Maps of the Week

Esri has releaseded a great interactive presentation exploring Rio de Janeiro's preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games. Ready or Not, Let the Games Begins examines the impact on Rio, both positive and negative, of the infrastructure developments being made for the games and how these changes are affecting the city and its citizens.

The interactive is divided into five main sections looking at; the impact of construction projects, the displaced people living in the favelas, the spread of the Zika virus, pollution and security issues in the city.

Because the presentation is created by Esri many of these issues are, of course, illustrated with accompanying interactive maps. The interactive uses a story map format, so that as you scroll through the presentation the maps automatically update to illustrate the accompanying text. I particularly like how Map Swipe is used in some of the maps to automatically reveal and compare different base map layers.


Fifty years ago Charles Whitman killed 14 people and wounded 32 others at the University of Texas. The Texas Standard has interviewed nearly 100 survivors of the UT Tower Shooting, including professors, students and reporters. You can listen to the interviews and view archival newspaper reports & photos about the shooting on the Texas Standard's new Tower History website.

Out of the Blue: 50 Years After the UT Tower Shooting features a prominent interactive campus map of the University of Texas at Austin. The map markers allow you to listen to eye witness accounts of the UT Tower Shooting. As well as allowing you to listen to the interviews many of the markers include textual reports and archival photos.

The map itself is a really nicely designed custom map of the campus site. It has been made interactive using the Leaflet.js mapping platform.


Eighteen of the top Twenty neighborhoods for job access in New York City are in Manhattan. If you live in Manhattan there are an average of 4,128,263 jobs accessible within one hour by public transit.

You can use the Rudin Center's NYC Neighborhoods: Mobility and Economic Opportunity interactive map to view the number of jobs available within one hour of travel in each of NYC's neighborhoods. If you select a neighborhood on the map you can view a basic isochrone layer showing the neighborhoods in range of 30, 45 and 60 minutes of travel on public transit.

You can also view details on the number of jobs accessible within 60 minutes of travel and the types of job (by industry). The information panel includes other details about the neighborhood, such as the population total, median income and the unemployment rate of the selected neighborhood.

Streetcars of San Francisco

For some reason I've always imagined that there were a lot more streetcar lines in San Francisco. The good news is that there are actually more routes now than in 1960. However the present coverage is not a patch on the number of streetcar routes that existed in the city back in 1940.

Where the Streetcars Used to Go is a lovely interactive map which allows you to view the streetcar transit network as it existed in 1940 & 1960 and as it exists today. Streetcar fans will be delighted to learn that the map also allows you to view vintage photos of streetcars in San Francisco.

You can actually browse through these wonderful photos of San Francisco's historical streetcars by the different streetcar routes. If you click on a streetcar route on the map the photos, running along the bottom of the map, are filtered to only show photos taken along the chosen line. The name of the selected route is also displayed on the map alongside the dates when the route was operational.

Mapping Child Poverty in London

Steven Feldman of KnowWhere has mapped the changes to child poverty rates in London between 2008 and 2013. The results suggest that child poverty has decreased in most London wards over this period. As Steven mentions in his commentary on the data this is good news - and rather surprising considering the UK government's austerity measures.

Child Poverty in London includes a number of maps of the data. These include three static maps created with QGIS (showing child poverty in 2008, 2013 and the changes in child poverty 2008-2013), an OpenLayers map (showing the changes in child poverty rates), and a Leaflet map which allows you to view the 2008 & 2013 child poverty rates and also view the changes in child poverty 2008-2013.

The maps are accompanied by Steven's commentary on the child poverty data and on the process of creating the maps with PostGIS, QGIS, the QGIS2Web plugin and Leaflet.js.

Whose Being Evicted in San Francisco?

The Anti-Eviction Project has created a lot of interesting maps around the issue of housing in San Francisco. For their latest map the Anti-Eviction Project has teamed up with Carto to visualize eviction rates in the city by neighborhood, demographic segment and median rent.

The Evictions by Demographic Segment map shows a choropleth view of the number of evictions in San Francisco by area. However, by using census data from the American Community Survey, the map can also show you demographic information about each neighborhood. Using the two sets of data together it is possible to get a good idea of where people are being evicted and why.

Using the filter controls in the map sidebar you can view the number of evictions by demographic segment. The most evictions in 2015 took place in areas of 'high rise, dense urbanites'. You can also use the median rent filter to view evictions by rental cost. This shows that there is a higher rate of evictions where rents are high. In other words in San Francisco there is a strong trend by landlords to evict people in areas with wealthy residents and high rental returns.

Which are the Squarest & Roundest Countries?

Sierra Leone is the roundest country in the world. The most rectangular country is Egypt.

Forget the battle between Clinton & Trump. The biggest online debate over the last few weeks has been over which are the most rectangular and round countries.

The controversy started earlier this month when David Barry posted his research into The Rectangularness of Countries. Barry used the shapefile data from Natural Earth to discover which country's boundaries were the most rectangular using a 'simple algorithm'. His results suggest that Egypt is the most rectangular country, closely followed by the Vatican.

Gonzalo Ciruelos was inspired enough by Barry's work to attempt to discover the most round countries in the world. In What is the Roundest Country? Ciruelos also used Natural Earth's shapefile data. He found that Sierra Leone is the roundest country. With Nauru coming in a close second.

Now all we need to know is 'Which is the most triangular country in the world?'

Election Chartograms

The major winner in the last UK general election was the tiled grid map. My bet for this year's U.S. election is the 'chartogram'.

For example this week the Wall Street Journal has created an historical U.S. election map which represents each state as a bar chart showing the state winners in previous elections. A Field Guide to Red and Blue America is similar to a traditional tiled grid map, except dynamic bar charts have been used instead of colored grids. At the risk of butchering the English language I'm going to refer to this type of grid map as a 'chartogram'.


This isn't the first time that individual grids have been used to visualize historical election data. For example, after the Scottish Election in May, The Guardian used Sankey diagrams in a tiled grid map of Scotland to show the historical percentage of votes by each political party over previous elections in each electoral district.


Esri has also been experimenting with using different types of charts and graphs within individual tiled map grids to visualize U.S. election history data. US Election History is an interactive tiled grid map which visualizes the historical voting pattern of each state in a number of different ways.

My favorite view in this tiled grid map is the Waffle Grid, which presents the historical election data in each state with a series of small colored squares. Each square is colored red or blue to show how the state voted in previous US elections.

The Wall Street Journal is showing similar historical election data, only it is using bar charts rather than 'waffle grids'.

I have a feeling that we might be seeing quite a few of these types of tiled grid maps or chartograms in the next six months. If you want to create an interactive version of this type of map then it might be a good idea to start honing your d3.js skills and practice adding an SVG overlay pane to Leaflet maps.

The Impact of the Olympics on Rio

Esri has produced a great interactive presentation exploring Rio de Janeiro's preparations for the 2016 Olympic Games. Ready or Not, Let the Games Begins examines the impact on Rio, both positive and negative, of the infrastructure developments being made for the games and how these changes are affecting the city and its citizens.

The interactive is divided into five main sections looking at; the impact of construction projects, the displaced people living in the favelas, the spread of the Zika virus, pollution and security issues in the city.

Because the presentation is created by Esri many of these issues are, of course, illustrated with accompanying interactive maps. The interactive uses a story map format, so that as you scroll through the presentation the maps automatically update to illustrate the accompanying text. I particularly like how Map Swipe is used in some of the maps to automatically reveal and compare different base map layers.

The Living Dead of Andorra

After looking at average heights around the world earlier today it seems like a good idea to look at the average life expectancy of different countries across the globe. Unfortunately this 3DFx Widget - Life Expectancy map is as bad as Le Pais' average height map is good.

It's hardly ever a good idea to try and visualize data on a 3d globe with vertical towers. It is in fact a really bad idea when the difference between the different values you want to show is very small. It is an even worse idea to then perpetually bounce your vertical bars up and down.

I defy anyone to accurately read the average life expectancy of a country on this 3d globe using the vertical towers on the map. I find it next to impossible to even judge which countries have taller towers than other countries.

Luckily this average life expectancy map does have a little table running along the bottom of the map showing the average life expectancy of countries in order (with Hong Kong having the highest). If I was 3DFx I would get rid of the 3d globe and just display this list.

I feel really sorry for anyone living in the last 16 countries in this list - including the Isle of Man, San Marino and Andorra. Apparently if you are from any of these countries you have a life expectancy of 0 and are therefore presumably dead.

BTW - it also took me an age to work out how to view the data on top of the 3d globe. You appear to need to click on the little globe icon in the top right-hand corner of the globe before the data is displayed.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World

NYC: Travel Time & Jobs

Eighteen of the top Twenty neighborhoods for job access in New York City are in Manhattan. If you live in Manhattan there are an average of 4,128,263 jobs accessible within one hour by public transit.

You can use the Rudin Center's NYC Neighborhoods: Mobility and Economic Opportunity interactive map to view the number of jobs available within one hour of travel in each of NYC's neighborhoods. If you select a neighborhood on the map you can view a basic isochrone layer showing the neighborhoods in range of 30, 45 and 60 minutes of travel on public transit.

You can also view details on the number of jobs accessible within 60 minutes of travel and the types of job (by industry). The information panel includes other details about the neighborhood, such as the population total, median income and the unemployment rate of the selected neighborhood.

The map reveals that neighborhoods with good transit links, such as those in Manhattan, are most likely to have the best access to jobs. Conversely neighborhoods with limited transit links (neighborhoods ranked 60-119 on the map) have higher unemployment rates than those neighborhoods with the best transit links.

You can read more about the findings of the mapped data in this Rudin Center report (pdf).

Height Mapping

El Pais has mapped out the average heights of men and women in countries around the world. The Average Height for Countries map reveals the average heights of 30 year old men and women across the globe. It also shows how much the average height of men and women has increased in each country over the last 100 years.

The map includes four different layers. which you can view by selecting the four buttons at the top of the map. The four layers show: the average height of men in 2014, the growth in average male height compared to 100 years ago, the average height of women in 2014 and the growth in average female height compared to 100 years ago.

According to the El Pais map the tallest men and women are in European countries. Women in South Korea have shown the biggest increase in average height over the last 100 years. For men the biggest increase in average height over the last 100 years has been in Iran.

Extract a Map

MapXtract is a really neat tool to style a map and then download it as a png, svg or GeoJSON. The MapExtract editor uses OpenStreetMap data so should work for any location in the world.

To use MapXtract you just need to pan and zoom the map to the location that you want for a map. A location search function is missing from MapXtract. This means that you need to find the location that you require for yourself on the map.

Once you have panned the map to the required location you can style the colors of map features using an easy to use color picker tool. MapXtract allows you to color roads, water features, natural features, buildings, the background layer and an admin layer.

Once you've picked your location and chosen your map colors you're done.  All you need to do now is choose to download your map as a png, svg of GeoJson file.

Google Maps Highlights Areas of Interest

Google has begun to highlight 'areas of interest' on Google Maps. According to the Google Maps Blog "areas with the highest concentration of restaurants, bars and shops" will now be shaded orange on Google Maps.


This is a neat idea. It should mean that when you are in an unfamiliar area you can quickly identify areas where there should be a concentration of venues for eating, drinking and shopping. However this feature is only as good as the data that Google has. For example near me Google Maps shades two blocks of apartments in orange and a concentration of factory warehouses (which would only be of interest to drivers of delivery vans).

When you zoom in on the orange shaded areas on Google Maps the labels for individual areas appear on the map. This does mean that in most cases you should be able to tell from the map labels whether an area really does have bars, shops and restaurants. When I zoom in on the little orange shaded industrial area near my location the map reveals that the businesses are called things like 'Construction Support' and 'Roofing Suppliers' which does alert me to the fact that this might not be the best place to go for sushi.

Mapping the History of Ska

Making the Waves: The Evolution of Ska maps the history of ska music from its origins in 1950's Jamaica through its 70's revival in the UK and on to its 'third wave' in the USA.

This EntertainMaps created map provides brief introductions to a number of ska musical artists in Jamaica, the UK and the USA. If you select the markers on the map you can read these introductions and watch a YouTube video of the band or performer.

I guess one of the dangers in making such a map is that you will always be criticized for who you've left off the map. I don't know much about the 'third wave' of ska in the USA but I do know that the Jamaica and UK areas of the map are not exactly exhaustive. The UK section, for example, only includes three ska bands. I've never been a huge fan of ska but even I can think of a number of UK and Jamaica ska bands and artists that seem conspicuous by their absence from the map.


Fans of 70's UK music might also like EntertainMaps' London's Burning map. London's Burning plots the origins of some of London's finest punk bands. It also allows you to listen to a song by each of the mapped bands.

This map used to include Mapbox's glorious Wheatpaste map tiles. The Wheatpaste map style was inspired by the cut & paste, collage style of music flyers & posters, popular with punk and new wave bands. It worked beautifully on a map about Punk music. Unfortunately London's Burning now seems to use a black & white version of Stamen's Watercolor map style.

Mapping the UT Tower Shooting

Fifty years ago Charles Whitman killed 14 people and wounded 32 others at the University of Texas. The Texas Standard has interviewed nearly 100 survivors of the UT Tower Shooting, including professors, students and reporters. You can listen to the interviews and view archival newspaper reports & photos about the shooting on the Texas Standard's new Tower History website.

Out of the Blue: 50 Years After the UT Tower Shooting features a prominent interactive campus map of the University of Texas at Austin. Using the map you can listen to eye witness accounts of the UT Tower Shooting. As well as the audio files many of the markers include textual reports and archival photos.

The map itself is a really nicely designed custom map of the campus site. It has been made interactive using the Leaflet.js mapping platform.

Mapping Cape Town's Townships

There are around 437 informal settlements, or townships, in Cape Town. Places where many Cape Town citizens are forced to live, without occupation rights or security of tenure. These informal settlements mostly have a high density of occupation and very poor sanitation.

Code for Africa has mapped out Cape Town's informal settlements and created a dashboard which allows you to explore issues such as occupation density, the age of each township and the sanitary conditions.

When the map first loads you have the option to follow the stories of two township citizens. These stories provide a personal insight into the living conditions in Cape Town's informal settlements. They also act as a tutorial guide to the map's features. As you progress through these two stories you are shown how to use the map's functions to explore the available township data.

If you select a township on the Struggle for Dignity map you can view data on the selected settlement under the map. This includes the township's name, age, number of households, household density and the number of toilets per household and the type of toilets available.

If you use the buttons at the top of the map you can browse a choropleth view of the number of households, temporary toilets and household density in each of the city's informal settlements.

How to Create Map Backgrounds

Transparent maps with image and video backgrounds can create interesting geographical context on interactive maps. These background effects are achieved by placing a video or image behind a map and adjusting the opacity of the map - so that the video or image can be seen through the map.

Earlier this year Muxlabs released a Map on Video effect. This is just one effect in their Map Effects 100 collection of cool user interactions for Leaflet maps. In the demo of Map on Video a map of Las Vegas is overlaid on top of a video driving down Las Vegas Boulevard. An animated car marker shows the position of the car moving on the map as it drives down the street, while, in the background, you can actually watch as the video plays.

Codrops has now created a similar map effect which uses static images rather than a video. Simple Interactive Points Effect creates a static map with a number of map markers. As the user hovers over the marker the map becomes partly transparent and a photo of the marked location can be see through the map. When the user clicks on the marker the map becomes completely opaque and all you can see is the background image.

In effect a background page element replaces the usual marker information window or marker pop-up. When the map user clicks on a map marker instead of content being displayed in a marker pop-up it is displayed in place of the actual map.

The codrops effect uses a static map but this effect could easily be reproduced with an interactive map. Essentially all you need to do is create two page elements - one positioned exactly on top of the other. The page element for the map should be on top (use z-index on your page elements) and should have an opacity of '1'.

You can then adjust the opacity of the map by using event listeners on your map markers. When a user mouse-overs a marker you can adjust the opacity of the map element to '0.5' - so that the background image can be seen through the map. When the user clicks on the marker you can use the event listener to adjust the opacity of the map holding element to '0' - so that the map is now completely transparent and all the user sees is the image background.

Maps of the Week

The Sandby borg ring fort in Öland, Sweden was the site of a violent massacre in the 5th century and is currently being investigated by Swedish archaeologists. The archaeological website of the Sandby fort now includes a wonderful 3d map featuring a reconstruction of the fort and fort houses.

The 3d map of the Sandy borg fort includes overlays which allow you to view the locations of some of the archaeological discoveries found within the fort complex. If you use the links along the bottom of the 3d map you can view where objects have been discovered in 'house 4' and 'house 40'.


If you've been caught up in the huge Pokemon Go craze then you need to check-out the PokeVision map. Most of the third-party maps created for Pokemon Go use crowd-sourcing to show the locations of Pokemon and Pokemon gyms. PokeVision does not use crowd-sourcing to find nearby locations of Pokemon. It actually shows you the location of all the Pokemon near you in real-time.

The map doesn't have the most impressive map design but it is a brilliant hack of the Pokemon Go app. The map shows the locations of Pokemon near your location in real-time. Each Pokemon shown on the map also includes a timer which displays how long the Pokemon will remain at that location.


This week This is Cleveland released a really beautiful custom designed interactive map of Cleveland.

If you zoom in on Downtown Cleveland on the Cleveland Map you should easily be able to find local points of interest. In particluar the most well known venues and landmarks in the neighborhood are picked out on the map with some gorgeous pictorial representations.

This is Cleveland say they will soon be adding lots more detail to  the map in other neighborhoods in Cleveland.

Street Art of Lisbon

Portuguese newspaper Expresso has created a Google Map showcasing the street art of Portugal. The map features the work of graffiti and street artists from all over the country.

The Mapa Interativo da Street Art Nacional is a simple but effective map with some neat custom touches. It uses the Google Maps API styled map feature to create a gray-scale background map. Clustered custom map markers are then placed on top of this base map. Spray can images are used for the individual locations and a numbered paint-splat image is used for the clustered markers.

As well as searching for street art by location on the map you can also search by artist name using the alphabetical index at the top of the map.

Mapping the Tragically Hip

It has been a good week for Canadian music maps. On Tuesday we reported on the Canadian Geographic: On the Coast map of Canadian locations featured in popular song lyrics. Now there is a new map of locations mentioned in the songs of the band Tragically Hip.

Gord Downie the lead singer and lyricist of the band has been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. To help commemorate his career and music CBS has created an interactive map of the locations mentioned in Downie's lyrics.

Looking for a Place to Happen uses the story map format to take you on a tour around Canada and the songs of the Tragically Hip. As you scroll down the page the map automatically pans to a location mentioned in one of Downie's songs. If you turn the 'autoplay' option on then the map also automatically plays the relevant song.

Each song is also accompanied with a brief textual description of the song and an excerpt from the lyrics.

How to Create a Pokemon Go Type Game

Niantic is an established leader in location based games and has already enjoyed popular success with their Ingress game. However the stratospheric success of Niantic's Pokemon Go means that the potential for location based augmented reality games is finally being more widely recognized. There is no doubt that the popularity of Pokemon Go means that there will soon be many imitators.

So - how do you create a game like Pokemon Go based on location data?

1. Build a Database of Points of Interest

There are obviously many elements to Niantic's Pokemon Go. At the heart of the game, however, is the placement of Pokemon in the real world. In essence Pokemon are mapped to particular locations in the real-world based on Niantic's database of points of interest.

At a basic level features in Pokemon Go are mapped like this:

Places of Interest: Pokemon
Public Spaces: Gyms
Water - Water Pokemon

Niantic's database of points of interest comes from users of Niantic's Ingress game. Niantic Labs began as an internal start-up at Google, Therefore it is safe to assume that the original data behind Ingress and Niantic's earlier mobile guide 'Fieldtrip' (showing nearby places of interest) came from Google Maps.

Players of Niantic's Ingress were encouraged to submit points of interest to the game. This has enabled Niantic to extend their database of interesting places - particularly in areas which lacked data in the original game.

At the heart of Ingress' original database were locations which had some 'cultural' interest. This is important to the success of Niantic's location based games. It means that when players visit real-world locations while playing Ingress or Pokemon Go there is usually something interesting for players to see.

So how do you create a database of POI's?

If you don't want to start from scratch you could always use something like Google Places or Mapzen's Who's on First gazetteer.

Alternatively you could use OpenStreetMap data. Using the Overpass API you can select and download OSM map data. For example (copying Niantic's preference for places of cultural interest) you could use the Overpass API to download the locations of all buildings in a city tagged 'museum' and 'gallery' to build a database of museums and art galleries.

2. Create a Base Map

Pokemon Go appears to be using Google Maps for its base map of streets and location data. If you also want to build upon the success of Google Maps you could use the Google Maps API, the Google Maps API for Android and the Google Maps SDK for iOS.

The disadvantage of using Google Maps is that you only have limited options for creating your own map style. Mapbox and Mapzen have both written recent posts about how you can create a base map similar to that used in Pokemon Go. If you want to create your own map style based on OpenStreetMap data then you could always use Mapbox Studio.

3. Find Your Users Location

Once you have a database of interesting locations and a base map on which to place them you have the basic requirements for your game. However you will need to check your user's location before showing them their nearby points of interest.

To do this you could use a geolocation service, such as the Google Geolocation API or the Geolocation API.

Alternatively you could use geo-fencing to determine when a user enters a predefined geographic area. You can use geo-fences to define an area around a location and trigger actions on your map based on when users enter your defined area.

4. Create an Interesting Game

Now comes the hard part. Once you have a database of interesting places, a map and a way of checking your users' locations you now need something fun for them to do. This is where you need to get creative and come up with your own ideas.

The potential is limitless but you might want to consider location based ideas such as,

finding, dropping, training objects /characters
buying, selling or capturing territory
finding or hiding virtual objects (a kind of virtual geocaching or virtual treasure hunt)

Mapping Water Risk Around the World

The World Wildlife Fund's Water Risk Filter assesses the physical, regulatory and reputational risk to water across the globe. It allows users to view key indicators of water risk in countries and different industries around the world.

The Water Risk Filter uses a number of key indicators to assess the levels of water risk. These include indicators such as water scarcity, pollution, ecosystem threats, regulatory risk and supply chain water risk. If you select a country on the map you can view a country profile outlining the physical, governmental and geopolitical context of local water risk.

The map also allows you to select different layers to view on the map. These include different indicators of water risk, such as access to drinking water and water pollution. You can also select layers which show the water risk for different types of industry.


The World Resources Institute has also created an interactive map which visualizes where and how water risks are emerging across the globe. Aqueduct allows you to explore 12 key indicators of water risk in countries around the world.

The 12 key indicators can be accessed from the map side panel. You can select any of the indicators to view a choropleth map layer showing the risks around the world for each indicator. The indicators include risks such as access to water, drought severity and groundwater stress.

You can learn more about the water risks facing a particluar area by clicking on the interactive map. Selecting a location on the map in this way will open an information window containing a breakdown of the water risks faced by your chosen location. This information includes a rating of the overall water risk and the projected risks for the area selected.

US Training of Foreign Armies

The Intercept has been investigating how every year the United States trains around 200,000 members of foreign police forces and armies around the world. Using data from diplomatic cables that were released by WikiLeaks the Intercept has examined where and how U.S. defense agencies, civilian agencies, armed forces colleges, defense training centers, military units, private companies, and NGOs have been involved in training police forces and armies from more than 120 countries.

The Network investigation is accompanied by an interactive map which shows the training links between U.S. agencies and foreign forces. The map does a really good job of illustrating the huge scale and range of this U.S. training. However, because of the huge amount of data on the map, it is a little difficult to pick out and explore the individual training connections displayed on the map.

The map is crying out for some filtering options which would allow you to explore the data a little more effectively. For example a country filter would help to give a better overview of the training of the police and armed forces of individual countries.

This is the Cleveland Map

Having posted about a terrible map with some great content earlier today I think it's time to balance things out with a great map which has little content.

This is Cleveland has released a really beautiful custom designed interactive map of Cleveland. It isn't strictly true to say that the Cleveland Map doesn't have any content. Like all great maps it does include a lot of information on the base map. However, unlike most other interactive maps, it has no data layers overlaid on top of the base map tiles.

If you zoom in on Downtown Cleveland on the map you should easily be able to find local points of interest. In particluar the most well known venues and landmarks in the neighborhood are picked out on the map with some gorgeous pictorial representations.

This is Cleveland say they will soon be adding this level of detail on the map to other neighborhoods in Cleveland. If This is Cleveland add the leaflet-hash plug-in to the map they will then be able to link to specific venues on the map from their local reviews and events content in the main section of the This is Cleveland website.

The custom map itself was designed by Applied Wayfinding.

London's Historical Street View

A huge on-line collection of over 250,000 drawings, paintings and photos of London has been unveiled this week. Collage allows you to view over 250,000 images of London from the collections of the London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery.

That's the good news. The bad news is that it has a really awful interactive map. The London Picture Map allows you to search the Collage image collection by location. Unfortunately the image markers take a while to load onto the map. And, because of the numbered marker clustering system, each time you zoom in on a location on the map you have to wait all over again for the markers to load.

It gets worse ... When you select a marker to view a image rather than show you the picture in an information window or in a separate page element you are redirected to the image's dedicated page on the Collage website. This means that if you want to view another image you have to go back to the map and start the painful process of waiting for the markers to load all over again.

One final warning. Each of the images on Collage has also been ruined by being digitally stamped with a large and ugly 'Collage' watermark.

Explore a 5th Century Ring Fort in 3D

You can now explore a 3d model of an Iron Age ring fort discovered in Öland, Sweden on an Esri map. The Sandby borg ring fort was the site of a violent massacre in the 5th century and is currently being investigated by Swedish archaeologists.

The Esri Insider has a really interesting article on how archaeologists have been using drones (and a dog) to help map the fort, the houses it contained, as well as the violent end of the people who lived there. However if you visit the Sandy borg website you can step back into the past yourself and explore the ring fort on a wonderful 3d map.

The 3d map of the ring fort includes overlays which allow you to view the locations of some of the archaeological discoveries found in the fort and the fort's houses. If you use the links along the bottom of the 3d map you can view where objects have been discovered in 'house 4' and 'house 40'.

The Sandy borg website also has a map showing an aerial view of the whole archaeological site. This map uses categorized markers to show where various types of archaeological artifacts have been found during the team's investigation of the site.

Map Cheats for Pokemon Go - Updated

It is undeniable that the biggest mapping story over the last couple of weeks has been the huge success of Pokemon Go. In light of this success lots of interactive maps are popping up promising to show you the locations of Pokemon characters, gyms and PokeStops.

Most of these maps appear to use crowd-sourcing to collect the data from Niantic Labs and Nintendo's 'augmented reality' mobile game. The quality of the data on the crowd-sourced maps are always going to depend on the number of active users and people submitting locations to the maps.


If you don't want to rely on the power of the crowd then you should use the PokeVision map. PokeVision does not use crowd-sourcing to find nearby locations of Pokemon. It actually shows you the location of all the Pokemon near you in real-time. Each Pokemon shown on the map also includes a timer which displays how long the Pokemon will remain at that location.

PokeVision uses the Niantic API to find the locations of Pokemon near your location in real-time. I presume this is an undocumented API (and therefore could be against the Pokemon Go TOS). It is possible therefore that PokeVision might stop working - if Niantic get upset with PokeVision or make changes to their internal API.

In terms of aesthetics all the crowd-sourced maps (bar one) appear to be very basic in design - presumably in the general rush to get to the market. Pokecrew seems to be the only third-party Pokemon map to have given much thought to the design of the map. In fact it uses very nicely designed custom map markers, which feature images of the Pokemon characters.

PokeMapper does seem to have at least made a half-hearted effort to copy the general colors of the PokemonGo map tiles - but really hasn't got the colors right. If anyone is interested in creating map-tiles in the same style as Pokemon Go they could do worse than to have a look at Mapbox's Design Your Own Pokemon Go Map.

This Mapbox blog post provides a little example of a Pokemon Go themed map created using Mapbox Studio. The example map even lets you fly a small bat around the world on the map.

Here are some more crowd-sourced maps showing the locations of Pokemon Go characters:

PokeGoWorld
Where are the Pokemon?
Poke Radar
Pokemon GO World Map

Leeds is Revolting

The Leeds Riot Map 1643 - 2002 is a story map exploring the locations and causes of the many riots that the Yorkshire city of Leeds has experienced over the years.

The map provides a fascinating account of social unrest in the city over the centuries and includes links to learn more about each riot on the Ford-Maguire Society of Leeds website. The map also happens to be a neat demonstration of the Storymap plug-in for Leaflet.js.

Storymap provides a template for creating story maps with the popular Leaflet mapping library. It allows developers to create an interactive map which reacts as users scroll through the accompanying text (story). As the user scrolls down through the content, map interactions, such as zooming, panning and marker placement, can be fired by the user's progression through the accompanying text. The relevant sections within the text can also be highlighted in the text container / div element.

The Storymap plug-in also requires jQuery and Underscore.js (and obviously Leaflet.js)

Songs About Canada

Everybody knows that Canada rocks and now, thanks to a new interactive map, we know where it rocks.

Canadian Geographic: On the Coast is a map featuring Canadian locations that are mentioned in song lyrics. The map is inspired by the On the Coast radio program's Canadian Geographic feature. In this regular section of the show listeners are asked to send in the names of songs mentioning locations in Canada.

Thanks to this On the Coast interactive you can also now find the locations on a map. What's more, if you click on the map markers, you can also listen to the songs.


If you don't live in Canada there is no reason to feel left out. In fact you can find songs about your city on Spotimap.

Spotimap is a CartoDB generated map featuring songs about cities around the world. Click on any city's musical note shaped marker on the map and you can view a list of songs about the selected city. What's more, if you select any of the songs from the displayed list, you can listen to the song on Spotify.

The map currently lists 7,684 songs about 212 cities around the world.


If your town isn't covered in the On the Coast map or the Spotimap then you are in luck - because Johnny Cash has been everywhere.

Johnny Cash Has Been EVERYWHERE (Man)! maps out all the locations mentioned in Johnny Cash's version of the Geoff Mack song 'I've Been Everywhere'. The map actually plays the Johnny Cash song while at the same time displaying the lyrics and dropping markers on all the 91 locations mentioned in the song. A running total also keeps track of the number of kilometers covered in Cash's journey to everywhere.

Mapping Gun Violence in Rio

Amnesty International in Brazil has released an interactive map to crowd-source incidents of gun violence in Rio de Janeiro. There have been more than 570 gunfights in the city already this year. However, with the police themselves responsible for one in five killings in the state of Rio last year, accurate official statistics on gun violence are hard to get.

The Fogo Cruzado map allows anyone in Rio to report incidents of gun violence, whether carried out by gangs or by the police. As well as the crowd-sourced data the map includes incidents of armed attacks reported by the press and official police and government data.

The map is a custom styled Google Map with beautifully deigned markers. These markers are categorized to show gun violence incidents with fatalities, with injuries and victimless incidents. The map also uses numbered clustered markers to show where more than one incident has occurred. If you zoom in on these locations the individual incidents are then revealed.

The 2016 Terrorist Attacks Map

Nearly 8,000 people have died so far in 2016 from terrorist attacks. If you watch the news in the 'developed' world you might be under the impression that most deaths from terrorism occur in the West. However Esri's new 2016 Terrorist Attacks map clearly shows that the Middle East and Northern & Central Africa are the areas worst affected by terrorism.

The 2016 Terrorist Attacks map shows all the terrorist attacks around the world that have occurred so far this year. The map uses data from Wikipedia's List of Terrorist Incidents 2016. The map sidebar lists all the attacks in reverse chronological order (with the most recent at the top). The map shows the location of each attack with colored circular markers. The scale of the markers reflects the number of fatalities from each attack. The color indicates the terrorist group responsible for the attack.

The 'Help' section includes a brief description of each of the terrorist groups involved in the terrorist attacks displayed on the map.

Mapping the High Plains Aquifer

Thirty percent of water used to irrigate U.S. agriculture comes from the High Plains Aquifer. Unfortunately much of the aquifer is in decline.

The High Plains Aquifer underlies eight U.S. states. National Geographic's A Vanishing Aquifer: What Happens When the Water Runs Out illustrates the situation of the aquifer under each of these states with an interactive map.

As you scroll through A Vanishing Aquifer the map automatically updates. Page scrolling is used to zoom into the map, add overlays & map labels and to highlight areas on the map. The article also uses cascading page elements to switch between the article text, charts, illustrations and the interactive map.

The map itself is custom made by National Geographic. However it is possible to replicate the scrolling map interactions used in the article with most of the popular mapping libraries. Users of CARTO (previously CartoDB) can use Odyssey.js. Esri has Story Maps and, if you like Mapbox, you can use the fly to a location based on scroll position demo in the Mapbox Examples.

Food Insecurity & Climate Change

The UK's Met Office and the World Food Programme have released an interactive map which explores food insecurity around the world under different climate change models. The map examines how food insecurity in developing countries could be affected by greenhouse gas emissions and how adaptation to climate change might also affect food insecurity.

The Food Insecurity & Climate Change Map allows you to select different levels of future global greenhouse gas emissions and/or the levels of adaptation to climate change. It then shows how these different scenarios could affect food insecurity in developing countries around the world. There are three different scenarios of future global greenhouse gas emissions which you can choose from, and three different scenarios of climate change adaptation levels.

The map allows you to view the predicted impact of your selected scenario on future food insecurity for both 2050 and 2080.

The Sikh Soldier Map

The Empire, Faith & War project is mapping the contributions of Sikh soldiers in the First World War. Sikhs soldiers made up more than 20% of the British Indian Army at the outbreak of the war and played a significant part in the victory of the Allied forces.

The Empire, Faith & War: Soldier Map displays the records of approximately 8,000 Sikh soldiers. Individual Sikh soldiers have been placed on the map at the location of their place of birth. If you select a marker on the map you can view the individual soldier's name, rank & regiment and details about where they served and details of when and when they died.

Where more information is known about the soldier the record may also include a link to a story page, which might include photos and more information about the soldier's life.

History Maps of the Week

Mapping Gettysburg is an interactive map about the most decisive battle in the American Civil War. The map allows you to learn more about this important event in American history through eyewitness accounts, original photographs and views of the site as it is today.

At the heart of Mapping Gettysburg is a vintage map of the battlefield from the Library of Congress. This map of the 'Field of Gettysburg' was made soon after the battle and shows "the movements of the respective armies ... compiled from the personal observation of eye-witnesses of the several battles".

Overlaid on this vintage map of the battlefield are markers which allow you to browse photographs of some of the soldiers who fell in the battle, letters and diaries from some of the soldiers, historic photos of the battlefield and modern views of Gettysburg National Park.


The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews has released a fascinating interactive map exploring the plight of the city's Jews under Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

The Right Address: Hiding Jews in Occupied Warsaw tells the stories of Warsaw citizens who helped the Jews during World War II. The main navigation method used to access the stories is a vintage map of the city which allows you to select these stories by neighborhood.

Pick a neighborhood from the main map and you can view a close-up of the neighborhood. This map includes the choice to view a modern map of the city overlaid on top of the vintage map. Each neighborhood map includes a description of the neighborhood in the 1940's and a brief account of Nazi activity in the area. It also includes accounts of how individual Jews and families were sheltered by non-Jewish citizens at addresses throughout the selected neigborhood.


In 1840 Greene Street, with 14 brothels, was the center of New York City's sex industry. Since then the street has gone through many changes.

You can learn more about the long and ever changing history of Greene Street on A Long History of a Short Block by the NYU Development Research Institute. This multi-media interactive uses vintage maps, historical photographs, videos and sound to recount the many changes that Greene Street has undergone in its varied history.

You can view many of the vintage maps featured in A Long History of a Short Block by jumping straight to the 'Maps' section from the main menu. However, if you proceed through the chapters chronologically, you can view the maps embedded within the street's historical narrative. These embedded maps also include map markers, featuring historical information about Greene Street and its wider neighborhood.

The Antipodes Maps

If you could tunnel straight through the Earth from Christchurch in New Zealand you would eventually emerge in A Coruña, Spain. If you started in Hong Kong you could conceivably burrow your way to La Quiaca in Argentina.

Because around 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by the sea there are not that many populated locations that have populated antipodes. Wikipedia has a useful list of cities with exact (or almost exact) antipodes. It also lists cities within 100 km of having another city as an antipode.

If you want to know where you would end up if you tunneled directly through the Earth then you can use Darren Wien's Anitpode Map. This map includes two Mapbox maps - one reversed and overlaid on top of the other. If you center the map on your location you can therefore see exactly where your antipode is on the other map.

The Antipode Map uses WebGL. If you don't have a WebGL enabled browser you can find your antipode on Darren's non-WebGL Antipode Map.

Mapping Life in Syria

The situation in Syria remains desperate, particular for ordinary Syrians. A lack of food, safe drinking water and basic health care are affecting huge numbers. The situation is also deteriorating in terms of access to shelter and access to education.

You can learn more about the problems Syrians are facing in this story map examining the findings of the ACU's Dynamic Monitoring Report No. 5. The Assistance Coordination Unit is an aid organisation dedicated to helping Syrians 'without discrimination regardless of gender, race, religion or political beliefs'. The Dynamo map plots the situation facing Syrians in a total of 94 districts, in a number of areas related to quality of life and health.

The Dynamo story map presents a number of choropleth maps which present the state of the health sector, food security, education, drinking water and shelter in each of the 94 different districts.

London at Night

A few days ago I was admiring NASA's amazing Paris at Night satellite image and hoping that someone would make an interactive map from the picture. I can't actually link to a map of Paris at Night yet but I can go one better with a map of London at Night.

This aerial view of London at night is not better because it is London but because it is actually a higher resolution image than the Paris by Night image. Emu Analytic's Night and Day in London is an interactive map of London using aerial photography from the Environment Agency and, because the imagery was captured from aircraft rather than from space, it shows much more detail on the ground.

The Night and Day in London map allows you to swipe between the Environment Agency's night view of London and Here Map's day time aerial imagery of the city. This allows you to easily find your favorite locations in London on the day time map and then swipe to examine how they look at night. The night time map is detailed enough to be able to pick out individual landmarks such as the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral.