Maps of the Week

Vector Map is an amazing map of the world, complete with 3d extruded buildings and roads with animated traffic. The screenshot above doesn't do this map justice and you really need to view the map yourself in a WebGL enabled browser.

The map was built with Mapzen's Tangram mapping engine. Tangram is a library for creating 2D & 3D maps with WebGL. The Vector Map includes Tangram's extruded 3d building footprints and adds animated traffic to the map's roads.


This interactive map, from Dumpark, reveals the average number of hours of direct sunlight received each day throughout Wellington City in New Zealand.

The number of hours of direct sunlight is affected by topographical features (such as hills) and physical objects (like buildings and trees). To measure the number of hours of direct sunlight Dunpark used data elevation models of Wellington City combined with building footprint data of the city.

The Hours of Direct Sunlight map shows the yearly average number of hours of direct sunlight received each day. It is also possible to view layers showing the average number of hours received in the mornings and in the afternoons.


Divvy Trips is a beautiful animated mapped visualization of bike trips on the Divvy bike sharing network in Chicago. The map includes circular map markers showing the position of bike docking stations and the option to add a street map to the animated visualization.

It also contains a date control which allows you to select the day's rides that you wish to see visualized and a time display informing you of the time of day. Divvy Trips provides a great visualization of how the Divvy bike network is used over the course of a day. It also wouldn't look out of place hanging on the walls of MoMA.