Legendary ski resort map artist James Niehues has announced on his blog and on Twitter that he will be “stepping away from creating ski resort trail maps” after more than three decades. He plans to work on other projects, including the American Landscape Project, and will, for the first time, be selling original paintings and sketches of his ski resort trail maps later this month.
Using Johns Hopkins University data, Nicholas Bauer has created this time-lapse map showing the spread of COVID-19 across the United States. This pandemic has been described as having waves; now you can watch them ripple across the continent. [Kottke]
El Confidencial maps COVID-19 mortality rates in Spain at the municipal level; smaller municipalities are not included in the data. [Maps Mania]
Google Maps updates this week: wildfires are getting their own dedicated layer in Google Maps; their tree canopy coverage tool is being expanded to 100 cities; and a new Address Maker app will make it possible to bulk-add Plus Codes to locations without addresses.
Redistricting—and gerrymandering—is one of the blacker cartographic arts. With the release of data from the 2020 U.S. Census, and the changes in state congressional delegations—some states gain a seat or two, some states lose a seat, others are unchanged—new congressional maps are being drawn up for the 2022 elections. The Washington Post takes a look at proposed congressional district maps in Colorado, Indiana and Oregon, and what their impact may be.
Read David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele’s long Smithsonian article on the conclusion that the Vinland Map is a modern forgery. Among other things, it places the map in the context of mythmaking around Viking history and an anti-Catholic, pro-northern-European narrative of American discovery that aimed to displace the Columbus story.
Previously: ‘The Vinland Map Is a Fake’; Re-Analyzing the Vinland Map.
I don’t think the Mapbox unionization story is over. Last week the Mapbox Workers Union accused Mapbox of retaliating against union organizers, several of whom, they say, have been abruptly fired. Retaliation is against U.S. labour law, and they’re filing unfair labour practice charges in that vein.
Previously: Mapbox Union Drive Fails; Mapbox Employees Trying to Unionize.
The general consensus has been for some time that the Vinland Map is a modern forgery. A battery of non-destructive tests by Yale University, which holds the map in its Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, have been performed on the map, and the results of those tests have been announced: the map is a fake.
“The Vinland Map is a fake,” said Raymond Clemens, curator of early books and manuscripts at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which houses the map. “There is no reasonable doubt here. This new analysis should put the matter to rest.”
Basically, the map’s inks contain titanium compounds first used in the 1920s, and an inscription on the parchment was altered to make it seem like the map belonged in a 15th-century bound volume.
Previously: Re-Analyzing the Vinland Map.
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.
Last month the U.S. Federal Communications Commission released an interactive map showing 4G/LTE cellular voice and data coverage in the United States from the four major providers. This is the first FCC map released under the 2020 Broadband DATA Act, which mandated better maps than the FCC has been producing in the past (previously). [The Verge]
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.”
“I have a new mapping project on Kickstarter,” writes our friend Alejandro Polanco. “This time it is about recovering some exciting hand-drawn maps by a forgotten craftsman from the 19th century.” This is Alejandro’s second project to digitally recover a 19th-century illustrated book; this time his target is an 1890 edition of a treatise on topographical drawing by Juan Papell y Llenas. The book is full of detailed examples of mapping techniques done only with ink on paper. Alejandro’s restored edition, The Art of Hand-drawn Maps 1890, will be released this fall in digital (€18 pledge) and paper (€32) editions.
Alejandro’s previous crowdfunding projects include Pandemic Atlas, The Minimal Geography Atlas, Minimal Geography and Maptorian.
Thanks to a combination of low vaccination rates and the COVID-19 Delta variant, intensive care wards are filling up across the United States. The New York Times maps one of the more disturbing metrics of the pandemic: the percentage of occupied ICU beds by hospital region.
As part of its extensive coverage of the 2020 census, the Washington Post maps the changes in the U.S.’s ethnic/racial makeup, and where it’s been changing.
Adam Engst of TidBITS had a specific routing problem that only one map app could solve. The answer, as they say, will surprise you: “When faced with needing to visit 43 different addresses, what was the most efficient route? It’s easy enough to enter an address into Apple’s Maps or Google Maps, and even add an extra stop or two. But 43 stops in an optimal route? […] A little research revealed that MapQuest—remember MapQuest from the days when we all printed directions?—offers precisely what I needed.”
