North America's Shrinking Railways

Passenger rail services in 1980 and 2024 interactive map visualizes the Amtrak (red) and VIA Rail (blue) systems in 1980 and 2024, alongside independent railways and commuter services (green). The map highlights a notable decline in the availability of passenger rail services in both the USA and Canada over the last 44 years.

Using the map's slide control, you can easily switch between the rail services available in 1980 and those in 2024. This quick comparison starkly illustrates the reduction in passenger rail services in both countries. Additionally, the 1980 map includes notable routes (in grey) that were discontinued after 1976, revealing an even more dramatic decline when comparing the situation today to earlier years.

Canada: Passenger Rail Decline

In Canada, VIA Rail’s 2024 service levels have significantly decreased compared to 1980, especially in terms of the number of routes and trains available outside the core Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. The focus has shifted toward fewer but higher-quality services in high-demand areas, often at the expense of rural and remote connectivity.

USA: Amtrak’s Reduced Long-Distance Services

In the USA, Amtrak’s long-distance services are less frequent in 2024 than in 1980, with several routes entirely discontinued. The 1980 map also shows numerous additional routes (in grey) that were abandoned between 1976 and 1980. 

For a broader perspective, Vox’s animated map - the decline of passenger railway services in the US - illustrates the steady erosion of American rail since 1962. 

Freight vs. Passenger Rail in North America

It's important to recognize that while passenger rail has declined, the USA still possesses an extensive rail network. This is clearly shown on the National Rail Network map of Canada, the USA, and Mexico. However, this vast network is predominantly used for freight transportation rather than passenger rail.

The United States actually has one of the largest rail networks in the world, but freight railroads account for approximately 140,000 miles of track, while Amtrak operates on around 21,000 miles, most of which it does not own. Instead, Amtrak relies on agreements with freight railroads to use their tracks, often resulting in delays because freight trains are given priority.

Global Rail Network Comparisons

For a deeper comparison of the U.S. rail network with those of other countries, you can refer to OpenRailwayMap. This resource uses OpenStreetMap data to create a worldwide, open, up-to-date, and detailed map of global rail networks.

The Bird Migration Atlas

The European Turtle Dove is a relatively small bird, weighing only about 100 grams (3.5 ounces). Despite its size, the European Turtle Dove undertakes an incredible long-distance migration of around 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa every year. This remarkable journey, along with the migratory routes of hundreds of other bird species, can be explored in detail on the Bird Migration Atlas.

The Bird Migration Atlas is an interactive map that plots the migration patterns of over 300 bird species across two continents: Eurasia and Africa. The map integrates data from historical European ringing schemes and modern tracking technologies to provide a comprehensive view of migration routes across both continents.

The Overall Connectivity map serves as the starting point for all species, revealing patterns of migratory connectivity. It highlights how birds from different geographic regions move, considering variations by age and sex. This map visualizes broad migratory trends, such as seasonal routes and key stopover sites that birds use during their journeys. Users can toggle additional layers for a more nuanced view, such as tracking data (where available), to better understand the specific migratory routes of individual species.

The By Region map allows for a deeper examination of bird movements based on where they were originally ringed and where they have been recovered. By color-coding encounters according to European ringing regions, this tool makes it easier to trace how individuals from specific populations migrate. The inclusion of tracking data (from sources like Movebank) further enriches the visual representation by displaying precise movement patterns, such as those derived from satellite transmitters or geolocators.

You can explore the migration patterns of American bird species on the impressive Bird Migration Explorer. The Bird Migration Explorer is an interactive map that visualizes the migratory patterns of 458 bird species that breed in the United States and Canada. Using the map, you can explore the journeys of individual bird species and discover when different species are likely to migrate through your town or city.

The Bird Migration Explorer allows you to view animated maps showing the full migration routes of these 458 species. By entering a location into the interactive map, you can also discover which bird species migrate to or through that location and when they are most likely to be seen.

The Joy-Plot Map of Europe

The Ridgeline Map of European Population Density is an interactive map that provides a multi-resolution visualization of Europe's population density in the form of a joy-plot.

Joy-plots, also known as ridgeline plots, draw their inspiration from one of pop culture’s most iconic visuals: the album cover of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division. Designed by Peter Saville in the 1970s, the cover features a mesmerizing depiction of radio waves emitted by a pulsar (the image was originally published in the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy). Over time, this striking design has transcended its musical roots to become a cultural and artistic symbol. In the world of data science, visualizations that echo this pulsar-inspired aesthetic are affectionately dubbed “joy-plots,” paying homage to the legendary album and its enduring influence.

This interactive joy-plot map of European population density was made using Gridviz. Gridviz is 'a JavaScript library for visualizing gridded data ... using a large variety of cartographic styles and techniques.' The resulting joy-plot map leverages the Eurostat GISCO Population distribution dataset to represent population density as horizontal ridgelines, where vertical peaks convey the density of the population across different areas of the continent.

Gridviz even offers three unique joy-plot styles for exploring European population density data: the basic joyplot, the shaded joyplot, and the random colored joyplot. As users zoom in on these maps, higher-resolution joy-plot lines appear, revealing finer details about population density at more localized levels. Additional place-name labels are also displayed, making it easier to navigate and understand the data at different scales.

Geotripper - the Traveling Salesman Game

Only a few days after the release of the flight sim game Travel Cat the prolific TripGeo is back with another entertaining geographical map game. GeoTripper offers players a unique challenge: charting the shortest possible route through a series of random destinations around the globe! 

GeoTripper is a lot of fun to play. I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek of the game over the weekend, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It is an original concept for a game which also manages to be very addicting!

Remember that - as I'm now going to get a little technical in exploring the dynamics of the game - 

Here's how it works:

1. You are given a list of locations.
2. You plot a route to connect them all in the shortest distance.
3. You submit your route and earn points based on how close your plan is to the optimal solution.

In essence, GeoTripper challenges players to solve a series of Traveling Salesman Problems (TSP). 

The Problem:

The TSP is a classic optimization problem in mathematics and mapping. Imagine a salesperson who needs to visit a number of cities. The challenge is to determine the shortest possible route that visits every city exactly once. The TSP has clear real-world applications, such as optimizing delivery routes for goods.

The Solution:

There are several methods for solving a TSP, including the Held-Karp algorithm and the Christofides algorithm. GeoTripper uses a brute force approach. This method involves calculating all possible permutations of the listed cities and determining the total distance for each route.

It's Fun!

You don’t need to worry about solving complex TSP algorithms while playing GeoTripper. Instead, you can just use your geographical knowledge to plot the best-looking route on the map. Your score depends on how close your route is to the optimal one.

With 12 different routes to complete in various regions of the world (plus a global challenge), GeoTripper offers plenty of variety. Players earn points and gold cups for each route, and the ultimate goal is to collect gold cups for all 12 routes.

A Race Against Time

Geotripper resets every 15 minutes (at :00, :15, :30, and :45 past the hour). This means you have only a quarter of an hour to complete all 12 routes - but it also means there are 12 new rounds to play every 15 minutes!

Lifetime Net Elevation Scores

Topi Tjukanov's popular Notable People map highlights the most "notable" person born in specific locations around the world. The designation of "most notable" is determined based on the highest number of page views of individuals listed on Wikipedia's "People from X" pages.

I’ve often pondered the idea of creating a complementary Notable Deaths map that showcases the most famous person to have died in each city around the globe. The reasoning behind such a map, albeit somewhat speculative, is that the location of a person's death might provide a better indication of where they spent the majority of their life compared to their birthplace.

However, I’ve consistently decided against pursuing this idea for two primary reasons:

1. I’ve never come across comprehensive lists of "People who died in X" on Wikipedia or elsewhere.
2. I doubt that the location of a person's death is actually any more indicative of where they spent most of their life than their birthplace.

Of course I could just look-up the individual entries of notable people on Wikipedia to discover where they died. Which I assume is where Net Elevation found their 'death place' locations for 'famous deceased' persons. 

The Net Elevation website focuses on the unique relationship between a person's life journey and geographical elevations. It presents a poetic and data-driven perspective, emphasizing the difference in elevation between a person's birthplace and death place as a simple metric to reflect on an individual's life.

Calculating Net Elevation Metrics:

Birthplace Elevation: Every individual is born at a specific geographic location, which has a measurable elevation (the height above or below sea level).

Death Place Elevation: Similarly, when a person dies, their death location has its own elevation.

Net Elevation: The difference between these two elevations - birth and death - is their "net elevation."

For example, Albert Einstein, who was born in Ulm and died in Princeton, had a net elevation score of -411 meters. Not exactly the most impressive lifetime achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree.

In essence, Net Elevation is a humorously intriguing concept that offers a brief but entertaining diversion. Now, if all that death-location data could be leveraged to create a Notable Deaths map (showing the most famous person to have died in each location around the world) then you’d really be killing it!

Via: Webcurios

Travel Cat's Aerial Adventures

I have seen a few flight simulator games created with 3D maps over the years,, but Travel Cat to let you pilot a plane as a cat. Flying a feline-piloted plane past the Eiffel Tower in Paris or around the Statue of Liberty in New York is as enchanting as it sounds. It is also a lot of fun.

Travel Cat uses the Google Maps API's 3D view to create a basic flight simulator that allows you to explore anywhere in the world. Or drive! Clicking on a road in the 3D map view instantly places your cat on terra firma, behind the wheel of a car. Press 'B,' and the car transforms into a 3D model of a boat, letting you explore waterways with equal ease.

The charm of Travel Cat lies primarily in the whimsical nature of its protagonist - a fearless feline pilot. Flying a cat-piloted plane around some of the world’s most famous landmarks elevates what might have been a straightforward flight simulator into a heartwarming and imaginative experience. Google's 3D map view enhances the realism of the game, delivering an immersive low-altitude flying experience. 

Whether you’re soaring above landmarks or cruising through streets and waterways, Travel Cat offers a delightful blend of exploration and whimsy that helps to set it apart from other map-based flight simulators.

Travel Cat isn't the only game to have been released by TripGeo this week. You might also enjoy Video Scramble. While not directly map-related, Video Scramble has a cartographical link, as it is inspired by TripGeo's popular Scrambled Maps game. 

Scrambled Maps is a daily puzzle game that challenges players to rearrange a scrambled map of a different city each day. Video Scramble builds on this concept with a similar challenge - this time requiring players to unscramble an AI-generated video. There are 20 videos to solve in total. So far, I’ve successfully unscrambled 16 of them, and I can confirm they all share a distinctly monsterish theme.

Drowning in Plastic

There are five large ocean garbage patches. Most people have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but there are also the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South Pacific garbage patches.

These garbage patches form due to ocean currents called gyres, which trap floating debris in circulating patterns. Over time, waste such as plastic bottles, fishing nets, and microplastics accumulates in these areas. The primary causes include improper waste disposal, runoff from rivers carrying trash into the sea, and discarded debris from ships and fishing activities. This pollution poses serious threats to marine life, ecosystems, and human livelihoods.

The Straits Times has been investigating the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch, the third largest after the Pacific and South Pacific patches. In Drowning in Plastic, the newspaper uses a story-map to show the location of the Indian Ocean patch, explain how it is formed, and detail the consequences for marine life and the food chain.

The Seas of Plastic is another mapped visualization of the floating plastic debris polluting the world's oceans. This interactive visualization features a globe highlighting the five major circulating gyres of plastic in the North Pacific, North Atlantic, Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, and South Pacific. It also includes a Sankey diagram that illustrates the amount of plastic debris contributed by different countries to each of these gyres.

The data for the Seas of Plastic visualization is based on a Lagrangian particle tracking model, which simulates 30 years of input, transport, and accumulation of floating plastic debris worldwide. The model traces the paths of plastic particles from land to sea, providing estimates of the relative size of each of the five circulating gyres.

The Ocean Cleanup organization estimates that between 1.15 and 2.41 million metric tons of plastic in the oceans originate from the world's river systems, with two-thirds coming from rivers in Asia. To illustrate how and where plastic enters the world’s oceans, The Ocean Cleanup has released an interactive map titled River Plastic Emissions to the World’s Oceans.

The map highlights river systems across the globe, with scaled circular markers at the coast representing the predicted plastic input from each river system. These predictions are based on a model that considers factors such as population density, waste management practices, topography, hydrography, dam locations, and reported plastic concentrations in rivers worldwide.

Mapping the Underground Art Scene

Earlier this month Maps Mania reviewed Subway Stories, a visualization of subway journeys on the NYC subway system. The map was developed for the 2024 MTA Open Data Challenge.  Now, the MTA has announced the winner of that challenge: Art Off the Rails, an interactive map showcasing the artworks of the MTA.

Art Off the Rails uses the MTA's extensive art catalog to map the locations of artworks in New York's subway, Metro-North, and Long Island Rail Road stations. This innovative tool turns your daily commute into a cultural journey by highlighting the incredible variety of public art across the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) system.

The New York subway system is home to hundreds of stunning works of art. From intricate mosaics to striking sculptures, these pieces enrich commuters’ daily journeys underground. With Art Off the Rails, commuters can delve into the history, artists, and stories behind each MTA art installation.

Stations with artworks are marked on the map as white circles, with the size of the circle indicating the number of artworks at that location. This feature makes it easy to explore the artistic highlights along your subway route. From the beloved Alice in Wonderland-themed mosaics at the 50th Street station to Roy Lichtenstein's Times Square mural and the abstract glass installations at Fulton Center, the MTA subway is filled with fascinating works of art. Now, with the Art Off the Rails interactive map, you can uncover and appreciate these artistic gems.

The London Underground's Art on the Underground map is a little more analog. While there isn’t yet an interactive map for the artworks on the Tube, the Art on the Underground website offers a free downloadable PDF Art Map. This printable guide (a snippet of which is shown above) uses the iconic Harry Beck-inspired schematic layout of the London Underground system.

On this map, numbers indicate the locations of artworks across the Tube network. A key provides details about each numbered artwork, including its title, artist, and precise station location. The London Underground map features works by notable artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Mark Wallinger, and Clare Woods.

Travel Times in the Roman & British Empires

In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the heroine Elizabeth Bennet marries Fitzwilliam Darcy. This marriage separates Elizabeth from the rest of her family, both in terms of class and physical distance. As the new mistress of Pemberley, Darcy's grand estate in Derbyshire, Elizabeth must move over 130 miles away from her childhood home of Longbourn, in rural Hertfordshire.

While 130 miles might not seem like a huge distance to modern readers, in the 18th century, the journey would have taken at least two whole days of uncomfortable travel by post chaise or private carriage. At least, that is according to the new Travel in Times interactive map. In reality, the journey would probably have taken three days, when you account for stops at inns along the way for meals and to rest the horses.

One of my all-time favorite digital maps is OmnesViae, a Roman route planner that shows you how long it would take to travel between any two locations during the reign of the Roman Empire. OmnesViae: Itinerarium Romanum is a route planner that lets you navigate the Roman Empire using the roads and shipping lanes that were actually available to the ancient Romans.

The map is based on information from the ancient Roman map, the Tabula Peutingeriana, and allows you to plan a route that includes all the main roads and cities of the Roman Empire. You could use the map, for example, to plan a route between Rome and the gladiatorial amphitheater in Lecce. Depending on your strength and fighting skills, you might not need directions for the return trip.

Now, thanks to the University of Cambridge, you can also find out how long it would take to travel around the UK during the height of the British Empire. Travel in Times is another historic online journey planner. This map shows you how long it would take to travel between any two locations in England and Wales at three specific dates in history: circa 1680, circa 1830, and in 1911.

The Travel in Times journey planner offers a fascinating glimpse into the history of travel and transportation in England and Wales. By focusing on key historical moments in 1680, 1830, and 1911, the map allows users to explore how advancements in infrastructure - such as turnpike roads, stagecoaches, and the railway system - revolutionized the speed, cost, and comfort of travel. This historical perspective highlights the dramatic improvements that took place over a period of 230 years, transforming the way people moved across the England & Wales.

Via: Quantum of Sollazzo

Mapping the U.S. Electoral Divide

In the United States, a persistent and striking political divide is evident between urban and rural areas. High-density urban regions overwhelmingly tend to support Democratic candidates, while low-density rural areas lean Republican. This geographical polarization shapes the outcomes of elections and reflects broader cultural, economic, and ideological divisions. 

A compelling exploration of this phenomenon can be found in Mike Travers’ visualization Population Density x Political Alignment. This tool uses a scatterplot and map to vividly illustrate the relationship between population density and voting tendencies, offering a nuanced perspective on the interplay of demography and democracy.

The scatterplot in Travers’ visualization is particularly illuminating. Each county in the United States is represented by a circle, with its size corresponding to the population and its color indicating political leaning - blue for Democratic support and red for Republican. The plot highlights a clear trend: counties with low population density cluster to the left, predominantly in shades of red, while highly dense counties to the right are predominantly blue.

The map in Travers’ visualization complements the scatterplot, translating these trends into geographical context. Counties are color-coded based on their political leanings, creating a vivid visual distinction between the urban blue strongholds and the expansive rural red areas.

The urban-rural divide depicted in Travers’ visualization is rooted in broader societal forces. Urban areas, with their higher population density, often attract diverse populations and foster progressive social and economic policies, aligning with Democratic platforms. In contrast, rural areas, with lower density and more homogenous communities, are more likely to emphasize traditional values and prioritize policies championed by Republicans. This divide is not unique to the United States; many countries exhibit similar patterns, with metropolitan areas leaning left and rural regions leaning right.

Mike Travers’ Population Density x Political Alignment offers a powerful lens to explore these dynamics, blending demographic data with political trends to illuminate one of the most significant divisions in modern American politics. Despite many urban areas swinging more to the right in this year's election there is still a clear political divide between urban and rural voters in the United States.