The Most Famous Czechs Map

The Holy Roman Emperor, King Charles IV, is the most famous person to have been born in the Czech Republic, according to Wikipedia. More people visit the Wikipedia page of Charles IV (Karel IV) than the Wikipedia entry of any other Czech person.

You can find out who is the most famous person from every Czech town on a new interactive map by iROZHLAS. The Most Popular Natives of Czech Towns map reveals the native person with the most Wikipedia visits for 1,749 towns and cities. You can learn more about each of the labeled people by simply hovering over their name on the map. This will reveal a very brief biography and a link to their Wikipedia entry.

iROZHLAS's map was of course inspired by The Pudding's very popular A People Map of the USA, showing the most famous person from each U.S. town and The Pudding's similar map for the UK, A People Map of the UK.

The Czech Election Map

The second richest person in the country, Andrej Babis, is set to become the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. His populist ANO party gained a victory in Saturday's general election and will now have the chance to form a coalition government.

iRozhlas has mapped the results from the general election. The map allows you to view the winning party in each electoral district. You can also select any of the political parties to see how many votes they received in each district.

Beneath the map iRozhlas examines the geographical support for each party using the mapped visualization of each party's national election results. Andrej Babis' ANO party was popular across the Czech Republic and is geographically distributed very evenly. There is more of a geographical component to the results of the Czech Republic's other main political parties. These are explored in iRozhlas's analysis of each party's election results.

Mapping Slow TV

Back in 2011 Norwegian Public Service broadcaster NRK broadcast non-stop for 134 hours the voyage of the cruise liner Hurtigruten around the Norway coastline. As well as amazing live footage of the cruise you could also keep track of the position of the cruise liner on a live real-time Google Map.

Slow television is the term used for these types of live 'marathon' television shows covering an ordinary event in its complete length. The Hurtigruten cruise wasn't the first 'slow television' broadcast by NRK (it had previously broadcast a number of films of complete train journeys). However the Hurtigruten broadcast received a big international following on the NRK website.

This had led many other broadcasters in other countries to broadcast their own 'slow television' events. For example, this year in the UK the BBC broadcast three special slow TV events, including 'The Canal Trip', broadcasting the journey of a barge along the Kennet and Avon canal. Unfortunately the BBC missed a trick by not using a map to track the position of the barge on its journey.

Czech online broadcasters Playtvak.cz has a number of slow TV broadcasts. One of these is Planespotting, a live broadcast from Václav Havel Airport in Prague. Planespotting allows you to watch a live broadcast of planes landing and taking off from the airport, from a camera positioned on the roof of the multi-story car park next to the runway.

The live footage is accompanied by the live audio feed from the control tower, so you can also listen to the pilots talking to the air traffic controllers. Beneath the live broadcast stream is a live Flightradar24 Google Map. The map shows the live position of the planes in the airport. This means that you can actually find out all kinds of details about the planes you are watching in the live stream, including the aircraft type, flight number and flight details.

The Czech Republic in 3d

Czech online mapping portal Mapy has an interesting new 3d option. The beta version of Mapy 3d allows you to explore some of the Czech Republic's gorgeous historic centers in glorious 3d.

The 3d map includes controls to adjust the altitude and direction of your view. It even includes a neat 'helicopter' option that rotates your view around the map center. The locations where the beta 3d view is available is a little patchy at the moment. If you zoom out on the accompanying map you can see where 3d view is available (shaded red on the map).

Google Maps Plus for the Czech Republic

amapy

Can you improve on Google Maps? Well, aMapy think so.

Using Google Maps as the base map aMapy has created an improved map for the Czech Republic. It improves on Google Maps by adding missing footpaths and cycle paths, local points of interest and a number of 3d panoramas.

Google Maps is still very poor at mapping footpaths and cycle paths in most countries. aMapy has added two buttons to their version of Google Maps that allow you to view footpaths and cycle paths in Czech cities.

If you select the 'Objekty (POI)' tab you can also view local points of interest, which include churches, museums, public transit and shopping locations. Many of the points of interest also include 3d panoramas.

Select the '3D Virtualni proh'idki' tab and you can then view the location of a number of interactive panoramas on the map.

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Facebook Events on Google Maps

FabMap

FabMap is a Czech language Google Map that helps users find interesting events. You can log into the map with your Facebook account and view your events and your friends' events geo-tagged on the map.

It is possible to filter the results on the map to show just today and tomorrow's events, events this week or events this month. If you select one of the filter options the events are shown on the map and also listed in the map sidebar.

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Czech Google Maps Mashup Round-Up

Inmite is a team of Czech web developers who helped 360cities.net produce their latest Immersive Tours Map. As you can tell from the 360Cities.net map Inmite are pretty skilful users of the Google Maps API. Here are a few of their other Google Maps implementations:

Prague International Marathon Map

Inmite created a real-time map for the Prague International Marathon. The map showed the real-time position of runners in the race.

Even though even the slowest runners in the race finished some time last year you can still use the map to replay the race. The map allows you to pick the top 5 runners in a number of age categories and replay the race at a number of speeds. The map shows the progress of the different runners as they completed the course.

That's not all. If you click on the 'select different race' link at the top of the page you can also replay a number of other Czech road races.

Marianne Days
This Google Map for Marianne magazine shows all the shops and brands involved in 'Marianne Days' (a weekend full of shop sales in the Czech Republic).

The map includes a really sophisticated shopping planning tool. It is possible to add shops to an itinerary and the map will return a near-optimal path enabling users to fit in as much shopping as they can.

Even though Marianne Days is now over the shops are still there, so Czech shoppers are still able to use the tool to plan their day's shopping.

Cenove Mapy

Inmite helped Czech real estate company, Bezrealitky.cz, produce this Google Maps mashup to show current real estate prices in the Czech Republic. The site uses a heat map to show the relative prices of properties at 1m².

The map can be used to find the most desirable (or at least the most costly) locations to live or help you find the cheapest areas to buy. As you might imagine property prices are highest in the centre of Prague but the map also shows which suburbs have the most expensive and cheapest property.

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More New Street View Imagery

CNA Teaser

I don't know who created this Brazilian site or what they are promoting (whatever it is there are only 51 days to go), however I do like their Street View interface.

The site imposes a picture of a New York guide book on top of Google Maps Street View. The guide book includes interactive links to some of New York's favourite tourist destinations. When you click on a link you are taken to the Street View of that location. It is a lovely simple idea that works superbly.

Via: Street View Gallery

New Streetview Imagery in Cesky Krumlov

In reporting on this week's new huge Street View update I didn't notice that the Czech town of Český Krumlov also now has Street View. Český Krumlov is a very picturesque town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

360Cities.net has produced a nice blog post about the new Street View, comparing the new imagery with the 360 degree panoramic photographs they have produced of the town.

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Interactive Panoramas of Brno

Virtual Tour of Brno

This Google Maps mashup provides a virtual tour of the Czech Republic city of Brno. The map includes a number of narrated panoramic images of the city's main attractions.

The locations that have been mapped include Špilberk Castle, the Tugendhat Villa, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, Náměstí Svobody (Freedom Square), Zelný trh (Vegetable Market), Old Town Hall. Each of the locations are marked on the map and listed in the map sidebar. The interactive panoramas that have narration are indicated in the sidebar with a small loudspeaker icon.

When you click on one of the map markers a window opens with the interactive panorama. Each panorama comes with arrow links that will automatically take you to neighbouring panoramas (Street View style).

Via: Street View Gallery

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Street View Tour of Old Town Square

Prague's Old Town Square

Using Google's newly released Street View imagery of Prague I've created a small Street View tour of the Old Town Square in Prague.

If you pan the Street View around information about what it is currently being shown in the Street View will appear at the bottom of the screen.

The code for this small Street View tour was developed with the help of Map Channels.

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Google Street View Now in Prague

Today Street View has been added to Prague in the Czech Republic.


Old Town Square


Narodni Museum


Estates Theatre


Charles Bridge


Jindrisska Tower

Hat-tip: Mapperz

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Czech Property on Google Maps

Cenove Mapy

Czech real estate company, Bezrealitky.cz, have produced this Google Maps mashup to show current real estate prices in the Czech Republic. The site uses a heat map to show the relative prices of properties at 1m².

The map can be used to find the most desirable (or at least the most costly) locations to live or help you find the cheapest areas to buy. As you might imagine property prices are highest in the centre of Prague but the map also shows which suburbs have the most expensive and cheapest properties.

Ukazky Staveb

Ukazky Staveb are builders of timber homes in the Czech Republic. The company have produced this Google Map mashup to showcase the properties that they have built.

The properties on the map are divided into three categories, classic, modern and reconstruction. It is possible to select which category of property you wish to view via the tick boxed under the map.

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