Mapping Every US Election Since 1840

The Republican Party has won the popular vote in only one Presidential Election in the last 35 years. Since 1989 only George W. Bush (in 2004) has won the popular vote for the Republicans - and in that election Bush benefited from being the incumbent.

A newly released visualization from the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab highlights the dwindling appeal of the Republican Party to most Americans in the 21st Century. The DSL's Electing the President interactive map shows the results of every presidential election since 1840, offering a comprehensive look at the electoral landscape over time. Unlike many historical election maps, Electing the President uniquely integrates the results of the popular vote alongside the electoral college outcomes, providing a more nuanced understanding of voter preferences. This feature allows users to see not only who won the presidency but also how much support they garnered from the general electorate. 

Using the map you can navigate to any US Presidential election and explore both the electoral college winner and the winner of the popular vote. For instance, users can explore how presidential candidates like William Henry Harrison, who defeated Martin Van Buren in 1840 to become the 9th President of the United States (albeit for a tragically brief term of just one month), fared in terms of popular support. By navigating through the years, one can track shifts in political alignment and public sentiment, illustrating the evolving dynamics of American electoral politics and the challenges faced by parties in capturing the collective will of the populace.

Electing the President is the latest addition to the American Panorama project, an ever growing historical atlas of the United States. The project includes a number of popular interactive maps including Mapping Inequality (the history of redlining), and Photogrammar, mapping historical photographs taken between 1935 and 1944.

Mapping the Political Landscape

Waves of Interest is a deep dive into Google search trends during election years. This beautiful data visualization maps out which political topics capture the attention of Americans during US election years. And where!

By using the clever visual metaphor of a topographic map Waves of Interest transforms political interest into an intuitive landscape. The visualization reveals the fall and rise in search interest of 50 different political topics - using isolines to show where in the United States each issue is being most and least searched for on Google. For example, you can watch how interest in immigration has shifted and evolved since 2004 in the animated map above.

Percentage numbers are displayed on the map to indicate the difference in search interest in an area compared to the national average. The homepage of Waves of Interest presents a small multiple visualization of 50 different political topics. On these maps arrow symbols are used to show how much interest in each subject has grown or shrunk since 2020. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly inflation is the issue that has shown the biggest surge in interest since the last U.S. Presidential election. Student loans is the political topic that has fallen the most in terms of search interest since 2020. 

Tracking Satellites in 3D

searching & zooming in on individual satellites

Exploring the Final Frontier with Keep Track

KeepTrack is an innovative platform that allows users to monitor satellites orbiting Earth in real-time. At its core is a 3D interactive map that not only shows you where satellites are at the moment but also provides advanced analytics and visualizations to study their orbits and interactions in space. Using KeepTrack, you can dive into the world of astrodynamics and explore the trajectories of thousands of satellites from the comfort of your own home.

Real-Time Satellite Tracking

One of KeepTrack’s standout features is its real-time orbital tracking. With this, you can follow satellites as they move through space, viewing their paths in beautifully rendered 3D.

You can search for satellites by name using the search ('?') button at the top-right of the screen. Enter the name of an individual satellite, and KeepTrack will automatically zoom in to reveal the 3D model of the selected satellite along with its orbital track around Earth.

KeepTrack visualizes more than 37,000 satellites and debris objects as they orbit the Earth, each of which you can track in real-time. The app offers a vast range of options for tracking and viewing the locations of these satellites, simulating their break-up, and understanding the distribution of satellite space debris.

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The U.S. Supermarket Wars

According to the Washington Post, "Walmart, Kroger, Aldi (Süd) and Albertsons own a third of all U.S. grocery stores locations." But who is winning the supermarket wars in your area?

Hot on the heels of Japan's ConbiniWars interactive map, the Post has divided the United States based on which supermarket chain owns the most stores in each county. Whereas the ConbiniWars map used a Voronoi layer to divide Japan based on the closest Konbini brand, the Post's Grocery Chains are Bigger than Ever map uses a form of choropleth layer to show which supermarket chains own the most stores in each county.

The Post's map lays bare the territorial dominance of Walmart, which has established a stronghold across much of the central United States. However, in the Northwest, Albertson's continues to mount a fierce defense, holding onto a fortified position in the face of Walmart's expansion. Meanwhile, Kroger has dug in deep, fortifying its lines throughout the mountain states, creating a well-defended bastion in this strategic region. Across other parts of the country, smaller chains are staging localized resistance, strategically counterattacking and holding their ground against Walmart's relentless march of conquest. 

If you want to see who is winning the supermarket war in your area, you can type in your address, and the Post will tell you the number of stores in your county and the share of those stores owned by each supermarket chain. The Post's supermarket data was derived from OpenStreetMap.

The Geotastic Daily Challenge

Can you beat me on today's Geotastic Daily Challenge? I am currently 89th in the Geotastic Daily Challenge with a combined score of 24,263. Do you think you have what it takes to claim a higher spot on the leaderboard than the mighty 'gmap'?

Geotastic is yet another online geography game that challenges players to identify locations around the world using Google's Street View imagery. Every day Geotastic sets a daily challenge which requires you to identify seven separate locations from only their Street View imagery. Today's Daily Challenge involves having to identify a number of locations with a 'concord' theme.

Alongside the daily challenge Geotastic also provides a number of other different Street View challenges. These include games involving famous landmarks around the world, head-to-head battles against other players and Cities of the World (restricted to major global cities).

Obviously Geotastic is another game which has been hugely inspired by the popular GeoGuessr Street View game. It now seems to have become my life's mission to discover GeoGuessr clones. Some of the games I have previously discovered can be found in the post Six Free Alternatives to GeoGuessr.

Cryptic Crossword Map

Cryptic World is a new unique map game that fuses the thrill of a geography quiz with the brain-teasing fun of a cryptic crossword! Play Cryptic World and discover how much of the world you can unlock!

Click on the question mark pins scattered across the Cryptic World map and solve the uncovered cryptic clues. Every time you correctly answer a clue you will reveal the name of a hidden location. 

Cryptic Crossword Clues: A Beginner’s Guide 

Cryptic crossword clues may seem puzzling at first, but they follow specific rules that make them fun to solve once you know how! Each clue consists of two main parts: a definition (which works like a standard crossword clue) and wordplay (a tricky way of getting to the answer). 

Tips for Solving the Clues

The key to figuring out most cryptic clues is working out which part is the definition and which part is the wordplay. In Cryptic World the definition is normally easy to spot. Because all the answers are locations then the definition will be geography related. In most Cryptic World clues the definition will most likely be either 'country', 'city' or 'town.

Wordplay Indicators

Solving the wordplay is a little more difficult. One way to solve the wordplay is to look for indicators. For example common indicators for anagrams are 'mixed', 'scrambled' or 'twisted'.

Here is an example clue from Cryptic World:

Crashes plane into mountainous land? (5)

In this clue 'mountainous land' seems like the most likely geographical definition. Therefore the answer is probably a territory, region or country with mountains. The word 'crashes' seems like an obvious indicator for an anagram. The word 'plane' has five letters so is most likely the word that needs to be rearranged (or crashed). If we rearrange the letters in 'plane' we get the answer to the clue - 'Nepal', a country which is a mountainous land.

Styled OpenFreeMap in Maputnik

I've had the idea of creating a cryptic world map for a while. However, to build the map, I needed a free source of unlabeled map tiles. Thanks to the launch of OpenFreeMap, I've finally been able to create Cryptic World. The map uses an OpenFreeMap style, which I customized in Maputnik to remove all the place-name labels.

Help Me! I'm Stumped!

Cryptic Clues can be very hard to solve for those who don't know the common indicators and some of the tricks used by setters. Minute Cryptic has a more detailed introduction to cryptic crossword clues which explores many of the common wordplay indicators used in cryptic clues (click on the question mark button).

If you are still stumped by a clue then use the comment section on this post to leave a question and I (and maybe other readers) will be happy to try and explain any clue that you are struggling with.

I definitely want to add more locations to the map. If you have a great clue for a place-name then please tell me in the comments.

Can I Start Again?

All your correct answers are saved in local storage. This means that when you return to the map it should still display all the place-names that you have already guessed. If you want you can clear all your correct answers and start the game again by typing 'shift-c'.

VersaTiles Free Map Tiles

Looking for a free, flexible way to create custom maps? You’re in luck! Having only recently discovered one free source of interactive map tiles in OpenFreeMap, I have now uncovered VersaTiles. VersaTiles provides a full open-source toolkit for creating and sharing map tiles, all powered by OpenStreetMap data - and with no corporate strings attached!

VersaTiles map tiles can be used in most of the popular mapping libraries, including MapLibre, by simply pointing the map to:

https://tiles.versatiles.org/assets/styles/colorful.json

At the moment Versatiles reports that "we can't guarantee 24/7 availability, yet". Personally, I think that is a small price to pay for a source of free map tiles. If you really need the security of a guaranteed service, then you probably should be using a commercial map tile service, such as Mapbox or Google Maps.

Like OpenFreeMap, the VersaTiles map can be styled in the Maputnik open-source visual editor. For example, the VersaTiles map currently doesn't appear to have place-name labels for countries. You could use Maputnik to import Country Name data and then add country name labels to VersaTiles. Then, by simply hosting the exported style JSON file, you could display a VersaTiles map with customized country place-name labels.

I have added VersaTiles to my growing demo of Free Maps. If you are interested in exploring more map tile providers, then you can explore the Leaflet Provider Demo list of map tile services.

OpenFreeMap Map Styles

One very important feature I overlooked in the launch of OpenFreeMap is the ability to customize the styles of OpenFreeMap map-tile sets using the Maputnik open-source visual editor for the MapLibre Style Specification. If you have ever wanted to make your maps stand out, reflect your brand, or just look completely unique you can now do that for free by editing OpenFreeMap map tile styles with Maputnik.

OpenFreeMap "lets you display custom maps on your website and apps for free." Currently, OpenFreeMap offers four default styles: Positron, Bright, Liberty, and 3D. The appearance of these default styles can be customized using Maputnik. Maputnik is an open-source visual editor for creating and modifying Mapbox GL and Maplibre GL style JSON files, which define how maps are rendered. These styles control the appearance of vector tiles, including colors, fonts, line widths, and layers, allowing users to create custom map designs.

Once you have created your own style from an OpenFreeMap default style you simply need to export/download the JSON style. This JSON style can then be used with the MapBox and MapLibre map libraries.

Maputnik is very intuitive to use, especially if you've previously edited map styles using tools like the Google Maps Style Editor or Mapbox Studio. I've been using Maputnik for the first time this morning (with OpenFreeMap default styles), and I quickly managed to create a No Label and Toner map style. 

I've created a little demo OpenFreeMap Styles, which allows you to preview my No Label and Toner styles. You can even download the JSON files for these two styles if you want to use them in your own map projects (both styles were created very quickly this morning, so could definitely benefit from more refinement in Maputnik if you decide to use them in a project).

Konbini Wars

Imagine being able to walk down any street and being only minutes away from your next snack, a freshly brewed coffee, or even a place to pay your bills. This is the magic of konbini - Japan's beloved convenience stores that have become an integral part of Japanese daily life.

In Japan, you don’t have to travel very far before encountering a konbini convenience store. These compact stores are renowned for their ability to provide an impressive variety of high-quality goods and services, despite their small size. Popular chains like 7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart are practically everywhere, offering unparalleled convenience at every corner.

The major chains like 7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart, are ubiquitous across the country; however, certain chains may have a stronger presence in specific regions due to historical, business, or geographic reasons. In addition to the big three (7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart), some smaller or more regional konbini chains operate in specific areas. While they may not be as common nationally, they are often beloved in their local areas. For example, the Seicomart chain is located mainly in Hokkaido and is well known for its local products.

If you are curious to see who’s winning the battle for Japan’s streets you can now discover which Konbini chains dominate which territory in Japan using the ConbiniWars interactive map. At the heart of the map are the locations of nearly 55,000 konbini stores across the whole of Japan. When zoomed out on the map, a choropleth overlay shows the konbini chain with the most stores in each prefecture. Zoom in on the map, and a voronoi layer appears that partitions the whole of the country based on the closest konbini chain.

The 2024 GeoGuessr World Cup

 

Do you think you’ve got what it takes to be the next GeoGuessr World Champion?

This year's GeoGuessr World Cup was won by Blinky, who defeated the U.S.'s mk, to become the 2024 GeoGuessr World Champion. The dramatic final was a tense affair. Blinky took an early 2-0 lead, but mk made a stunning comeback winning the next two games, to take the competition into the fifth and final game. Despite mk’s brave efforts, Blinky managed to win the final game and claim the 2024 GeoGuessr world title​. 

If you want to compete in next year's GeoGuessr World Cup then you need to start your training now! Alongside a strict regimen of 10 practice rounds of GeoGuessr every day you will also need to spend 3-4 hours a day studying GeoHints.

GeoHints is a website designed to help players improve their skills at GeoGuessr. The site offers a wide range of visual clues that players can use to determine their location in the game. These include detailed information on the visual and design differences in street signs. street furniture, architecture and landscape features in countries around the world.

While watching GeoWizard play Geoguessr I am always amazed at his encyclopedic knowledge of license plate designs and road lane markings. Knowledge that he calls on to help determine which country he has been dropped in on GeoGuessr. In order to become as geographically knowledgeable as GeoWizard and this year's GeoGuessr World Cup finalists, I recommend that you spend a solid 3-4 hours each day studying the many visual clues covered by GeoHints.