The Unanimous Map of the Year

One map has featured on every 2014 Maps of the Year list that I have seen this year. It is one of Wired MapLab's Favorite Maps of the Year. It appears on Cartonerd's Favorite Maps of the Year and it will definitely be on part two of my own round-up of the best Maps of the Year (view Part One here).

The map that has made it on to every Maps of the Year post is Chris Whong's NYC Taxis: A Day in the Life. MapLab call the map 'strangely mesmerizing'. Cartonerd says that the map is "a lovely piece of work that works well, marries form and function and shows us what web mapping can be".


NYC Taxis: A Day in the Life is a MapBox visualization of the journey of one New York taxi over the course of 24 hours.

As the day's journeys plays out on the map the taxi's position is shown by a yellow circle map marker. All the passenger journeys are added to the map with a blue polyline. The map also keeps a running total of the cab's total number of passengers, fares and tips received.

Once you have viewed a day in the life of this New York taxi you can choose from another one of thirty cab journeys mapped over 24 hours.