in 2014 or 2015 the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping required Apple Maps to make the disputed Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands appear large even when zoomed out, and made the Apple Watch’s Chinese release contingent on that request—to which Apple acquiesced.
Renaissance Tuscany Maps On Display at the Uffizi
“Maps depicting Renaissance Tuscany are back on display at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence after being hidden from public view for more than 20 years,” the Guardian reports. “The wall paintings were commissioned in the late 1500s by Ferdinando I de’ Medici after the republic of Florence’s conquering of its rival Siena led to the creation the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and depict the newly unified territory.” It cost €600,000 to restore the three maps drafted by Stefano Bonsignori and painted by Ludovico Buti; the maps are on display in the Uffizi’s maps terrace, also newly renovated and limited to 20 visitors at a time. [MAPS-L]
The Place Names Behind the IKEA Products
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDpoZdL1g0E
IKEA’s propensity for naming its products after locations in Sweden (among other things) has led to the unintended2 consequence of search results for those products drowning out search results for the lakes and towns they’re named after. Sweden has launched a more-than-tongue-in-cheek tourist campaign to counter that, inviting people to discover the originals. [Strange Maps]
More on the New York Subway Map Debate
This roundtable discussion about The New York Subway Map Debate, a book about the April 1978 Cooper Union debate over the design of the New York subway map (previously) and related subjects, featuring John Tauranac himself (who participated in the 1978 debate), alerted me to the fact that an audio recording of that debate is available online. (A discussion about a book about a debate: this all feels a bit recursive.) [Kenneth Field]