The Map of Myth & Legends

In 1487 a ten year old boy invaded England in an attempt to depose Henry VII and make himself King. Lambert Simnel, who was really a tradesman's son from Oxford, pretended to be Edward Plantagenet, the Earl of Warwick, raised an army of Irish Soldiers and then led them on a campaign against the might of England.

Simnel's army was defeated at the Battle of Stoke Field in Nottinghamshire. Henry VII pardoned the young Simnel and, rather than execute the young pretender, put him to work as a spit-turner in the royal kitchen.

Lambert Simnel's tale is just one of many (not all of them true) on English Heritage's new interactive map of myths and legends. English Heritage's Map of Myth, Legend and Folklore includes a number of incredible stories which are associated with English Heritage properties throughout England. As well as all of these wonderful legendary tales the map includes a number of fun Easter eggs. Search around the map and you can find ships being dragged to the bottom of the ocean by many tentacled sea monsters, sea serpents riding the waves, ships being swallowed whole by huge whales and gigantic lobsters with deadly claws.

If you are interested in visiting any of the listed locations on the map then you might want to click on the flag markers on the map. These markers indicate special events which are taken place at English Heritage properties throughout 2019.

Map to the Stars

The Star Atlas is an interactive map showing you the position of the stars in the night sky. The map shows over 60,000 stars up to a magnitude of 8.5.

If you share your location with the Star Atlas you can view the current position of the stars in the sky from where you are in the world. It is easy to translate the map to what you can actually see in the sky. The horizon is clearly shown on the map and you can click and drag the map to change the map to the direction that you are looking (the compass directions are shown along the horizon on the map). If you click on the clock in the bottom left-hand corner then you can change the atlas to see the position of the stars for any date or time.

You can interact with the stars on the map to find out more about what you can see in the night sky. Click on a star and you can discover its name, how far away it is and what constellation it belongs to. One of my favorite features of the Star Atlas is the play controls. If you click on the fast forward button you can sit back and watch a sped-up version of the stars passing across the night sky as the Earth turns.

GPS Jamming & Electronic Warfare

Over the last three-four years there has been increasing evidence that Russia has been using GPS jamming around the world to disrupt military exercises carried out by NATO and other forces. This has been done with little regard to the dangers that blocking GPS signals poses to civilian aircraft and other vehicles which rely on GPS signals to navigate safely.

Russia uses electronic warfare weapon systems, such as Borisoglebsk 2, to disrupt communications and GPS systems. GPS systems work by receiving radio signals from four or more satellites. It is relatively easy to block or jam those radio signals. GPS jamming works by sending out radio waves on the same frequencies which the satellites use in order to override or distort the radio signal. GPS spoofing works by sending radio signals which mimic the radio signals sent by the satellites. If a GPS unit can't receive the radio signals from four or more satellites or receives a spoofed signal then it can't accurately calculate its position on Earth.

Aerospace Security has mapped out evidence that Russia has been sporadically jamming GPS signals in northern Scandinavia. It has mapped out areas which have experienced a loss of GPS signals during three different military exercises, Russia’s Zapad-2017 exercise, NATO's Trident Juncture exercise, and the United Kingdom’s Clockwork exercise. During all three military exercises it is the Russians who are believed to have been responsible for jamming GPS signals.

The interactive map in GPS Jamming in the Arctic Circle allows you to select any of the three military exercises. You can then view an animated heat map which plots the areas which suffered GPS loss over the course of the chosen exercise. This signal loss has been calculated using 'publicly available reports from regional media outlets and federal authorities'. The interactive map also shows the locations of known NATO and Russian military units during these military exercises.

Do I Need a Visa?

If you are an international globetrotter then you should apply for citizenship of the United Arab Emirates. Travelers with a UAE passport can travel easily to more countries in the world than citizens of any other country. UAE passport holders can visit 167 countries with relative ease, 113 countries without a visa and 54 countries with a visa on arrival. Only 31 countries require UAE passport holders to obtain a visa before travel.

German passport holders are almost as lucky as those from the UAE. If you are German only 32 countries require you to have a visa before travel. 127 countries can be visited without a visa and 39 countries require a visa on arrival. Twelve countries (including the USA) tie for third place. These twelve countries only require a visa before travelling to 33 countries around the world.

If you want to know what visa requirements you need for visiting different countries around the world then you can use the Visa List interactive map. Enter your nationality into Visa List and you can view an interactive map showing the visa requirements for every country in the world. On the Visa List interactive map light green countries don't require a visa. The darker green colored countries require a visa on arrival. The red colored countries are probably best avoided (visa refused). 

If you like your visa advice in 3D then you might prefer using Travelscope, which is another interactive visualization of the visa requirements of countries around the world. This interactive map also comes with options to view the population and GDP of every country in the world.

I really like the animated transitions when you switch between Travelscope's two different map views. When you switch between the map and 3d globe view the map actually wraps itself into a sphere. The map also includes animated flow-lines, which are used to show all the countries that you can travel to from your selected country.

The 2019 Indonesia Election Map

The Indonesian election on 17 April 2019 has been called the most complex single-day election in history. Perhaps because of its complexity it proved lethal for many election officers. It is reported that at least 225 election officers died of exhaustion during the vote count for the Indonesian elections. One reason given for this tragic turn of events is the decision to hold the presidential and legislative elections on the same day for the very first time.

You can view the results of both the presidential and legislative elections in Indonesia on the Indonesia Election Visualized map. This interactive map provides a choropleth view of which party is winning in every electoral district for the presidential election and for the legislative election for the People's Consultative Assembly. The map shows the percentage of votes cast for each candidate in the presidential election and the winning party in the legislative election.

The current president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is shown as red on the map. The challenger Prabowo Subianto is shown in blue. Jokowi looks to have won a second term as President of Indonesia. Despite being the most popular candidate across the whole country the president appears to have performed poorly on the largest island.  of Sumatra. The President's political party the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle have also picked up the largest share of the vote in the legislative election (currently 30.4% of the national vote).

The Craters of Mars

Mars by Kenneth Feld is an interactive 3D map of Mars. The map uses elevation data from NASA to create an impressive 3D map. A map which allows you to explore the craters and valleys of Mars. Turn the heating off and hold your breathe and it is almost like you are really on the red planet.


Olympus Mons

If you open the 'slides' menu (located on the red bottom panel) you can find quick links to a number of important geological features on Mars, such as Olympus Mons, Valles Marineris and the Noctis Labyrinthus. Olympus Mons (pictured above) is a shield volcano which is around two and half times as tall as Everest. Olympus Mons is the second largest mountain in the solar system (discovered so far), after Rheasilvia on Vesta. Valles Marineris (pictured at the top of this post) is a huge series of canyons. The canyons are 2,500 miles long, 120 miles wide and up to 23,000 ft deep.

At the western most tip of Valles Marineris is the Noctis Labyrinthus. The Noctis Labyrinthus is a series of deep, steep valleys. These valleys are believed to have been caused by volcanic activity in the Tharsis region of Mars.


The 'slides' menu also includes a quick link to the Gale Crater, which is where the Mars rover Curiosity landed in 2012. At the center of this crater is the mountain Aeolis Mons. You can get more first person views of Gale and Aeolis Mons by exploring 'Street View' images of the crater captured by Curiosity at 360cities.

You can learn more about many of the other craters and mountains found on Mars by clicking on the labels on Keneth Feld's map of Mars.

UK Election Map

Yesterday a number of local elections were held in England and Northern Ireland. Wrongly or rightly many people are today viewing the election results for local councils as a referendum on Brexit. The big headline news is that the Conservative Party, the main supporters of Brexit, have lost a huge number of voters since these council seats were last up for election. The Labour Party, who are prevaricating but still supporting some form of Brexit, also lost votes since the last election. The Liberal Party, the main Remain party, made the biggest gain in the number of seats in yesterday's election.

You can view the results in all councils using the BBC's Local Elections Map. On this map local councils are colored to show the winners in each council. You can also switch to view which councils have changed hands. Under the main interactive map are a number of static maps which show the councils where each of the parties have made gains and losses.


Among left of centre voters today there is a big clamour for the Labour Party to clearly declare support for another referendum on Brexit. The map above perhaps hints at why Labour is still not fully behind Remain. The map seems to show that Labour lost the most seats in areas that voted in the highest numbers for Brexit. This may suggest that they are losing the most voters among voters who want to leave the EU and not among people who want to Remain. It is important to note however that this map shows where Labour lost seats and not necessarily the areas where it lost the most votes.

The main problem for those who are keen to see these council elections purely as a referendum on Brexit is that despite their losses the Conservative and Labour Parties were still the political parties who won the most votes yesterday. It is also probably wisest to wait for the results of the EU elections on the 23rd May, which will probably give a much clearer sign of where the UK currently stands on Brexit.

The German Internal Migration Map

The former East Germany shows up clearly on many maps visualizing German socio-economic data. In Germany's Red Belt Area you can see some examples of maps revealing how the former German Democratic Republic under-performs the former West Germany in a number of areas, including income & disposable income. However, 28 years after reunification, there is now some evidence that this inequality between the former East & West Germany is beginning to narrow.

For example yesterday Zeit Online published an interactive map which explores the history of migration between areas in the former East Germany and regions of the former West Germany. The animated map in East-West migration: The millions who left visualizes the patterns of migration between East and West since German reunification. It reveals that although huge numbers of people fled East Germany after reunification the tide has now turned and many Germans are now moving in the opposite direction.

The map clearly shows that after reunification there was a huge exodus as millions of former East Germans relocated to regions in the west of the country. Nearly 25% of the former German Democratic Republic moved to the West in the first few years after reunification. This huge loss of population had a devastating effect on the infrastructure of the region. Many schools, hospitals and cultural institutions were forced to close down because they no longer had enough employees to keep them open.

However, nearly 30 years after reunification, the tide has finally turned. Now for the first time since the Berlin Wall was destroyed more people are moving from West to East than the other way round. It appears that people are now being attracted to live in the East. This may be because the socio-economic inequalities between East and West Germany are finally becoming less pronounced.

Last week the Hamburger Abendblatt mapped the amount of disposable income across Germany. While this map revealed that the regions of East Germany have less disposable income than Germans in the rest of the country it also showed that East Germans are in fact catching up. The disposable income map of Germany includes a choropleth layer which visualizes the areas which have seen the biggest increases in disposable income since 2011. On this measurement East Germans are doing much better. According to the Hambureger Abendblatt "with an increase of around 13.9 percent, the increase in income in the East was above the national average".

European Population Density

A new interactive map made by 23Degrees.io visualizes Europe's population as 3D mountains. The Population Density in Europe interactive map uses height and color to show where people live in Europe. The result is an interactive map which shows Europe's most densely populated areas as population mountains or towers.

The red population mountains on the map reveal the most densely populated areas of Europe. You can click on different regions on this map to view the number of inhabitants living in an area per square kilometer. It is possible to zoom in and out on the map and to change the angle of inclination. This is useful if you want to explore a densely populated city in close detail (tip - if you want to see behind a large 3D tower use you right-mouse button to change the angle of inclination or to rotate the map).


You can view a more finely detailed view of European population density on the EU Population 2011 by 1km Grid interactive map. Dan Cookson has mapped out the population in the European Union at the 1km square level. The EU Population 2011 by 1km Grid visualizes the number of people living in each square kilometer of the whole EU.

You can hover over individual 1km squares on the map to view the total number of people living in that square. If you zoom in on individual cities the map reveals the most densely populated areas and also the outlying satellite commuting towns and suburbs.


Berlin, Paris & London

Berlin, Paris & London all share a similar pattern of population density, with densely populated centers surrounded by ever less densely populated suburbs. In Berlin the population snakes out of the city along the S-Bahn rapid transit rail lines. You can see similar lines snaking out of Paris and London along popular public transit commuting routes.

A good accompaniment to Dan's EU population density map is Alasdair Rae's article on The Most Densely Populated Square Kilometre in 39 European Countries. In this post Alasdair uses the same 2011 data to reveal the most densely populated kilometer square in each country.

You might also be interested in this 3D Global Human Settlement visualization of European population density. This map provides another 3D view of Europe's most densely populated areas as population mountains. If you want to view population density outside of Europe then I recommend the SEDAC Population Estimator (GPWv4). This interactive map uses NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) data to show where the world's population lives.

The SEDAC Population Estimator map includes a tool to draw an area on the map to see an estimate of the population that lives there. You can therefore draw a square kilometer on the map to make your own comparisons with Alasdair's most densely populated square kilometers in Europe.

Flight Patterns of the World

Flight Patterns is a collection of maps which visualize the landing and take-off flight paths of major airports all around the world. Select one of the 37 major airports from the Flight Patterns global map and you can view a close-up map showing the in-bound and out-bound flight paths taken by aircraft at the chosen airport.

The colors of the flight paths shown on the close-up maps of each airport show the continent of origin / destination of each flight. You can change the colors to show the flight paths for take-off and the flight paths for landings. The data for all these flight pattern maps comes from ADSBexchange.


Flight paths over London

If you want to view the flight patterns for airports not featured on the Flight Patterns map then you can use Plane Finder's Global Coverage Map. The real-time flight tracking application Plane Finder allows you to follow the real-time location of planes around the world on an interactive map. Plane Finder uses data from a network of ADS-B receivers around the world to map the flights of plane in real-time. The Global Coverage Map uses a week of this data (15th-21st March 2019) to reveal the flight paths taken by planes around the world. One week's worth of data has been merged together and compiled to make a single interactive map.

In London you can clearly see the two main flight paths taken by planes as they approach Heathrow's two different runways. West of Heathrow planes quickly fan out after take-off depending on their destinations. In the east you can see the single flight path taken by planes as they approach and leave London City Airport and its single runway.