Finding Your Coordinate Twins

Did you know San Francisco shares the same latitude as Fukushima, Japan? Or that Chicago lines up with Rome? These surprising global connections can now be explored with a fun new interactive map that reveals your latitude and longitude twins from across the world!

Introducing LatLon Connect - an interactive tool that lets you discover cities around the globe that sit on the same latitude or longitude as your hometown. Simply enter your location, and the map will display two lines: one horizontal (latitude) and one vertical (longitude). As you explore, you'll see other cities marked with blue pins that share the same coordinates.

What makes the map so fascinating is that cities which share the same latitude can experience vastly different climates! For example, Chicago and Rome may line up on the map, but they’re worlds apart when it comes to weather. According to Wikipedia's List of Cities by Average Temperature, Chicago’s average yearly temperature sits at a chilly 11.3°C (52.4°F), while Rome enjoys a balmy 15.2°C (59.4°F).

Curious to find out which cities share your latitude or longitude? It’s easy to get started with LatLon Connect. Simply enter your hometown or a city of interest, and watch as the map highlights all the places around the globe that are your geographic twins.

If you’re feeling extra adventurous you can also explore where you would end up if you dug straight down through the Earth and popped out on the other side. If LatLon Connect has sparked your curiosity, you’ll love the Antipodes Map. Simply enter your location, and this fun tool will show you what’s directly on the opposite side of the Earth from where you are. 

If you have Transmarine Dreams then you can also discover what locations lie directly beyond the sea from any coastal location around the world. Click on any coastline location on Andy Woodruff's Beyond the Sea interactive map to find all the 'straight-line views' across the ocean (that is - if you ignore the curvature of the Earth and your imperfect vision).  

Mapping Every US Election Since 1840

The Republican Party has won the popular vote in only one Presidential Election in the last 35 years. Since 1989 only George W. Bush (in 2004) has won the popular vote for the Republicans - and in that election Bush benefited from being the incumbent.

A newly released visualization from the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab highlights the dwindling appeal of the Republican Party to most Americans in the 21st Century. The DSL's Electing the President interactive map shows the results of every presidential election since 1840, offering a comprehensive look at the electoral landscape over time. Unlike many historical election maps, Electing the President uniquely integrates the results of the popular vote alongside the electoral college outcomes, providing a more nuanced understanding of voter preferences. This feature allows users to see not only who won the presidency but also how much support they garnered from the general electorate. 

Using the map you can navigate to any US Presidential election and explore both the electoral college winner and the winner of the popular vote. For instance, users can explore how presidential candidates like William Henry Harrison, who defeated Martin Van Buren in 1840 to become the 9th President of the United States (albeit for a tragically brief term of just one month), fared in terms of popular support. By navigating through the years, one can track shifts in political alignment and public sentiment, illustrating the evolving dynamics of American electoral politics and the challenges faced by parties in capturing the collective will of the populace.

Electing the President is the latest addition to the American Panorama project, an ever growing historical atlas of the United States. The project includes a number of popular interactive maps including Mapping Inequality (the history of redlining), and Photogrammar, mapping historical photographs taken between 1935 and 1944.

Mapping the Political Landscape

Waves of Interest is a deep dive into Google search trends during election years. This beautiful data visualization maps out which political topics capture the attention of Americans during US election years. And where!

By using the clever visual metaphor of a topographic map Waves of Interest transforms political interest into an intuitive landscape. The visualization reveals the fall and rise in search interest of 50 different political topics - using isolines to show where in the United States each issue is being most and least searched for on Google. For example, you can watch how interest in immigration has shifted and evolved since 2004 in the animated map above.

Percentage numbers are displayed on the map to indicate the difference in search interest in an area compared to the national average. The homepage of Waves of Interest presents a small multiple visualization of 50 different political topics. On these maps arrow symbols are used to show how much interest in each subject has grown or shrunk since 2020. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly inflation is the issue that has shown the biggest surge in interest since the last U.S. Presidential election. Student loans is the political topic that has fallen the most in terms of search interest since 2020. 

Tracking Satellites in 3D

searching & zooming in on individual satellites

Exploring the Final Frontier with Keep Track

KeepTrack is an innovative platform that allows users to monitor satellites orbiting Earth in real-time. At its core is a 3D interactive map that not only shows you where satellites are at the moment but also provides advanced analytics and visualizations to study their orbits and interactions in space. Using KeepTrack, you can dive into the world of astrodynamics and explore the trajectories of thousands of satellites from the comfort of your own home.

Real-Time Satellite Tracking

One of KeepTrack’s standout features is its real-time orbital tracking. With this, you can follow satellites as they move through space, viewing their paths in beautifully rendered 3D.

You can search for satellites by name using the search ('?') button at the top-right of the screen. Enter the name of an individual satellite, and KeepTrack will automatically zoom in to reveal the 3D model of the selected satellite along with its orbital track around Earth.

KeepTrack visualizes more than 37,000 satellites and debris objects as they orbit the Earth, each of which you can track in real-time. The app offers a vast range of options for tracking and viewing the locations of these satellites, simulating their break-up, and understanding the distribution of satellite space debris.

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