Tag: France

La figure de la Terre

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
John Churchman, The magnetic atlas; or, Variation charts of the whole terraqueous globe, comprising a system of the variation and dip of the needle, by which, the observations being truly made, the longitude may be ascertained. Plate I. 1794. The Royal Society, RCN 33275.
Detail from John Churchman, The Magnetic Atlas (1794). The Royal Society, RCN 33275.

La figure de la Terre: Un débat franco-anglais (XVIIe-XXIe siècle), an exhibition running at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris from 1 April to 20 June 2026.

This exhibition offers a historical and scientific journey through more than three centuries of research devoted to measuring, modeling and understanding the shape of our planet, from the 17th century through to the space age. Since ancient times, we’ve known that the Earth is, broadly speaking, a sphere. The key question was whether it was slightly flattened at the poles or elongated. To answer this question, scientists, astronomers, mathematicians and geodesists have developed theoretical models, designed innovative instruments and conducted vast observation campaigns around the world. The exhibition features exceptional sources drawn mainly from the collections of the Académie des Sciences and the Royal Society, testifying to the intensity of scientific exchanges between Paris and London and the decisive role of international cooperation in the production of knowledge.

France seems to have quite a lot of map-related programming lately.

A Paris Symposium on Maps and Popular Culture

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A symposium on maps and popular culture, Popcartographie : cartes et cultures populaires (XIXe-XXIe siècle), will be taking place at the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s Mitterrand site in Paris on 10-11 April 2026. Its three themes: maps in popular culture, maps as amateur practice, and the map as a paraadigm of popular fiction. Free/registration; program at the link. English translation at H-Maps. [Matthew Edney]

‘The Most Amazing Map Exhibition Ever Mounted’

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Every so often Matthew Edney posts something that had to be cut from his work in progress. In this case it’s a piece about what he calls “the most amazing map exhibition ever mounted”: Cartes et figures de la terre, which ran at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1980.

The curators of Cartes et figures de la terre were not map specialists. The principal curator was Giulio Macchi (1918–2009), an Italian film maker and producer for Italian state television, who was also an experienced curator of art exhibitions. The large accompanying volume, of the same title as the exhibition, was edited by Jean-Loup Rivière (1948–2018), a playwright, director, and theater critic and theorist who was then a research fellow at the Centre Pompidou.

Neither Macchi nor Rivière were committed to established scholarly and professional attitudes towards maps and their history. Entranced by the great variety of scientific and artistic map images, both past and present, they emphasized the aesthetic form of maps rather than map content. In doing so, Macchi and Rivière challenged the seemingly eternal verities of the normative map, even as they remained bound to those verities, not least to the idea that all maps are somehow all the same and a necessarily exceptionalist form of representation. They were especially enamored of the spectacular and of the creative in mapping.

Among other things, they brought the Coronelli globes out of storage.

In conjunction with the exhibition was a short surrealist film about cartography, Le jeu de l’oie (Une fiction didactique à propos de la cartographie), written and directed by Raúl Ruiz for France 2; you can watch it on YouTube (English subtitles are available):

Le Jour de la Carte

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

More than a hundred map-related events are taking place today (4 February 2026) in France, plus a few elsewhere, as part of the first Jour de la Carte (Day of the Map).

Une centaine d’événements organisés par des acteurs publics, privés, éducatifs, culturels, associatifs, citoyens et citoyennes sont prévus en France et à l’étranger, pour réaffirmer le rôle essentiel de la carte comme outil pour faire démocratie, permettant à chacun de comprendre, de débattre et d’agir sur son territoire.

The organizing body is called La République des Cartes, whose members include cartographers and academics, and the goal is expressly political (in a civil-society sense, one that strikes me as quite French).

La République des cartes est une coalition mue par un objectif : replacer la cartographie au cœur du débat démocratique. L’actualité géopolitique des derniers mois livre de multiples exemples, – tels que le changement d’appellation du Golfe du Mexique ou la situation du Groenland – de l’importance des cartes. Pour se représenter le monde autrement, collectivement, déployer une politique sur les territoires et accompagner la transition environmentale grâce à la carte.

Quotes from the press release. Looks like the goal is to make this an annual event.

Apple Maps Roundup for July 2023

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Downloadable maps are coming to Apple Maps in iOS 17 this fall. Ars Technica looks at how they’ll work, and how they’ll compare to Google Maps’ offline maps (at the moment—which to be sure is with the iOS 17 public beta—Apple’s offline maps take up much more space but also offer more detail).

James Killick considers Apple’s forthcoming Vision Pro headset and wonders whether something might not be afoot in the mapping space. “The real kicker for geospatial is its ability to immerse you in a truly 3D experience. […] So given a truly immersive 3D experience is possible, think of the wonders it will do for maps and mapping in general.”

After expanding its new maps to central Europe—Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia—in April, Apple brought detailed city maps to Paris, cycling directions to the whole of France, and its new maps to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Slovakia in June. As usual, Justin O’Beirne has all the details at the above links.

A Huge, Super-Expensive Edition of the Cassini Map

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Book cover of The Cassini MapFrench publisher Conspiration Éditions has announced the forthcoming publication of a huge, luxury edition of the Cassini map. The 18th-century map is, famously, the first comprehensive map of France, and the first map to be based on triangulation. Their edition is enormous: at 56 × 65 cm (or 22 × 25.6 inches), it’s big enough to show each plate as a two-page spread at full size (Conspiration is reprinting a hand-coloured original apparently owned by Marie-Antoinette). At 15 kg (33 lbs), the book is also pretty heavy, and includes a foldable stand. It is, however, not remotely cheap: it’s being published in a limited edition of 900 copies that will be released for sale in April 2024 at the rather stunning price of €2,400; 300 copies can be purchased before the end of October 2023 at the low, low subscription price of €1,800.

Previously: La Carte de Cassini.

Pierre Novat, French Painter of Ski Resort Panoramas

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Pierre Novat (1928-2007) was another painter of panoramic mountain and ski resort maps working with the same techniques as Henrich Berann and James Niehues. Novat actually predates Niehues, and even Niehues’s mentor Bill Brown: his career ran from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1999. He mainly focused on French ski resorts; for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville he pained a panorama of all the Savoie venues. In March 1992, France 3 aired this profile of Novat that explored his process; the above video relates to a 2014 exposition of his work. (All links in French; see this 2014 blog post from the Ski Adventures blog for something in English.)

A Striped Circle Map of the French Presidential Election Results

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Julien Gaffuri's striped circle map of the French presidential election results (second round), released 27 Apr 2022

Julien Gaffuri’s map of the second-round results of the French presidential election is, as you can see, extraordinarily busy—and, by the way, extremely processor-intensive: it will slow down your machine—because it’s at the commune level and each circle is scaled to population. (News flash: Paris has lots of people in it.) And those circles are striped circles: the proportion of the votes is indicated by the area taken up by a given colour. The map of the first round results shows more stripes (because more candidates) but is by department, so it’s a little easier both to read and to see how the striped circle format works. It’s an interesting alternative to a choropleth map, and a bit less ambiguous.

2022 French Presidential Election (Second Round)

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

France24 map of the second round of the 2022 French presidential election (screenshot)France 24’s interactive map (right) covers both first and second rounds and shows results by region, department and commune. It is annoyingly unlabelled, which is a surprising choice for France’s English-language news service. Le Monde’s map uses a similar colour scheme—yellow/orange for Macron, grey/brown for Le Pen—but at least has mouseover labels.

Le Parisien’s maps aren’t interactive, nor are they particularly large, but they illustrate other aspects of the results, like the abstentions, voter turnout and differences vs. the 2017 vote. The Guardian’s maps are low on detail but provide similar information. Libération’s map, on the other hand, is a cluttered mess, showing each commune as a proportionally sized dot. [Maps Mania]

Previously: 2022 French Presidential Election (First Round).

2022 French Presidential Election (First Round)

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Le Monde’s map of the first round of the 2022 French presidential electionSome maps showing the results of the first round of France’s 2022 presidential election. Le Monde’s interactive map shows the winner by commune: it has all the caveats you’d expect from a geographical map (the cities have a lot of voters but not much territory, making Le Pen’s rural support look more impressive). Bloomberg’s maps are behind a paywall: see this Twitter thread instead, which has maps of the regional concentrations of each candidate’s support. (With a dozen candidates on the ballot, it’s hard to get a true picture from a single map.) Also on Twitter, Dominic Royé’s dasymetric maps of the results [Maps Mania].

Previously: Mapping the 2017 French Presidential Election (First Round).

La Pérouse’s Expeditions

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Library of Congress scan of Buache de Neuville's map of the northern Pacific Ocean, 1785.
Jean-Nicolas Buache de Neuville, “Carte de l’Océan où sont tracées les différentes routes des navigateurs au tour du monde,” 1785. Map in 3 sheets. Library of Congress.

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.

French Rail Services as Network Diagram

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Jug Cerovic

Metropolitan France—mainland France without Corsica and its overseas territories—is often referred to colloquially as l’Hexagone. Jug Cerovic, whose work we are familiar with here, has taken that metaphor and run with it with this network diagram of France’s main passenger train lines: the grid is hexagonal, and it works. Lines are colour-coded: TGV lines are blue if they start in Paris and red if they route around it or connect regions directly (a relatively new development; intercity lines are blue-grey, regional lines are orange, and night trains are grey. International routes are also included. It’s actually quite easy to see what cities and towns get what kind of train service, and what services exist between two points—exactly what a network map should do.