The Integrated European Energy Network

Energy infrastructure in Europe is becoming increasingly integrated. The European Union is supporting the development of this integrated infrastructure with 173 projects of common interest (PCI). These projects are designed to support and develop the integration of the electricity, gas and oil markets in Europe.

The Projects of Common Interest interactive map visualizes the 173 PCI projects supported by the European Union. On the map these energy infrastructure projects are color-coded by type of energy. The blue lines indicate where high voltage lines have been developed to enable electricity supply between different European countries. The red lines on the map show the development of cross border gas pipelines.

If you select the 'Network' tab on the map legend then you can select to view either the electricity, gas or oil networks on the map. This is useful if you just want to highlight and view the European infrastructure projects being developed in one of these specific energy markets.


The PCI projects are of course only a very small part of a much larger network of electricity, gas and oil supply in Europe. The ENTSO-E Transmission System Map provides a neat visualization of the scale of Europe'e electricity transmission network.

On this map you can see all European transmission lines which are designed for 220kV voltage and higher and all the generation stations which have a net generation capacity of more than 100MW. On the map the transmission lines are color-coded to show their level of voltage. All undersea transmission lines are colored purple.

You can see how individual country electricity networks are connected to the networks of neighboring countries by selecting to view only cross border transmission lines. This will filter out all the lines on the map except for those which are used to transport electricity between two or more countries.

Where Overseas Students Study

Universities make a huge amount of money from enrolling and teaching students from overseas. In the USA the vast majority of overseas students come from China. India sends the second largest number of students to study in America.

UNESCO's Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students is an interactive map which visualizes the flow of students around the world. The map allows you to view the number of overseas students studying in every country around the world and where those students come from. It also allows you to see the most popular destinations for students from each country choosing to study abroad.

China exports by far the most students of any country in the world. The USA is the most popular destination for Chinese students studying abroad (309,837 students). Australia (128,498) is the next most popular country for overseas students from China, followed by the United Kingdom (89,318) and Japan (76,537).

According to the map nearly 73,000 Americans choose to study abroad. The most popular destination for Americans studying abroad is the United Kingdom (15,654), followed by Mexico (11,109), Canada (8,355) and Grenada (4,855). Without wishing to upset Grenadians I was a little surprised that Grenada was such a popular choice for Americans studying abroad. I therefore Googled "Why do Americans study in Grenada?". Although I couldn't find a direct answer to the question I did receive a lot of results about studying for a medical degree in Grenada. I therefore suspect that Grenada is a popular choice for students who wish to become doctors but can't get a place at one of the U.S.'s hugely competitive medical schools.

Who Owns London?

Secret Property Ownership in London is a choropleth map of the number of properties in each London authority area which are owned by companies incorporated in secrecy jurisdictions. A 'secrecy jurisdiction' is what is more commonly referred to as a 'tax haven'. In other words a secrecy jurisdiction is a country which offers a company little or no tax liability and financial secrecy. A secrecy jurisdiction is therefore used by companies in order to avoid paying tax.

Because properties in the UK can be registered to companies who are incorporated in secrecy jurisdictions buying property in the UK is a convenient way for criminals and criminal gangs to launder money. 40% of all the anonymously owned properties owned in the UK are in London. By far the largest number of these are in Westminster, where over 10,000 properties are registered to companies incorporated in a secrecy jurisdiction. In neighboring Kensington and Chelsea a further 5,729 properties are anonymously owned.


Last year the BBC discovered that 97,000 properties in England and Wales are owned by overseas companies. In Firms on Caribbean island chain own 23,000 UK properties the BBC has mapped all the properties in England & Wales which are owned by these overseas companies.

The map reveals that in central London a huge percentage of properties are now owned by overseas firms. If you want to know who owns a property you can click on the map marker to reveal the name of the company and the country where that country is incorporated. Unfortunately if that company is incorporated in a tax haven then you probably won't be able to find out who actually owns the company and therefore whether that company is being used to launder money for criminal gangs.

Back in 2015 Private Eye created the first interactive map showing the amount of English & Welsh land that had been bought up by offshore companies. Selling England by the Offshore Pound used Land Registry data to plot all land parcels registered in the name of an offshore company between 2005 and July 2014.

Anna Powell-Smith, who created the map for Private Eye, went on to create Who Owns England.Who Owns England has created a number of interactive maps exploring property and land ownership in he UK. Their main map includes a layer which shows land owned by overseas companies. You can filter the map to show only the land and buildings owned by these companies incorporated overseas.

Germany in Black and White

Spiegel Online has published a fascinating article exploring the history of German cityscapes and town-planning. The article uses black and white maps to visualize the changing trends in town planning. These city blueprints reveal how German towns and cities have developed over time, both organically and from ordered imposed planning.

Germany in Black and White uses OpenStreetMap data to show the building outlines and street patterns of a number of German towns and cities. The article examines the history of German towns in chronological order - starting with towns which first emerged in Roman times. Only a few German towns still retain the influence of Roman organization. However the rectangular layout typical of Roman camps, the orderly road network and the former city gates of Roman camps can still be seen in the layout of some of Germany's most historic towns.

In the middle-ages the orderly planning of the Romans gave way to a more organic form of development. In medieval towns winding narrow streets snaking around market squares and churches reveal towns which developed gradually and with little formal planning. 

During the Baroque period the idea of structured formal planning re-emerged with a trend to replace some medieval city centers with imposing large buildings and ordered geometric street patterns. During industrialization the huge increases in the urban population led to the development of densely packed housing. In the 20th century there were numerous different trends in town-planning. All of which have left a mark on the footprint of German towns and cities.

Germany in Black and White includes an interactive blueprint map. This map allows you to explore a black and white map of any German town and city. You can therefore apply what you have learnt from the article to see if you can spot the influence of history on the footprint of your own city.

Race & Ethnicity in San Francisco

San Francisco Geo-Ethnicities uses 2017 data from the American Community Survey to map out where people of different races and ethnicity live in San Francisco and in the wider Bay area.

The default map view shows the race/ethnicity which has the highest percentage of the overall population in each census area. The map also allows you to create your own map views to explore the proportion of different races/ethnicities in each census area. Adding and removing data from the map can be a little difficult so you might be interested in reading the Geo-Ethnicities article in the San Franciscan, which has printed a number of choropleth maps visualizing where different races live in San Francisco.


percentage of the population who are Asian

The map above shows the percentage of the population who are Asian in each census block. Chinatown and the surrounding neighborhoods stand out as having larger than average Asian populations.


percentage of the population who are black

The only neighborhoods where African-Americans are the largest racial/ethnic group are in the Western Addition and in Bayview-Hunter's Point.

The article in the San Franciscan also includes a map showing the average household income in each census block. This obviously allows you to compare average income and the racial composition in each census block.

Do Cathedrals Face East?

The image above shows the building outlines of nine of England's largest cathedrals. One of these cathedrals is different from the rest.

The building outline of Liverpool Cathedral is not very detailed in Mapbox Studio (which I used to create these building outlines). However the outline does reveal the north-south orientation of Liverpool Cathedral. This is obviously very different from the orientation of the other cathedrals shown here.

Since the 8th Century churches have tended to be built facing towards the east. The main focus of a church, the alter, is placed at the east end of the church, often in an apse. The main entrance to the church is often placed at the west end. The word 'orientation' actually originally came from the practice of constructing buildings to face the east. Building a church which has the entrance at the east and the apse at the western end is called 'occidentation'. All of the cathedrals shown above (apart from Liverpool) have been built (roughly) facing east, with the apse on most of them also to the east of the building.

When early Christians prayed they would face towards the east. Hence the tradition of building churches with the alter towards the east. One theory for why Christians pray towards the east is that the beginnings of the organized church was in Europe and worshipers were praying towards the direction of Jerusalem. Another theory for why churches face east is because they have been aligned to where the sun rises on each church's saint day.

In Churches Face East Don't They? Ian Hinton measured the orientation of 1,747 churches in England and Wales. He discovered that the mean orientation of all these churches was 86 degrees, so just four degrees off true east. Eight of the cathedrals in the image above are only a few degrees out from facing east. Liverpool Cathedral is a lot more than four degrees off facing east.

So why doesn't Liverpool Cathedral face east? One clue might be the cathedral's age. Liverpool Cathedral is by far the youngest cathedral shown, having been built in the 20th century. According to Wikipedia, the "importance attached to orientation of churches declined after the 15th century." I wanted to see how true this is so I decided to look at the footprints of six of the first large cathedrals built after the start of 1500.

In this image 15 cathedrals are shown in chronological order. The cathedrals in the top row were all constructed before the end of the 13th Century. The construction of the cathedrals on the second row were all started after 1573. I think it is clear that the cathedrals in the second row, on average deviate more from true east than the cathedrals in the top row.

St. John's Cathedral in Canada (second to last cathedral shown) is actually an occidentation cathedral, with the apse at the western end of the cathedral. St. John's was built from 1839-55. Wikipedia says that the cathedral "is not oriented on an east-west axis, ... but rather, it was constructed on an orientation with its facade facing the line of the rising sun on the Winter Solstice, and the setting sun at the Summer Solstice". As we have already seen the youngest cathedral on the map, Liverpool Cathedral, has a north-south orientation.

Germany's Growing & Shrinking Cities

Growing and Shrinking Towns and Communities is an interactive map of the economic health and performance of towns and cities in Germany. It allows you to see which parts of Germany are expanding and which areas are under performing.

The map uses six different performance indicators of growth. These indicators include data on population and economic performance. You can view each of these indicators separately on the map or view an overall assessment of growth in Germany. For each map view red is used to signify growth and blue is used for negative growth. If you click on a town on the map you can view how well the town is performing in all six different areas. These results are given in percentage terms above or below the German average.

The map tells a familiar story. Outside of Berlin the former East Germany is mainly experiencing negative growth. Elsewhere in Germany the south and parts of the north seem to be experiencing the most growth. It is also noticeable how large cities, such as Berlin and Hamburg, seem to have a positive influence on the growth of surrounding communities. This positive effect on growth becomes weaker the further away you move from the city.

Comparing Los Angeles to Madrid

The Atlas of Urban Expansion has analyzed the development of 200 cities across the world. This analysis examined the size of cities, their population densities and the proportion of built-up and open spaces in each city. The individual results page for each of the analyzed 200 global cities provides a fascinating insight into the urban composition of cities around the globe. If you select to view an individual city's results page you can view a number of maps and graphs visualizing the city's population and its composition.

For example, the image above shows which areas of Los Angeles are built-up (blue), rural open space (green) and urban open space (yellow). The built-up area makes up 72% of Los Angeles. Only 22% of L.A. is urbanized open space. We can compare this urban composition to any of the other 200 cities around the world. For example (to pick a European city at random) Madrid is 52% built-up and has 34% of urbanized open space.

As well as having more open spaces Madrid manages to pack more people into its built-up areas. In 2010 the population density in the built-up areas of Madrid was 94 people per hectare. In comparison in 2014 the population density in the built-up area of Los Angeles was a much smaller 33 people per hectare. This huge difference in population density is presumably a result of the U.S.'s love of detached single-family homes as opposed to apartment living.

We can also break-down the composition of the built-up areas in each city to show how much of these areas are dedicated to roads. In Madrid 29% of the built-up area consists of road (which is quite high for Europe - where the average is around 20%). In Los Angeles 26% of the built-up area consists of roads.

If you are interested in how Los Angeles (or any other of the 200 featured cities) compares to cities in other regions of the globe then you can select to view any of the other cities on the Atlas of Urban Expansion.

The Flashing Lighthouse Map

Lights at Sea is an interactive map which shows the location of lighthouses around the world. The map uses different colored flashing markers to show the light characteristics of each lighthouse shown on the map.

Individual lighthouses can have unique light characteristics so that mariners are able to identify them and use them as an aide to navigation. These light characteristics are created by using different colored lights, frequencies and light patterns. On OpenStreetMap these light characteristics are recorded using the tags 'seamark:light:sequence' and 'seamark:light:colour'. Lights at Sea uses these tags to show the color of lights and the light sequences used by the individual lighthouses.

The range of light emitted by a lighthouse is measured by how many nautical miles away it can be seen. In OSM the range of a lighthouse can be assigned using the tag 'seamark:light:range'. I assume that the size of the lighthouse circular markers on the Light at Sea map is being used to indicate each lighthouse's range.

One thing that is very striking on the map is the huge number of lighthouses in Europe compared to the United States. Norway in particular seems to have an inordinate number of lighthouses. According to Wikipedia there are actually less than 155 operational lighthouses in Norway. OpenStreetMap, however, seems to have plotted many more lighthouses than that on the Norwegian coastline. This is presumably the work of Slartibartfast.

One thing not shown on the individual map is the 'daymark' patterns used on individual lighthouses. Just as lighthouses can have individual light characteristics to aide maritime navigation they can also have unique 'daymarks' which enable mariners to identify individual lighthouses during the day. Daymarks often consist of large colored painted stripes, diamonds or other patterns.

Jewish London

We Were There Too has created an interactive version of the Jewish East London map. This map was commissioned by the Toynbee Trust in 1899, to visualize where the Jewish community lived in East London.

The Jewish East London map was made by George Arkell, a statistician and social geographer, who had worked on Charles Booth's survey of London poverty. The English philanthropist Charles Booth had systematically plotted the levels of poverty and wealth in every street in London in the last two decades of the 19th century. Booth published the results of his research in 'Life and Labour of the People in London'. You can explore Booth's maps for yourself on the LSE's Charles Booth's London website.

Booth's publication included detailed 'Maps Descriptive of London Poverty' in which the levels of poverty and wealth in London were mapped out street by street. On Booth's maps the buildings in each street were colored to indicate the occupants' social class.

Geroge Arkell's Jewish East London map uses exactly the same visualization technique as Charles Booth's maps of London poverty. Individual streets are colored on the map to show the proportion of each street's occupants who are Jewish. The legend is cut off from the We Were There interactive map, this legend includes an indication of what the individual colors mean (We Were There have reproduced this under the map) and a note to the effect that "In all streets coloured blue the Jews form a majority of the inhabitants; in those coloured red, the Gentiles predominate."

You can view a version of the Jewish East London map, with the legend still present, at the Cornell University Digital Collections. Cornell attach a lot of significance to the fact that the Jewish East London map uses the same dark blue color as used in the Charles Booth maps "to represent 'vicious, semi criminal' areas". However this isn't true. Black was used on the Booth maps to indicate 'vicious, semi-criminal' streets. Dark blue was used to represent 'very poor, casual, chronic want'.


The Jewish East London map reveals that the Jewish population in East London was most concentrated in Whitechapel and Spitalfields. In the later half of the Nineteenth Century the Jewish population in England had nearly doubled as a result of large scale immigration from Eastern Europe. For much of the Twentieth Century this area of East London had a large Jewish population. However over the course of the Twentieth Century the Jewish population drifted away from the East End.

The latest UK census data reveals that the percentage who are Jewish in these areas is now below 1% of the total population. This UK Census Explorer map shows the percentage of the Jewish population in each London ward. It reveals that areas of north London, such as Golders Green and Edgware, now have the largest Jewish populations.