The Maps of the Week

TravelSmart has released a useful new Google Map that can help you find smarter ways to travel without always having to rely on a car. Whether you are looking to find a new neighbourhood with great public transit links, or you just want to find the best walking or cycling routes for your daily commute, the Your Neighbourhood Map can help.

Enter an address into the Your Neighbourhood Map and you will instantly receive a Walk Score and Transit Score that gives you a great idea of how walkable the neighborhood is and how good the transit links are. A handy travel time tool shows directly on the map how far you can walk or cycle in a given period of time.

The map also allows you to view a whole range of local amenities on the map so that you can tell at a glance how easy it is to access amenities from your entered address.


miniMap are interactive mapping specialists who can help you create online maps for exhibitions, real estate agencies or whatever you need mapping.

A really good example of a Google Map created by miniMap is this map of the exhibition center used for Vinexpo 2013 Bordeaux. When zoomed out users can see where the exhibition center is located (and can even get walking or driving directions to get there). When zoomed in the map displays the layout of the exhibition center and the locations of all exhibitors.

The map displays all the locations of all the exhibitor stands in the center. All the stands are interactive and can be clicked on to reveal details about the exhibitors on each stand. By using the information icon users can search for facilities and individual stands, which are then highlighted on the map.


The London Deprivation Map uses data from the English Indices of Deprivation 2010 to provide a heatmap of deprivation in London.

Links in the map sidebar allow the user to view heatmaps of the individual indices. The 'Income' index reveals as you might expect, that the poorer boroughs are mostly in the East End. However the 'Barriers to housing' index interestingly reveals that hardly anyone can afford to buy housing in London.

The map's creator, James Trimble, has also written up a blog post about how he created this Google Map. The post includes information about where you can download boundary shapefiles for London neighbourhoods.