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Art, science, and cartography
Similar discussions going on in the cartography branch among UW Madison geography folks. Start with the post by Tim Wallace (where the above Venn came from). Then read the responses of Andy Woodruff...
View ArticleA new brand of cartographer
Emily Underwood on new cartographers and the growing field: Geographers have traditionally studied how the natural environment contributes to human society and vice versa, whereas cartographers have...
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Atlas of literal place names
We go places. They have names. What do these names mean though? The Atlas of True Names by cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust can help you with that, replacing place names with the meaning of...
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Why we think of north pointing up
Nick Danforth for Al Jazeera delves into the history books for why north is typically on the top of our maps. There's no single reason for it, but Ptolemy might have had something to do with it. The...
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Quick reference guide to thematic cartography
Mapping data is so much about subtleties. The little things add up to make a full map exponentially better than one that wasn't given the proper attention. But in case you don't have the time to earn a...
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Maps to understand tennis
Damien Saunder, a cartographer at ESRI, likes to use mapping methods to evaluate tennis player patterns and tendencies. When I look at tennis, I see it moving on a grid. I see space and x/y coordinates...
View ArticleVintage cartography and geography documentary, from 1961
This is too good not to watch. It’s a 1961 documentary on cartography and geography from the United States Air Force. Watch in all its vintage glory below.(You might want to turn down the volume during...
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Glow map
John Nelson has a knack for making maps that glow, where the base map serves as a dark backdrop and the data of interest sort of lights up. In a recent talk, he calls it Firefly Cartography and...
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Comparing Google Maps and Apple Maps Over a Year
Google collects much of their own data to construct their maps, whereas Apple sources most of their data externally. This difference, coupled with varying cartography that changes over time, means an...
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Cartography Playground
Map-making is a tricky business with many variables to consider that can directly change how someone interprets the land and people in a location. The Cartography Playground is a simple site to test...
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Skewed mental map of the world’s geography
The maps that we imagine as we think about locations around the world often don’t match up with reality. Betsy Mason for National Geographic explains the discrepancy. On the misalignment of Europe:...
View ArticleWhen geolocation makes everyone think you stole their phone
People show up unannounced at John and his mother Ann’s home in South Africa, looking for stolen property, but John and Ann didn’t steal anything. For Gizmodo, Kashmir Hill investigates another case of...
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The role of cartography in early global explorations
For Lapham’s Quarterly, Elizabeth Della Zazzera turns back the clock to maps used for navigation, starting with the 1300s and through 1720: From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, European powers...
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BellTopo Sans is is a free typeface based on maps from 1800s
While working on maps inspired by USGS maps from the 1800s, Sarah Bell made a typeface to match: While making my own USGS-inspired maps, my search never returned the exact type of font I was looking...
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Responsible mapping
We’re seeing a lot of maps now about coronavirus. There are a lot counts, rates, and a little bit of panic involved. Kenneth Field provides guidance on mapping this data responsibly: We’ll focus just...
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