The Maps of the Week

This Geologic Map of the Grand Canyon wins the prize for the most gorgeous map of the week. The map uses the Leaflet mapping platform with USGS data to create an interactive geologic map of the Grand Canyon.

If you mouse-over the map the make-up of the geologic strata at that location is automatically displayed on the map. If you click on the map it scrolls off the page to present a more detailed breakdown of the geographic strata at the selected location.


I like the United Kingdom and I like Russia. But which is better? There's only one way to to find out ...

MapFight!

MapFight is a fun little application that allows you to compare the size of any two states, countries or continents. Just choose two locations from the two drop-down menus and two different colored maps will appear superimposed on each other.

The maps provide a handy visual guide to the size of the chosen two countries. MapFight also tells you how many times bigger the larger country is in comparison to the smaller country.


Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent research paper claiming a link between the measles vaccination and autism proved to be an international health disaster. Many parents around the world refused the vaccination for their children leading to a rise in measles in many countries.

While this map of Vaccine Preventable Outbreaks starts in 1998 and therefore doesn't show the almost immediate huge increase in measles after Wakefield's paper it does show some residual detrimental effects of the paper, as many parents are still refusing to have their children immunized against measles.

Of course the rise in measles is not the only tragedy visualized by this Google Map. The map plots global outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, and other diseases that are easily preventable by inexpensive and effective vaccines.


I'm a big fan of the always fascinating Etymology Maps thread on Reddit. The thread features word maps, maps that visualize one common word in all the different languages of Europe. For example, 'Christmas' in European languages, 'Meat' in European languages and 'Clock' in European languages.

James Trimble is also a big fan of the Reddit thread and while browsing the maps had a bit of an epiphany. He realized that you could use the Google Translate API with D3 to create an interactive Etymology Map that allows you to visualize any word that you want in all the different European languages.

The result is the European Word Translator. A map that uses the Google Translate API to show you the European translations of any word. Just type a word into the search box and you can view on the D3 map all the translations of the word in all the European countries.