Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Maps for the Winter Olympics


The 2018 Winter Olympics will start on 9th February in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Interactive maps are available which show the route of the Olympic torch relay and the locations of the venues in Pyeongchang. The maps themselves are fairly basic and are just about suitable for purpose. If I was in charge of awarding medals for these maps I'd say they weren't gold standard but were perhaps deserving of a couple of bronze medals.

The Olympic Channel has released an interactive map showing the 2018 Winter Olympics torch relay route. The Follow the Torch map shows the position of the torch and all the towns & cities it will pass through on its way to Pyeongchang for the start of the Winter Olympics on 9th February.

The map has been completely custom made for the Winter Olympics, mainly using SVG. The map itself is an SVG image, with the city markers, torch and stars overlaid on top. Unfortunately the basemap image is very simple and only really features a bare outline of the country. Therefore, unless you know South Korea well, you need to click on the city markers to discover the names of the cities shown on the route. The green circles show where the torch has already been. The yellow city circles show the remaining route as the torch travels to Pyeongchang for the opening ceremony.

Pyeongchang 2018 has an interactive map showing the locations of the Winter Olympics venues. You can zoom in and out on this map but for some unknown and bewildering reason panning has been turned off. This means that you can't move the map around. You therefore need to click on the venues listed under the map to navigate around Pyeongchnag on the map.

No comments: