The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book (cover)I missed Philip Parker’s Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book when it came out in Britain from British Library Publishing last October, but it seems to be available in North America this month (the logistics of delivering physical books during a pandemic permitting). From the publisher: “It features carefully devised questions inspired by general knowledge, observational skills, cryptic dexterity and mapping history. The result is a highly entertaining and satisfying means to explore some 40 inspirational maps and charts ranging from medieval portolans to the latest digital renderings. It’s beautifully designed and presented in durable flexi binding to allow for portable carto-quizzing.”

As a British Library publication, The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book naturally features examples from their holdings. Another book that does so is Tom Harper’s Atlas, which I reviewed in 2018.

Related: Map Coloring Books and Games (Bookshop).

The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book (cover)The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book
by Philip Parker
The British Library, October 2019
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

Daniel Huffman’s Atlas of North American Rivers

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
An Atlas of North American Rivers
From Daniel Huffman, An Atlas of North American Rivers (2020), Plate 7: Upper St. Lawrence.

Add An Atlas of North American Rivers to the list of Daniel Huffman’s long-unfinished projects that suddenly got finished lately. It’s a 48-page PDF of diagrammatic maps of North American river systems, from Alaska to Guatemala. The PDF can be downloaded here; if there’s interest he’ll do a hardcopy version, and, of course, prints are available for sale.

Previously: Landforms of Michigan.

The Washington Post Maps Wildlife Corridors in Wyoming

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Washington Post
Washington Post

Last month the Washington Post published a feature on the impact of Interstate 80 on wildlife migrations in Wyoming, and how climate change would affect animals’ ability to move to new habitat as their usual stomping grounds are made unsuitable by global warming. The print version (above) and online version have related maps—one static, one dynamic—that illustrate wildlife paths and how they are stymied by the highway, as well as places where overpasses and tunnels might help. [Lauren Tierney]

Most of The Map Room’s revenue comes from affiliate links (i.e., I get a cut when you buy something via a link on this website). That generally means the Usual Guys. But the Usual Guys aren’t for everyone, so I’ve signed up with Bookshop’s affiliate program. Bookshop is an online store that offers some support to independent bookstores: see InsideHook’s piece for details. It’s U.S.-only for now, and the selection is basically limited to what can be ordered through Ingram, but for something just getting off the ground it looks like a viable alternative. The Map Room’s Bookshop storefront is here, but direct links to book listings will appear where appropriate.

Four Articles on Navigating Outdoors

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Outside’s Andrew Skurka has posted a four-part series on the skills and tools required to navigate outdoors (remember outdoors?), which in general means knowing how not to get lost. In part one, “A Backpacker’s Guide to Maps,” Skurka recommends what kind of maps to take with you: paper maps, mainly, of various scales, but with digital maps as a backup. Part two, “The Gear You Need to Navigate in the Backcountry,” looks at equipment: not just GPS, but also basics like a compass, altimeter and a watch. In part three, “How to Master Navigational Storytelling,” is about developing a narrative of the route you’re taking to avoid getting lost. Finally, Skurka offers a checklist of skills to test yourself against.

Previously: The Lost Art of Finding Our Way.

The History of Cartography’s Fourth Volume, Now (Almost) Out

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

I believe that today is (nominally) the publication date of the fourth volume in the History of Cartography Project: The History of Cartography, Volume 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment.

The History of Cartography, Vol. 4As with other volumes of the project, it’s a massive piece of work: two physical volumes and nearly two thousand pages. Edited by Matthew H. Edney and Mary Spondberg Pedley and featuring the work of more than 200 contributors, this book “offers a comprehensive overview of the cartographic practices of Europeans, Russians, and the Ottomans, both at home and in overseas territories, from 1650 to 1800.”

I say “nominally” because, Edney reports, “the entire print run of the book is being held at the printers in Manitoba until the pandemic recedes and there is someone at the press warehouse to receive the shipment and get the hard copies into everyone’s hands. So, please be patient.” The ebook version is in preparation.

The History of Cartography Project is being published a bit out of sequence. Volume six, covering the twentieth century, came out in 2015. Still to come is volume five, which covers the nineteenth century. Volume five editor Roger Kain has some thoughts on the history of the History of Cartography project.

While quite expensive to purchase, each volume is made available for free download on the History of Cartography project website 24 months after publication. Volumes one through three and six are available now; check back for volume four in the spring of 2022.

Previously: History of Cartography Project’s Sixth Volume Now Out; History of Cartography Project’s Sixth Volume Now Available Online; History of Cartography Project Updates.

The History of Cartography, Vol. 4, Part 1The History of Cartography, Volume 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment
edited by Matthew H. Edney and Mary Spondberg Pedley
University of Chicago Press, April 2020
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

CityLab Wants Your Hand-Drawn Quarantine Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

CityLab is asking readers to send them hand-made maps of their life under quarantine.

We’re inviting readers to draw a map of your life, community, or broader world as you experience it under coronavirus. Your map can be as straightforward or subjective as you wish. You might show key destinations, beloved neighbors, a new daily routine, the people or restaurants you miss, the future city you hope to see, or anything else that’s become important to you right now. It might even be a map of your indoor life. For an added challenge, try drawing from memory.

Deadline is 20 April, with a selection of submissions to be featured in a future article.

Prior art would include Fuller’s quarantine maps and Kera Till’s “Commuting in Corona Times” (previously).

Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The March 2020 issue (PDF) of Calafia, the journal of the California Map Society, has as its theme the mapping of space. It also has something from me in it: my review of the third edition of Nick Kanas’s Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. An excerpt:

It’s important to remember a book’s target audience—its imagined ideal reader. In the case of Star Maps this is Kanas’s younger self, who came to map collecting via his lifelong interest in amateur astronomy. “I was frustrated that there was not a single book on celestial cartography that could inform me about the various aspects of my collecting,” he writes in the preface to the first edition. “What I needed was a book that not only was a primer for the collector but also had sufficient reference detail to allow me to identify and understand my maps. Nothing like this appeared, so I decided to write such a book some day” (p. xxi). In other words, for a compendium this is a surprisingly personal book, one that reflects his own journey into the subject and, presumably, his interests as a collector.

I’ll post the full review on The Map Room once I’ve checked my draft against the published copy. In the meantime, check out the issue of Calafia (PDF) in which it appears. (Update, 24 Jun 2020: Here it is.)

Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography
3rd edition
by Nick Kanas
Springer Praxis, Sept 2019
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Apple Books | Bookshop

Internet Access, Online Learning and COVID-19

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Lack of Internet Access
Marie Patino/Bloomberg (CityLab)

CityLab maps the percentage of U.S. households with no internet access by school district—an increasingly important number as schools close to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore online classes as an alternative delivery system in the meantime. That’s a problem for kids who don’t have internet at home—and an even bigger problem where more kids are in that situation.1

Canadian Election Atlas Adds 2019 Results

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Election-atlas.ca, the collection of historical Canadian election results maps I first told you about in 2018, has added poll-by-poll results for the 2019 Canadian federal election. Also, since we last saw them it seems they’ve extended their historical results further back in time—as far back as 1896 for the federal results.

Previously: An Online Atlas of Canadian Election Results; A Cartogram of Canada’s Election Results; More Canadian Election Maps; Mapping the Canadian Election Results: Technical Details.

Rail Map Online

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Rail Map Online has been around since 2013 or so, but it only came to my attention recently. It’s an interactive map of every rail line and station that has ever existed in Great Britain and Ireland, with U.S. rail lines in the pipeline. Keep in mind that it’s a hobby project: “The U.K. map is mostly finished, although there’s always room for improvement. The U.S. map is a work in progress, and will take many years to complete.” [Tim Dunn]

Behind the Scenes at the JHU Coronavirus Dashboard

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
JHU coronavirus dashboard screenshot
JHU CSSE (screenshot)

ArcGIS-based dashboards tracking the spread of the novel coronavirus are now reasonably common, but the first was produced by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. As Nature Index reports in this behind-the-scenes look at the JHU coronavirus dashboard, the decision to launch was spur of the moment, but now the dashboard and its underlying data get more than a billion hits every single day, and it is now managed by a team that numbers nearly two dozen. [GIS Lounge]

Landforms of Michigan

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Daniel Huffman, “Landforms of Michigan” (2020).

Daniel Huffman finally finished a map he’d been working on, off and on (though mostly off), for years. Landforms of Michigan appeared in draft form on this 2016 blog post about mapping terrain using Photoshop layers; last week, Daniel says, “I finally overcame my inertia enough to finish it.” It’s available as a large poster on Zazzle.