Geog 104 - Daily Maps - Spring 2012

Some collections...

One place with lots of examples to talk about... The OCSI Map Gallery website

And another... The Maps posted by The Atlantic

And another... Michael Friendly's "Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization"

Some maps...

  1. NYTimes - New Hampshire primary results. Choropleth and graduated point symbols. (link) .
  2. Bedolina (but see http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/> (or http://www.cartographic-images.net) for some contention on "earliest" and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_maps for some other images.) Note the range of symbology: Pictographic, iconic, conventional, abstract.
  3. NY Times Top 1% map. Interactive. Set an income level by typing. Map unit symbolized changes with mouse over. Legend changes with click. Examples are plotted, moused-over added. Scale/zoom slider. Is the logic of this symbology clear? Do you get a sense of the pattern of level of income needed to be in the top 1% of incomes across the country?
  4. NY Times Stop and Frisk Map Graduated point symbols or continuous tone? look what happens as you change scale ('zoom'). The transparency "adding up" makes the color (value) work with some redundance to symbolize the number of events.
  5. Google Earth.
  6. Chicago Boundaries . From the wall maps section of projects... This is another dot map where the symbology seems to change with scale (continuous to point), but it also shows blending of several surfaces.
  7. Zhao Yu Tu "map of the area of the mausoleum". Where? 2,300 years old. 37" x 19" engraved on 1/4 inch thick copper plate. http://www.archaeology.org/9803/newsbriefs/map.html, John Noble Wilford (2001) The Mapmakers Sources hedge on the significance and other aspects: "oldest map found in China", "oldest map with clearly marked distances", "oldest extant Chinese map", "oldest number-bearing map in the world". But we've seen other claims of oldest map as much as 14,000 years ago.
  8. Another color dot distribution map from the NYTimes. (Here.) This one maps census data on race at a county level with dots placed (randomly) within the counties. People per Dot changes with scale, and seems often to leave empty space. Some of the county borders standout even when not drawn. Robinson (Elements of Cartography, 1969) and Mackay ("Dotting the Dot Map" in Surveying and Mapping v9 pp3-10 1969) wrote about dot size and value to get "coalescence" and a visually appealing map. This interactive map updates but draws upon such writing.
  9. Maps of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. There are lots of maps of OWS on-line. See the range of visual impressions some of their various symbologies tell? eg 1 , eg 2 , eg 3 , and eg 4 .
  10. This is a bit different... Senator Al Frankin drawing maps of the USA by hand and from memory. (2 min, MPR, 2009) , (5 min, 2007) , (2 min, CNN, 2009) . (Thanks, YouTube.)
  11. Here's one from a few years ago that may remian timely. Plate carre is not equidistant, and it is way too easy to do silly things when you are not thinking! See: ths. Projections do matter. His 'better' map is still perhaps not the one I'd go with.
  12. USDA Cropland Data Layer. nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape Probably beats a statistical table for getting a sense of where various crops are grown in the US. Pointilist dasymetric sub-county level detail.
  13. How about an animated flow map with near real-time data behind it? This one show wind speed and direction on the US mainland. The data are forecasts downloaded once per hour from the National Digital Forecast Database.
  14. Google plays with 8-bit graphics of the Nintendo Entertainment System for April Fool's Day. here?
  15. This came from Tracey P. Lauriault via the Canadian Cartographic Association's mail list. "Normally Telegeography has the monopoly on Internet Cable Maps, but looks there there are a few other's making these: http://www.techcentral.co.za/s-african-develops-free-submarine-cables-map/15814/ - http://www.cablemap.info/ (mashup) - http://www.submarinecablemap.com/ Articles: - http://www.extremetech.com/computing/96827-the-secret-world-of-submarine-cables - http://www.techcentral.co.za/s-african-develops-free-submarine-cables-map/15814/ - my real fave - Neal Stephenson http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
  16. An image noted by a colleague with interests in water and Montevideo... link and large
  17. NYT's Interactive Electoral Map. around here.
  18. Shake, Rattle and Roll: maps of existential risk from... The Burning Platform
  19. A design firm Stamen Design with some interesting maps.
  20. David Rumsey Collection in Google... here.
  21. Map of US interventions in Latin America... spatially indexed stories (here)
  22. Maps of craft breweries, comparing absolute numbers and numbers normalized by population. The text also reports correlations with income, education and happiness (at the state level). from The Atlantic Cities
  23. Hawaii 2012 Primary Election Mashup. Here. Point symbols using hue rather than value to indicate ranges of a quantitative variable for spatially extensive units may make sense if one considers these as qualitative differences at polling places. I think that the "turnout" percentage is of registered voters rather than of eligible voters. Precinct variation in population (vote) is not shown.
  24. Kickstarter project for... Food, an Altas . Interesting way to put together an atlas. Personnally, I think the guerrilla cartography moniker is a bit strange. Drawing on a war metaphor rather than one grounded in writing, informing, or educating, while at the same time not indicating what is being fought for or against seems a red herring. It also seems to signal a more confrontational than useful take. Perhaps I need to see who these folks are. Someone might want to see whether this is a good kickstarter marketing strategy.
  25. The Alaska State Ferry system map. I think this shows in (almost?) real-time where the vessels are. The plate carree projection is a bit of a distraction but easy to use in a mashup. The ship symbols sizes stay constant; at smaller scales ("zoomed out") they are monsterously large and at large scales they are tiny. The wake makes them look like speed boats. Pointing at the vessels or the terminals gives identifying text. The ferry trip from Bellingham to Juneau or Haines is worth doing.
  26. Some election mapping comments in an email from D. R. Fraser Taylor: 
    Re: [CCA-list] Nuanced map view of the US Elections
From: Fraser Taylor 
To: cca-list 
Tracey,
Choropleth maps are probably one of the worst ways of showing US
election results.This visualisation is better but although much
more accurate it still has problems in terms of how the uninformed
user may perceive it. The granularity of the date is a distinct advantage.
Fraser.

On 15/11/2012 10:22 AM, X wrote:
> Imagine if we could get these data at that level 
> of granularity in Canada!
>

www.technologyreview.com/view/507501/data-visualization-reveals-a-less-divided-states-of-america/ 

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/ 
>
  27. The SGI Twitter Heat map, via the Huffington Post here. Spectral color scheme. Spatial aggregation?
  28. Here's another one from XKCD pointed out by Duane Marble. "Pet Peeve #208". Heat maps and population maps.
  29. Unmapping an island in 2012? Sandy Island. Now, this is a place that some map geneology might be in order. Why is this place in the datasets that it is? When did it start? In what source? Maybe this or this says.
  30. Interactive map of The Rolling Stones' live show history. here . I am not sure why the cartographer chose the projection(s?) that are used, would like to have seen time and the sequence more easily (which show was first? which last? how much time between shows?), and are straight lines on this projection realistic (i.e., do you think 1989's Steel Wheels tour really went like that?).
  31. I thought that we had a few pointers to the Apple Maps debacle in September 2012 (what a mess!). Here's (another) one on the consequences of bad data, via the BBC. "Apple Maps 'is life-threatening' to motorists lost in Australia heat" .
  32. Jenni Sparks - hand drawn map. I'm not sure what to call this type of symbology. The texture results from hand drawing landmark features in orthographic projection, (keeping major roads open?), integrating neighborhood names, and using color to set off parks and water --- all to fill the planimetric map. An interesting effect. I have not tried to test the map simplification, and displacements of location and scale of the features that are drawn. Analyzing them might make a good term project.
  33. Brookings Institute Global MetroMonitor interactive map. here . The authors were: Emilia Istrate and Carey Anne Nadeau. The 'mouse over' to retrieve statistical reports for individual metropolitan areas is straightforward and common enough, but note the "Plot" vs "Map" toggle and the movement of dots between them to relate places in the geographic and economic spaces. That seems interesting. Does it work? What limitations would you expect with this? On the "comparisons with counrty growth 2011-2012" map, what do you make of the symbol color scheme?
  34. Here's a dot map that shows one person per dot. bmander.com/dotmap/index.html . It is interesting for raises questions about the design of dot maps... should the number of dots per person interact with the map scale? the display resolution? should the cartographer try to ease the effects of statistical borders?
  35. An animation of US weather for 2012. Maybe it is still here: http://www.wunderground.com/video/ or there abouts.
  36. NYTimes story (8Jan2013) on digital globes. Indeed, these are becoming more affordable. When can we get one? What would we do with it?
  37. Best and worst countries in which to be born. here . Classic choropleth map. Hows the color scheme? Can you distinguish all the categories? Is that a good map projection for this? What do you make of the lines connecting parts of multi-part polygons, more colloquially, "islands"?
  38. Here's another case that raises issues about making public record information more easily accessible. Directly and via a 'blog' that includes some more context here . Hmmm. Information wars? Setting information "free"? Privacy? There is some complextiy to sort-out here.
  39. Here is a story in images... What's all the light in North Dakota?
  40. An interactivce timeline graphic on milestones in data visualization... datavis.ca/milestones/.
  41. I'm not sure that I buy that this is really... the-saddest-map-in-america/, but it might be useful information.
  42. Not a map per se, but a BBC News piece by Duncan Walker on "Has street view changed the way we behave?". It sure is handy in Geog 340. See: www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21880217.
  43. A physicist maps "Where's George" data... here
  44. Here's one showing economic contrasts along transit line transects in New York City. See: Inequality and New York's Subway . That economic surface is quite a terrain.