January 2020 – The Map Room

Unified Geologic Map of the Moon

Published on 31 January 202022 April 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

A new unified geologic map of the Moon, based on digital renovations that updated 1970s-era geologic maps to match more recent topographic and image data gathered by lunar orbiters, was released by the USGS last month. The map is “a seamless, globally consistent, 1:5,000,000-scale geologic map”; the paper version (25 MB JPEG) provides azimuthal projections beyond the 55th parallels and an equirectangular projection between the 57th parallels. [Geography Realm]

Previously: Lunar Geology and the Apollo Program.

Update, 22 April 2020: Version 2 of this map was released in March to address a number of errors in the first version.

Apple’s New Maps Now Cover the Entire United States

Published on 31 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Last year Apple rolled out its new map data in stages, with new coverage being added on a state-by-state or region-by-region basis. Yesterday Apple announced that its new map data now covers the entire United States (except, Justin O’Beirne points out, the territories). This is slightly later than the end-of-2019 target they’d been aiming for. Europe is scheduled to start receiving the new map data this year.

Matthew Panzarino, who broke the news in 2018 that Apple was building its own map data, said in a tweet that “Maps is probably the biggest software turnaround in Apple’s modern era—an interesting case study for a company that rarely needs turnaround efforts.”

Previously: Apple Maps Data Being Completely Rebuilt for iOS 12; A Look at the Rebuilt Apple Maps; Apple Maps at WWDC 2019: New Map Data, Look Around and More; Apple’s New Map Data Rolls Out Region by Region.

Mapbox Elections

Published on 31 January 20206 February 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

This week Mapbox launched a tool for the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections: Mapbox Elections, “a resource to help individuals, journalists, and organizations cover the elections, analyze the results, and build modern maps to display it all.” Their first product is a dataset including U.S. presidential election results from 2004 to 2016.

George III’s Collection of Military Maps Now Online

Published on 28 January 202029 July 2021 by Jonathan Crowe

George Louis Le Rouge, *Plan de l’Armée de Cornwallis attaquée et faitte Prisoniere dans York Town, le 19 8bre, par l’Armée Combinée Francaise et Americaine*, 1781. Map, 34.9 x 43.5 cm. Royal Collection Trust.

More than 2,000 military maps and related items collected by George III have been posted online by the Royal Collection Trust to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his death. As the Guardian reports, the collection “features material from the 16th to 18th centuries, from highly finished presentation maps of sieges, battles and marcheso rough sketches drawn in the field, depictions of uniforms and fortification plans, providing a vivid contemporary account of important theatres of war in Britain, Europe and America.”

George III was apparently an avid map collector. At his death his collection numbered some 55,000 maps: the maritime and topographic maps were given to the British Library; the military maps were kept by George IV for his own use. “Not all of them were collected by George III in the first instance: like most collectors, he not only purchased individual items but also acquired the collections of others.” [Tony Campbell]

Update, 22 Apr 2020: From February, Smithsonian Magazine’s coverage.

xkcd: Reaction Maps

Published on 28 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

The latest xkcd comic suggests a fiendish way to express yourself: by creating phrases from driving direction waypoints.

An obvious upgrade would be to use one or more of the places from the Magnificently Rude Map of World Place Names (previously).

‘Cartograph’: History of a Back Formation

Published on 28 January 202028 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Inspired by its appearance in a recent science fiction novel,¹ Matthew Edney explores the history of the odd word “cartograph”—a back formation of “cartography” whose existence suggests circumstances in which “map” is somehow insufficient. Edney traces three kinds of uses of the term: one referring to an early 20th-century instrument; one as a synonym for pictorial maps in the mid-20th century; and one, post-1980, that refers to map products that don’t, for some reason, adhere to Western cartographic ideals. (This piece expands on Edney’s book-length critique of the normative ideal of cartography, Cartography: The Ideal and Its History, which I reviewed here last October.)

Official and Unofficial German Rail Network Maps Compared

Published on 28 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

On the left, Deutsche Bahn’s official network map of all Intercity and Intercity Express routes in Germany (PDF). On the right, a much more ambitious map of said network by Reddit user theflyingindonesian. Cameron Booth much prefers the unofficial map: while the official map is “incredibly average” (a putdown I will have to make a point of remembering), the unofficial map is “a major upgrade” that is “infinitely superior” to the official map. “I particularly like the dead straight trajectory of the lines from Hamburg down to Fulda, and the clear treatment of the potentially difficult and convoluted Rhine-Ruhr area. I also like the way that the routes for trains that pass through major stations get a ghosted-back line to link the routes across the (sometimes very large) station rectangles.” I know which one I’d rather spend a long time staring at.

Tracking the Wuhan Coronavirus

Published on 28 January 202011 February 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Johns Hopkins University’s CSSE has created an interactive map and online dashboard to track the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. Details at their blog post:

The case data visualized is collected from various sources, including WHO, U.S. CDC, ECDC, China CDC (CCDC), NHC and DXY. DXY is a Chinese website that aggregates NHC and local CCDC situation reports in near real-time, providing more current regional case estimates than the national level reporting organizations are capable of, and is thus used for all the mainland China cases reported in our dashboard (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths). U.S. cases (confirmed, suspected, recovered, deaths) are taken from the U.S. CDC, and all other country (suspected and confirmed) case data is taken from the corresponding regional health departments. The dashboard is intended to provide the public with an understanding of the outbreak situation as it unfolds, with transparent data sources.

The data is also downloadable. [Geography Realm/Maps Mania]

Meanwhile, the Washington Post has created a series of maps showing where the outbreak started and the nearby areas at risk.

Previously: The Washington Post Maps the Spread of the New Coronavirus.

Update, 31 Jan: Maps from the New York Times.

Night Trains

Published on 28 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Sleeper trains are making something of a comeback, with services being restored and expanded after years of cutbacks, at least in Europe. In what may not be a coincidence, Jug Cerović has created Night Trains, a collection of maps of overnight train services around the world, done in his usual, standardized schematic transit network design language. Prints are available.

Fire Destroys Columbus Globes Warehouse

Published on 28 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Columbus Globes, the century-old German globe manufacturer, lost its warehouse to a fire Thursday night. The 2,500-m² building in Krauchenwies, Baden-Württemberg was completely destroyed, causing at least €1.5 million in damage. Police suspect arson: there have been a number of deliberately set fires in the Krauchenwies region in recent weeks—two at the Columbus site. News coverage (German only): DPA (Badische Zeitung, RTL, Süddeutsche Zeitung), SWR.

A List of Geospatial Podcasts

Published on 28 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

I haven’t been keeping up on what mapping and geospatial podcasts are out there. (My last post on the subject was nearly a decade ago.) Fortunately, GIS Lounge has a roundup of geospatial podcasts, most of which I was not aware of (see above); interesting to see that Very Spatial is still an ongoing concern.

Ten-Year Timelapse of U.S. Weather Radar

Published on 24 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

This timelapse video showing 10 years of weather radar over the course of two hours is built from NEXRAD mosaic data at the Iowa Environmental Mesonet site. To be honest they could have gone even further back: the archived data for the U.S. goes back as far as 1995. But then you’d have a five-hour video, and who’d watch that? [Kottke]

The Washington Post Maps the Spread of the New Coronavirus

Published on 24 January 202011 February 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Washington Post map of China showing number of cases of coronavirus — Washington Post

The Washington Post has mapped the spread of the new strain of coronavirus, which appeared last month in Wuhan and has since spread. They’ll be updating the map, and this won’t be the only map tracking the disease, so this isn’t the final word on the subject.

Celebrating Christopher Tolkien’s Cartographic Legacy

Published on 22 January 202025 September 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

It turns out that I wasn’t finished talking about the maps drawn by Christopher Tolkien. My latest piece for Tor.com, “Celebrating Christopher Tolkien’s Cartographic Legacy,” went live at Tor.com this morning. It looks at the collaborative process between J. R. R. Tolkien and his son Christopher as father and son tried to make the narrative agree with the map, and vice versa; takes a deep dive into Christopher’s mapmaking technique; and tries to assess the impact of his maps on fantasy mapmaking.

Previously: Christopher Tolkien, 1924-2020.

An Update on Anton Thomas’s Map of North America

Published on 21 January 202021 January 2020 by Jonathan Crowe

Anton Thomas’s pictorial map of North America (previously) is now complete, and he’ll be selling giclée prints and posters from his website soon. (I know exactly where mine will be going.) In the above video, he looks at the multiyear process of creating the map—on paper, with pencils and pen, and how he had to correct and redraw (the inked parts!) as he went. Here’s an interview he did with Atlas Obscura last month.