The Growth of Building Height Maps

For the last couple of years building age maps have been very popular. In these maps building footprints are colored to show the age of buildings. These maps provide a great overview of how cities and towns have developed over time.

Over the last year the same colored building footprint technique has also been used more and more to show the height of buildings. These building height maps are an excellent way to visualize, in particular, where the tallest buildings are concentrated in cities.

For example, Jonathan Critchley has used data from City of Toronto Open Data to map the height of Toronto's buildings. The City of Toronto Building Height map colors building footprints by the height of each building. If you hover over individual buildings on the map you can view its height in meters and whether the building is zoned as residential, commercial or for some other purpose.

Jonathon's map follows on from these other building height maps, released over the last twelve months: Building Heights in London, the Vancouver Building Heights map, the Melbourne Building Heights map and the San Francisco Building Height map