Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The World Cup in Maps


The 2014 World Cup looks set to become the most mapped football tournament in history. The tournament itself will begin on Thursday in Brasil but we're having an early kick-off here at Google Maps Mania with a day dedicated to World Cup maps.

Esri have got the ball rolling by releasing no less than six World Cup related Story Maps, exploring World Cup history, the 2014 teams and players and the 2014 World Cup stadiums in Brasil. Esri's 2014 World Cup Maps includes World Cup Venues, World Cup Dashboard, World Cup History, Belo Horizonte Restaurants, Golden Greats and Team USA Roster.

The Golden Greats map is one of the more interesting maps in this little collection of Story Maps. The map shows the best players in previous World Cups. You can select to view the Golden Ball (the player voted the best player in the tournament), the Golden Boot (the highest scorer) and the Golden Glove (the player voted the best goalkeeper) in all the previous World Cups.

The map suggests that if you want to win a player award at the World Cup then you need to play for a South American or European team.

The World Cup History map lets you browse through the results of every World Cup since 1930. Select a tournament from the map sidebar and you can then click on a participating country on the map to view all the results for that country in the selected tournament.

The World Cup Venues map is an interesting tour of the Brazilian stadiums hosting the 2014 World Cup matches. Unfortunately this map is let down a bit by Esri's satellite view imagery which hasn't quite kept up with the pace of development for the World Cup. Most of the satellite views used here only show the stadiums at various stages during their construction.

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