The Maps of the Week

We've featured a lot of Carto DB Torque powered maps in the last month. This animated map of the geography of 400,000 hours of TV news is among the most interesting.

The Internet Archive geo-coded 400,000 hours of U.S. television news and mapped the locations mentioned in each report. The Animated Geography of TV News map animates through the locations mentioned in the news providing a great visualization of the countries and areas that receive the most attention and the areas which are neglected by American news (sorry Africa).


I love the slide control in the maps featured in this Urban Institute interactive. Washington DC - Our Changing City is a report on the population changes happening in Washington DC.

The interactive report includes a series of maps comparing population and demographic changes in the American capital between 2000 and 2010. Each map includes a slide control that allows the user to swipe across the map to compare the differences in dot maps from the year 2000 and 2010.

I've seen this type of slide control used before to compare before and after photographs. For example, I used a similar control to compare aerial imagery from before and after the 2011 tornado in Tuscaloosa. However this is the first time I've seen a slide control used to compare two different map layers.


Johannes Gutenberg's invention of mechanical movable type printing in the 15th century was probably the most important discovery in the modern age. Gutenberg's invention arguably kick-started the Renaissance and undoubtedly led to the spread of learning among the general population in Europe.

The Atlas of Early Printing is a Google Map charting the spread of printing, from Gutenberg's first movable type printer in 1452 in Mainz to the rest of Europe by the end of the 15th century. The map includes a timeline that allows you to visualize the rise of printing presses throughout Europe over the course of the 15th century.


If you are bored at school don't just sit there mindlessly staring into space, get your phone out and share your boredom with the rest of the world.

The Real Time #Bored in School Map is a real-time map showing Tweets by schoolkids who are bored in class. Since the map went live on the 16th December there has been over 43,000 bored Tweets. That is a lot of bored students.

As well as the map of live Tweets the app keeps a running total of the number of 'bored' messages and a live line chart of the number of Tweets made over the last hour.