Traffic Data Inadvertently Revealed the Start of the Russian Invasion

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

AppleInsider looks at how online maps (Apple Maps, Google Maps), especially their traffic layer, inadvertently revealed Russian troop movements at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The sheer volume of mapping data now available at our fingertips means it was possible for civilians half a world away to see when Russian forces began moving. Specifically, that data pinpointed a traffic jam starting on the Russian side of the border, actively moving into Ukraine in the first few minutes of the Russian and Ukraine conflict.

Just as with any cartography, this information required interpreting. Google Maps did not specifically say that it was troop movements, nor was its satellite imagery up to the minute. During the process of researching this story, we’ve confirmed that Apple Maps presented similar inbound troop movement information—but it wasn’t setting out to do that either.

What these services did, though, was register all of the smartphone users whose driving was slowed or halted by unusual traffic conditions. Wherever the majority of the data came from, it was possible to determine what was happening when coupled with known details of Russian troop locations.

Hardyng’s Map of Scotland On Display

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
John Hardyng's map of Scotland (British Library)
John Hardyng’s map of Scotland. Lansdowne MS 204, ff. 226v–227r, British Library.

John Hardyng’s map of Scotland is now on display at the University of St. Andrews’s Wardlaw Museum. The 15th-century map was the first to show Scotland in any detail; it was included in Hardyng’s 1457 chronicle, in which he hoped to make the case for an English invasion of Scotland. Held by the British Library, the map is being made available via the Library’s Treasures on Tour program. It’s at the Wardlaw Museum until 3 July 2022. More from the University’s press release and the British Library.

A Crowdsourced Map of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map “is a crowdsourced effort to map, document and verify information in order to provide reliable information for policymakers and journalists of the on-the-ground and online situation in and around Ukraine. […] The pins on this map represents open source material such as videos, photos and imagery that have been cross-referenced with satellite imagery to determine precise locations of military activity.” It’s produced by the Centre for Information Resilience. [Boing Boing]

Lego’s New Globe

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Lego Ideas GlobeIf Lego’s 11,695-piece world map was not enough for you—and believe me, I understand—then they have something else for you: a 2,585-piece globe that’s 40 cm (16 inches) tall, comes with glow-in-the-dark labels, and costs US$200/C$270/£175/€200. The Brothers Brick take a brick-by-brick look1 at the thing from unboxing to assembly. Kenneth Field has one and is not impressed, finding fault with the land shapes and much preferring Lego globes designed by Dirk’s Bricks (previously).

William Clark Implicated in Land Grab by Map Re-Attributed to Him

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

William Clark, Map of Extent of Settlement in Mississippi Valley (1816)A new historical study reattributes a rough sketch of treaty lines in what is now Missouri to William Clark (of “Lewis and” fame), implicating the legendary explorer in the dispossession of some 10.5 million acres of land assigned by treaty to indigenous peoples. The article by Cambridge historian Robert Lee, who studies Indigenous dispossession in the 19th century and discovered the map misfiled in another fonds, appears in the latest issue of William and Mary Quarterly. The DOI doesn’t appear to work yet, nor is the article available online at this point, but here’s the abstract and the press release.

The Map Books of 2022 page is now live. At the moment only a few books are listed—it’s only February, after all—but this is where my worldly and erudite readers come in. If you know of a book coming out this year that ought to be on this page—basically, any and all books about cartography, maps and related subjects—please let me know. It’s best if the book has a publisher listing and publication date (though I’m well aware that dates can move around a lot); I’ll work with what I can get, though.

The Rise and Fall of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A storymap from Esri’s Robert Waterman, based on Maxar satellite imagery, shows the rise and fall of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha‘apai from being two separate islands before a 2015 eruption combined them, through its time as an apparently stable but awkwardly compound-named single island until it got blown apart last month.

Previously: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai, Before and After.

Looking for Lightning, Finding Meteors

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Map of bolides detected from space by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper
NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens

It turns out that the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) aboard the GOES-16 and GOES-17 earth observing satellites can do more than just detect lightning—it can also detect bolides, or very bright meteors, thanks to a new automatic detection algorithm. NASA Earth Observatory: “The map above shows the distribution of more than 3,000 bolides detected by the GLMs aboard GOES-16 and GOES-17 between July 2017 and January 2022. Blue points are bolides detected by GOES-16; pink points were detected by GOES-17. The lone pink point over the Atlantic Ocean was detected by GOES-17 during its commissioning phase before it was moved into its operational orbit over the West Coast.” (Bolides in the middle of the map are detected by both, and as you can see there’s a bit of parallax.)

xkcd: The Goode Homolosine to the Rescue!

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Randall Munroe, “Sea Chase,” xkcd, 4 Feb 2022.

Randall Munroe’s map projection humour is increasingly on point, as last Friday’s xkcd demonstrates. (The mouseover text is even better: “There are two rules on this ship: Never gaze back into the projection abyss, and never touch the red button labeled DYMAXION.”)

Previously: xkcd: The Greenland Special; xkcd: All South Americas; Blame the Mercator Projection; xkcd’s Time Zone Map; xkcd’s Liquid Resize Map Projection.

David Rumsey Map Collection: More Than Just Digitization

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Urbano Monte 1587 World Map, digitally assembled (David Rumsey Map Collection)
David Rumsey Map Collection

The David Rumsey Map Collection has a blog post that explains that they do more than just scan old maps.

When we digitize historical maps we create copies that can be shared and used by all. But we also create the potential to repurpose these copies to advance understanding of the original maps. To do this, we create composite maps, georeferenced maps, composite views, interactive globes, composite texts and other types of digital versions that expand map interpretation and enhance use. Below are some examples of these interpretive maps that we have created over the past 20 years. To date we have created 1,674 interpretive composite maps, views, and texts as well as over 56,000 georeferenced maps.

Examples at the blog post—some of which we’ve already seen, including the digital assembly of Urbano Monte’s 1587 world map (above).

Online Exhibition: Multiple Middles

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Abraham Ortelius, “Indiae Orientalis, insularumque adiacientium typos,” 1588. Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20×26¼ in. University of Delaware Special Collections.

An online exhibition from the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press, Multiple Middles: Maps from Early Modern Times features a selection of early modern maps and travel narratives from their special collections. “The exhibition takes narratives from the maps’ edges and repositions them as possible middles. As a result, previously unfamiliar histories and visual elements come to the fore. These objects highlight specific innovations, scientific theories, and geographical middles that their makers intentionally framed. The exhibition provides an alternate view of maps and early modern cartography.” Features many familiar cartographers (e.g. Blaeu, Ortelius). [WMS]