Play Destination X

Have you ever dreamed of playing GeoGuessr in real life? Well, hold on to your hats, because the new reality show Destination X (airing in the US and the UK) is an interactive geoguessing game that you can actually play yourself - right from your own home.

In Destination X, contestants are whisked away on a bus with blacked-out windows, dropped at secret locations across Europe, and challenged to solve cryptic clues to figure out exactly where they are. It’s part travel adventure, part mystery, and part geography challenge - and here’s the best bit: you can join in online.

The Destination X Game lets you play along in real time. You’ll tackle geography quiz questions, and with every correct answer, your guessing area on an interactive map shrinks by 100 kilometers. Then, you’ll get a GeoGuessr-style photo clue of a famous European landmark. Identify it, and your search zone narrows again.

A new Destination X Game is released for each episode, challenging you to identify that episode’s location. If you play while an episode airs, you can even earn a special “LIVE” badge by finding the location before the contestants do.

To play Destination X, you’ll need to sign in to the BBC’s iPlayer - so you must be a UK TV licence payer to play.

I think it also helps to watch the show while playing. I tried the game without having seen the episode, and although I answered every quiz question correctly and identified the landmark, my guessing circle still covered half of Europe. Without the extra context from the show itself, it was virtually impossible to pinpoint last night's location. Presumably if I had watched the show I would have had many more clues to help me in my quest.

The Global Movie Map

Over the years, there have been a number of interactive maps that have plotted movies and TV shows based on where they were shot or set. There have also been several attempts to map novels by their settings.

StoryTerra takes this idea further - it maps movies, television dramas, and novels all in one place!

Zoom in on any location in the world on StoryTerra, and you can discover which movies and novels take place there. Thanks to a hierarchical location system (e.g., Paris → Île-de-France → France), you can explore at any scale, from a single city to an entire country. Each novel or movie set in the selected location appears as a color-coded card in the map sidebar, and you can click on these cards to read a synopsis of the selected title.

StoryTerra also has a powerful timeline feature. This allows you to filter results by centuries, decades, or even individual years. Whether you’re curious about ancient China or 1940s France, you can see exactly which stories align with that period. (Note: items appear to be mapped according to the date when they are set, rather than when they were written or released.)

The data for the map comes from publicly available datasets of books, movies, and TV shows. However, each item had to be manually checked for its setting and time period. Currently, there are just over 100,000 mapped items. Because of this careful curation process, some popular titles may not appear on the map.

For example, clicking on Brighton, UK, brings up around 40 results - a fair number. However, I can think of three classic movies set in Brighton, and one of them is missing. While StoryTerra includes Brighton Rock and Genevieve, the iconic Quadrophenia is absent from the map’s list of Brighton-based stories.

Although StoryTerra does not give a definitive list of TV shows, movies or novels set in a chosen location it does normally provide a reasonable selection of results. For me, that’s enough. When I travel, I enjoy reading novels set in my destination (both before and during the trip). I can definitely see myself using StoryTerra before visiting a new location to find movies to watch and novels to read that will help me connect with my holiday destination.

Zero Chance of Rain on Mars Today

It’s currently a rather brisk -31 °C at Syrtis Major on Mars. Despite the chill, there’s only a light northerly wind of around 5 km/h. However, if you’re driving on Mars today, you might want to be cautious - visibility is extremely low!

This weather report is brought to you by the Mars Explorer Weather Map, NASA’s new dashboard for visualizing atmospheric conditions on Mars.

Since the release of Hint.fm’s Wind Map in 2012, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing animated flow lines depicting real-time weather on Earth. Still, that doesn’t make it any less awe-inspiring to watch wind patterns sweeping across Mars. It’s Mars, for crying out loud!

Before you get too carried away, though, keep in mind that the PSG Mars map is not a real-time weather map. It’s actually a simulation of Martian conditions based on past climate data. Even so, it’s still absolutely incredible.

America’s Carnegie Libraries on One Map

Few philanthropic endeavors have left as enduring a mark on American culture as Andrew Carnegie’s library-building mission. During his lifetime, the Scottish-American steel magnate funded the construction of 2,509 public libraries worldwide, including 1,681 in the United States. Today, you can explore these historic institutions through the Carnegie Libraries Mapping Project interactive map.

Launched by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the map visualizes nearly 1,700 U.S. libraries, drawing from a definitive 1963 study by Florence Anderson. Clicking on a library’s marker reveals key details, such as the amount Carnegie donated and the year of the donation. Many entries also feature a "Share Your Story" button, inviting users to contribute photos and personal memories of these community landmarks.

For architecture enthusiasts, the project offers a "Tile View" alongside the standard map. This layout displays libraries in a gallery format, making it easy to browse portraits of each building (where available) alongside their donation details.

The Carnegie Libraries Of Britain, maintained by the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University has created a map of the 660 Carnegie libraries built in the United Kingdom. This map uses colored markers to indicate the status of each building (purpose built library, never built, conversion of existing building etc).

Each marker on the map reveals information about the selected library and a photo of the building, if it still exists. For demolished / destroyed buildings a map is shown, instead of a photo, visualizing where the building used to stand. 

Which states have the ugliest kids?

LalGeo Maps is an interactive map which allows users to create map visualizations using natural language queries. For example if you type 

"Show US states by population'"

into LalGeo Maps then it will produce a choropleth map of the United States coloring and numbering the states by population size. 

This map comes with a legend that says 

"Data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Accuracy based on official government statistics."

However other visualizations created by LalGeo Maps in my testing come with the warning 

"Data generated by a large language model (LLM). It may be outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate. Use with caution."

This is true even for other visualizations that could be created from Census Data, for example 

"Show me a map of U.S. states by median household income."

Even though census data could have been used by LalGeo Maps to create this visualization the actual map created warns me that the data could be 'outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate'.

Even when the data comes with the 'Data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau', I don't trust the results. For example the result of the query

"Visualize U.S. states by percentage of population over age 65"

is a map supposedly based on U.S. Census data. This map, however, shows California with the highest proportion of its population over 65. A simple check of the Census Bureau Tables reveals this is not remotely true - California has only 15.2% of its population over 65, compared to 21.2% in Florida.

This is obviously the major flaw in using AI to create visualizations. Every use case for a mapped choropleth visualization that I can think requires a verifiable data source, allowing users to assess and evaluate the data collection methodology. Put simply I don't trust the visualizations created by LalGeo Maps - which for me makes its output virtually worthless.

The only possible remaining use of LalGeo Maps is perhaps for joke visualizations, using prompts like 'Create a map of US states by nose size', or 'Show US States by ugliest children'. Even then I would be worried that some users might mistakenly read these maps as factual.

Searching Text in Street View

The Pudding has created an amazing data journalism project that allows you to search New York for any word or combination of words. Called All Text in NYC, it’s a remarkable tool that lets you dive into the city’s written landscape - mined entirely from Google Street View images. From shop signs in Queens to murals in the Bronx, it captures the way language is woven into the physical space of NYC.

Media artist Yufeng Zhao, who built the tool, fed more than 8 million Street View panoramas into a machine learning model that identifies and transcribes visible text. The result is a searchable archive of 138 million snippets of urban lettering - graffiti, storefronts, bumper stickers, menus, flyers, billboards, and more. It turns the city into a giant text document you can explore by keyword. 

You can discover more about the project and explore some of the remarkable textual patterns found in New York by The Pudding on NYC's Urban Textscape. This interactive article not only explains how All Text in NYC works but also explores some of the interesting linguistic clusters, recurring phrases, and neighborhood-specific quirks that emerge from the data - like the use of certain languages in different boroughs, or how slogans like “never forget” or “we deliver” dot the city’s commercial and cultural fabric.

What’s fascinating about this project is that it captures not just what’s written, but where and when it was captured. You can trace the spread of a meme, spot clusters of non-English signage that reveal cultural enclaves, or simply marvel at the quirks of hyperlocal advertising.

For example, I searched Urban Textscape for the words Google Maps and in a neat piece of meta discovery, I found a Street View image of the Google Maps Street View car itself. It’s a strange, self-reflective loop: using a tool built from Street View to find a photo of the very car that made All Text in NYC possible. Urban Textscape is full of these surprising moments that blend technology, city life, and storytelling.

This isn’t just a fun distraction - though it definitely is fun. It’s also a powerful reminder that cities speak. The signs we put up, the slogans we repeat, the language we choose - it all forms part of our urban landscape.

Whether you’re a linguist, a data nerd, a city lover, or just curious, it’s worth diving in and seeing what words you can find in New York’s ever-changing textual landscape.

The Ultimate Tube Challenge

Due to the demise of Glitch, I’ve recently moved several of my map projects over to GitHub. In the process of migrating my map memory game - Tube Recall - I decided it was the perfect time to give the game a complete redesign..

🎮 What is Tube Recall?

Tube Recall is a fast-paced, memory-testing game where your goal is simple: name as many London Underground stations as you can. There are 269 stations to name in total, spread across 11 different Tube lines.

🚧 What Has Changed

The biggest change in the redesign of Tube Recall is the switch from Leaflet to MapLibre. This move has allowed me to use customized OpenFreeMap tiles with most map labels turned off. The result is a clean, minimal street map - with no textual clues to help identify the Tube stations. MapLibre’s powerful expression support means I can now dynamically reveal station names on the map only when they’re correctly guessed. 

🎯 Give It a Try!

Whether you're a die-hard Londoner, a transit geek, or just love a good map-based challenge, Tube Recall is the perfect way to test your knowledge and have fun in the process. The game now works beautifully on mobile, so you can even play it while riding the Tube.

👉 Play Tube Recall now and see how many stations you can remember!

When is Pothole Season?

Uptown News has mapped pothole reports made to San Diego's “Get It Done” service system, revealing that January to April is pothole season. By analyzing when pothole repair requests are submitted throughout the year, the newspaper demonstrates a sharp increase in reports during the months of January, February, March, and April compared to the rest of the year.

Admittedly, the animated timeline in the Uptown San Diego Potholes map does most of the narrative work - at least in terms of showing when potholes spike - but it’s still fascinating to watch the map unveil these underlying temporal patterns in how potholes appear on San Diego’s roads.

Curiously, the accompanying article in Uptown News shows little interest in exploring why January through April marks pothole season in San Diego. So, I turned to ChatGPT, which explains:

“San Diego’s January–April pothole surge is primarily driven by rainfall and water infiltration, rather than harsh freeze–thaw cycles (which are minimal in this region).”

I don’t have enough local knowledge to determine whether the map reveals any meaningful geographic trends in pothole distribution across the city. Uptown News also appears just as uninterested in exploring spatial patterns as it is in explaining the seasonality behind San Diego’s potholes. A 2022 article in Uptown News did anecdotally note potholes on “city-maintained freeway entrances and exits.” It would be interesting to use the mapped data to test whether potholes are indeed more common near freeway on-and-off-ramps compared to other roads and road segments.

GeoGuessr for Photos

MapaPhoto

In my never-ending quest to find alternatives to GeoGuessr, I want to like MapaPhoto - however, this latest 'geoguessing' game has just one too many annoying quirks to satisfy my wanderlust.

MapaPhoto’s basic game concept is solid. If you’ve ever played GeoGuessr or any of its many imitators, you’ll be familiar with the idea: identify the location shown in a given image by clicking on a map. Points are then awarded based on how close your guess is to the correct location.

So far, so good.

But this brings me to my gripes with MapaPhoto.

This first one might be a personal bugbear, and maybe it won’t bother you - but it really bothers me that MapaPhoto requires you to press Ctrl to zoom in and out on the map. I’m racing against the clock here - don’t make me mess around with awkward key combinations!

Another frustration is that the game never seems to reveal the actual location in a photo. When you get close enough, your marker turns green to show you're in the right area - but the game never confirms exactly where the photo was taken. FFS, just tell me where I was supposed to click!

My final and perhaps biggest complaint: although MapaPhoto uses the Google Maps API, it doesn't include Street View. That seems like such an obvious feature for a visual game about real-world locations. Even if you don’t want players using Street View to search for the photo’s location (which might feel too much like GeoGuessr), you could at least reward correct guesses by showing the same view in Street View side-by-side with the original photo.

Despite these frustrations, MapaPhoto is still a fun game to play. If you're a fan of GeoGuessr, then MapaPhoto is definitely worth a try. The core idea is engaging, and with just a few improvements, it could become yet another strong contender in the geoguessing genre.

Time Travel Maps

If I were President of the World every major city would be required to create a 3D city map documenting the city for every year of its history. Unfortunately I am not yet the global overlord so my dreams of virtual time-travel go largely unfulfilled.

But in Zurich, I can get close.

Zurich Time Travel is an impressive 3D interactive map that reconstructs the city’s architectural evolution from 1850 to the present. Built using open city data and historical maps it lets you scroll through time, and observe how the city's medieval alleys have given way to grand boulevards and modern skyscrapers.

Using the map's timeline you can witness the growth of Zurich, from a compact, walled city hugging the Limmat River to the modern sprawling metropolis it is today.

You can explore even further back in time on the Zurich 4D interactive map. This map includes digital 3D models of the city in 3000 BC, in the year 200, in 1500 and in 1800 - providing a fascinating insight into how the city of Zurich has developed over time.

If you closely explore the ancient 3000 BC model of Zurich you might be able to spot a few Neolithic stilt houses nestled among the trees. The 3D model of the city in 1800 shows a city which is still largely confined within its medieval city walls. Skip forward to view the 3D model of the modern city and it is now hard to even discern the location of the historic city walls amongst the modern sprawl of Zurich. 

In the USA, the Welikia Project lets you travel back in time to explore New York’s natural landscape before the arrival of Dutch settlers. This interactive map reconstructs Manhattan Island as it existed pre-1600, revealing its original ecosystems - rolling hills, dense forests, sprawling wetlands, salt marshes, and a network of streams and ponds.

To create this digital time capsule, researchers combined early historical maps, soil surveys, and tree-ring analysis with firsthand accounts from colonial-era records. These sources helped piece together an accurate portrait of the island’s lost wilderness - long before skyscrapers and paved streets transformed the city forever.

How Hazardous is Your Town?

Now that all links to FEMA’s National Risk Index appear to have been purged by the Trump administration, you might want to bookmark CartoGuophy’s United States of Rising Hazards map instead.

Before it was removed by the Republicans, FEMA’s National Risk Index map provided detailed information about the risk from 18 different natural hazards across the United States. For example, if you were thinking of sending your kids to summer camp, you could click on the map to check the flood risk in that area. In fact, the map allowed you to see which counties were most at risk from each of the 18 natural hazards nationwide.

Although the Trump administration has taken down the National Risk Index from FEMA’s website, you can still explore these risks using the United States of Rising Hazards map. Click on your home on the map, and you'll see your FEMA-based risk scores for all 18 hazards, as calculated from the original National Risk Index (NRI) dataset.

The map also includes layer filters that let you view the relative risk levels of the 18 natural hazards across the U.S. Each hazard is assigned a unique color, and the intensity (or transparency) of that color indicates the level of risk: brighter, more opaque colors signal higher risk, while fainter, more transparent colors indicate lower risk.

The Global News Map

Over the years, there have been many attempts to map the news. With the advent of AI and its ability to automatically detect locations mentioned in news articles, we're now seeing a resurgence in News Maps.

The latest of these is Needle, which uses a large language model (LLM) to "best estimate general locations of stories posted in the past day, and pin them on the map." Using the map, you can zoom in on any location in the world to explore the latest news. According to Needle's 'About' page each story location is determined based on a hierarchy: if a specific place is mentioned, the story is pinned there; if only a city is named, the pin is placed randomly within city limits; and if only a country or region is referenced, it's placed somewhere within that broader area. However, as the creators note, AI isn't perfect - so a story’s location on the map doesn’t always mean it’s truly tied to that place.

One major drawback of Needle at the moment is its limited range of news sources. The creator notes that the map is currently "limited to mostly Canadian sources of news." This is especially apparent in places like London, where today's top stories include how King Charles misses Canada and how a Canadian female soccer player has signed with a London team.

However, there is a filter option to select news sources by the "United States" - so if you're American, you may be able to sidestep the map’s Canadian bias. Needle is also looking to expand its news source database and anyone can suggest new sources by emailing Needle.

Other filter options allow users to refine the stories shown on Needle by category, including Politics, Sports, Business & Economy, Technology, and Environment & Climate.

Creating Quick Maps for Free

This morning I was asked by an acquaintance if I could create a quick map of Mar-a-Lago featuring a number of red markers. The image above is the result. As no money was paid for this map feel free to reproduce it and share it on social media with no accreditation.

The budget for this project was zero.

To be honest there is nothing particularly exciting about the map - but I thought it might be worth explaining how I created a map at speed for a friend - and for no cost (except for 30 minutes of my time)! 

If you're looking to build an interactive map without relying on expensive APIs or proprietary platforms, MapLibre GL JS and OpenFreeMap offer a powerful, fully open-source solution. For this project, I created a full-screen, 3D-tilted map with custom markers and at no cost. Here is how:

🔧 Tools Used

MapLibre GL JS - A community-driven fork of Mapbox GL JS, free and open-source.

OpenFreeMap - A source for free vector tile styles, ideal for high-performance custom maps.

Bing AI Image Creator - Used to design a unique marker icon using generative AI, completely free.

🧭 The Map

Using MapLibre, I initialized a map with the following features:

• Full-screen display with no padding or scrollbars
• A camera tilt (pitch: 60) and rotation (bearing: 270) to give a dramatic 3D effect
• High zoom level (zoom: 19) for street-level detail
• Free Liberty-style vector tiles from OpenFreeMap

📍 Custom Marker with AI-Generated Image

Instead of using the default pin the client wanted a map marker that resembled markers used by certain crime maps. I created a custom marker using an AI-generated image from Bing Image Creator. 

🧪 Try It Yourself

All it takes is a single HTML file and a bit of CSS and JavaScript. Whether you're building a store locator, historical map, or data visualization, this stack gives you full control - without vendor lock-in or usage limits.

And feel free to share the Mar-a-Lago map above anywhere you want.

The Map of Nazi Camps & Ghettos

The USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos is an interactive map documenting camps, ghettos, and Nazi-run sites of persecution across Europe and North Africa. This powerful digital tool brings to life one of the most staggering realities of the Holocaust: the sheer number and geographic reach of sites where millions were imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered between 1933 and 1945.

Created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) as part of its Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, the map is more than a visual aid - it's an evolving historical archive. Each marker on the map represents a documented location: a forced-labor camp, concentration camp, Jewish ghetto, prisoner-of-war camp, brothel, transit site, or killing center. Collectively, they reveal a complex and extensive infrastructure of Nazi persecution, far beyond the most infamous locations like Auschwitz or Dachau. 

The map plots more than 44,000 sites of incarceration, oppression, and forced labor. Each entry is backed by meticulous archival research and, where available, includes: operational dates, controlling authorities, victim demographics, purpose and conditions, survivor testimonies or photographs, and references to related encyclopedia entries.

The density of locations throughout Europe underscores how visible and widespread the Nazi terror was.

A Clearer View of Darkness

Light pollution maps typically use satellite data from NOAA’s VIIRS to visualize levels of light pollution around the world. Some maps, like Light Pollution Map, also allow users to click on different locations to view detailed information - such as light pollution levels using the Bortle Dark Sky Scale.

My favorite dark sky map is actually the (identically named) Light Pollution Map. I like this map because it explains light pollution levels in clear, easily understood layman's terms. For example, where I live, the map tells me that the: “Entire sky is brightened. No Milky Way visible; only the brightest constellations can be recognized.” The Light Pollution Map not only displays the Bortle Scale for any location, but also does a great job of describing what you can realistically expect to see in the night sky.

Both maps use satellite data from NOAA’s VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite). VIIRS is a sensor aboard weather satellites that captures low-light imagery of the Earth at night. It’s one of the most reliable tools for measuring artificial light emissions globally and is widely used in scientific studies of light pollution.

I Traveled the World Through Trending Videos

If you’ve ever wondered what’s capturing the attention of YouTube viewers in Brazil, Japan, or South Africa at this very moment, Trending Videos is a great place to start. This new web tool uses a 3D globe interface to deliver a geographic window into YouTube’s trending content across the world.

The interactive globe allows users to spin, zoom, and click on any country to instantly access the top trending videos in that region. Once a country is selected, a curated list of YouTube's most popular current videos is displayed, with direct links for instant viewing. 

You can also refine your exploration by selecting from various categories, including Music, Sports, Gaming, and more - making it easy to see how different types of content resonate across different countries. Want to see what's hot in sports in Japan? Or perhaps the latest music sensations dominating the charts in Brazil? Maybe you're keen to explore the top gaming videos in Germany? Trending Videos has you covered!

The Death of Local News

One in three U.S. counties now has no full-time local journalist - a staggering 75% decline over the past 23 years. This collapse means communities across the country lack "even one full-time reporter to cover all of the schools, the town councils, the economic development projects, basketball games, environmental decisions, local businesses, and local events."

To document this crisis, Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack partnered to create the Local Journalist Index 2025, which maps journalist staffing in every U.S. county. The report analyzes data from over 100,000 journalists and 3.5 million daily articles tracked by Muck Rack’s platform, using a metric called "local journalist equivalents" (LJEs) to account for part-time and freelance work.

An interactive map in the report reveals the stark, nationwide scale of the decline. The erosion of local news isn’t confined to specific regions - it’s a universal crisis. As the report notes, the "evaporation of local news coverage has hit small towns and big cities, suburbs and rural areas alike."

You can explore which counties are most likely to become local news deserts on an interactive map developed by the Medill Local News Initiative. The Local News Barometer and Watch List maps the US counties which have a more than 40% chance of becoming news deserts within the next five years. 

These at-risk counties are not just underserved - they are, on average, poorer, older, and less educated than even existing news deserts. If you select a state from the map sidebar then the Watchlist will update to show all the counties in the selected state in the most danger of becoming news deserts. 

This map’s most sobering takeaway is that America is increasingly becoming two nations when it comes to local news: one with abundant access in affluent, urbanized regions, and another without. The consequences are profound. Research shows that communities without local news experience lower civic engagement, less voter participation, and weaker accountability in public institutions.

A Time Machine for Maps

World History Atlas is an impressively detailed, time-traveling cartographic project that lets users explore the ever-shifting borders of human civilization. Covering thousands of years of global history, this interactive map platform provides a deep spatial context to the rise and fall of empires, nations, and cultures.

Think of it as a Google Maps for world history - except instead of zooming into street view, you're diving through millennia. 

The core of the World History Atlas is its sweeping collection of political maps, spanning from prehistoric hunter-gatherer bands to the modern nation-state system. The site is organized chronologically, allowing you to select a time period (e.g., 3000 BC, 500 AD, 1500 AD) and instantly see who ruled what, where - and for how long. Each map offers a color-coded look at the political boundaries of the time, with tooltips and links that provide more information on historical states, tribes, and empires.

The World History Atlas echoes a number of other historical map projects that are dedicated to mapping the shifting political borders of countries through time - like Chronas, the OpenHistoricalMap, or TimeMap.

Institute for Men Says Women Are Underpaid

The American Institute for Boys and Men has released an interactive map highlighting the declining percentage of men in college enrollment and graduation. But the most striking revelation isn’t the gender gap in enrollment and graduation but the persistent earnings gap that follows. That's right - despite women being more likely to enroll in and graduate from college, they are far more likely to earn less than their male peers six years after starting college.

Men in higher education: A national data tool uses an interactive map to compare male and female metrics - including acceptance rates, enrollment, and graduation - across U.S. higher education institutions. As the Institute notes, “male college enrollment has stagnated, while the female share continues to rise.”

What is also shown by the map is that in 67.7% of the colleges in the dataset, men earned more than women six years after enrollment. There are exceptions, such as Adelphi University (where women earn $71,401 vs. men’s $60,751), Bentley University ($94,778 vs. $92,944), and Daemen University ($70,586 vs. $61,133). However, some disparities are staggering - like Cooper Union, where women earn $24,423 compared to men’s $64,824, or Brigham Young University, where women make $39,962 versus men’s $83,404.

These figures underscore a harsh reality: women are very likely to experience systemic pay inequity in the workplace after graduating from college.

How Big is it Really?

the outline of Central Park overlaid on San Francisco

GeoSize Compare Pro is a highly useful map utility for visualizing and comparing geographic areas by drawing custom shapes and overlaying them on different map views. For example, the map above shows the outline of New York's Central Park overlaid onto a map of San Francisco.

How It Works:

1. Select the "Measure distances" (📏) button and trace the outline of your area on the map.
2. After completing the shape click "Compare" to lock it in place.
3. In comparison mode, the shape stays centered as you pan the map, making it easy to compare sizes across locations.

Additional Features:

The "Measure distances" tool lets you calculate real-world distances between points - helpful for route planning (e.g., estimating walking or cycling distances).

Pro Tip:

When drawing shapes, ensure you close the polygon by clicking the first marker again and use at least 3 points for valid comparisons.

moving Alaska to the heartland of the US

If you prefer not to draw shapes manually, the ever popular The True Size Of ... offers a different approach. This map lets you select predefined country or state outlines and drag them onto other regions to compare their true sizes.

Unlike GeoSize Compare Pro, which focuses on custom shapes, The True Size Of... emphasizes preloaded geographic data, making it ideal for quick comparisons of well-known borders. For instance, you could overlay Alaska onto Brazil to see how they stack up without Mercator projection distortions. 

The Daily MapGame Challenge

It has been a while since Maps Mania featured a new daily map game (see The 12 Best Daily Map Games) - so may I introduce to you the MapGame!

MapGame is a daily brain teaser that challenges you to identify a mystery country on a map using the fewest number of clues. With each incorrect guess, you unlock a new hint — nudging you closer to the answer through geographical and directional clues.

The brilliance of MapGame lies in how it rewards not just accuracy, but strategy. You score points based on how quickly you solve the mystery, how few hints you need, and how well your guesses align with the clues. It's not enough to be right — you also have to be thoughtful.

Aside from the joy of solving each day's challenge, what keeps players coming back to MapGame are the detailed stats and the global leaderboard. The stats page records how many games you've played, how many countries you've solved, your current win streak, your best-ever streak, your average score, the average number of hints used, and your average time. The global leaderboard shows how your score ranks against all of today’s players and where you stand in the all-time rankings.

Tour de Street View

Stage 13 in the Pyrenees

Every summer, millions tune in to watch the world’s greatest cycling race snake its way through the heart of France. But watching from a helicopter shot or following time splits only tells part of the story. What if you could experience each stage for yourself - all from the comfort of your own home?

That’s exactly what Map Channels' new interactive Tour de France 2025 map delivers.

This Tour de France map isn’t just another route overview. It’s a fully immersive, animated map where each of the 21 stages of the 2025 Tour de France is brought to life through Google Street View animations. With one click of this map, you're no longer a spectator - you’re rolling through the same roads as the pros.

The official Tour de France website also includes maps of each stage of this year's race. Alongside each official route map you can view a stage profile, the time schedule for the stage and discover what points are on offer.

VisuGPX has also mapped out each stage of the Tour de France. The standout feature of this map is that you can view each stage route animated on a 3D terrain map. This is perfect for previewing those exciting mountain stages and discovering the locations of the biggest and most exciting climbs in each stage.

Routing for Vampires

One of the hardest tasks in navigation and wayfinding is calculating safe routes for vampires. The Damned have a number of unique routing requirements that demand more than just Google Maps in dark mode—chief among them, the need to avoid direct sunlight.

The Department of Computer Science at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences has developed a unique "vampire mode" that allows the undead in Zurich to navigate the city while staying out of the sun. Simply select "vampire mode" and enter two locations, and Routing OSRM Switzerland will suggest routes that prioritize shaded areas.

This new vampire mode may also prove useful for other city dwellers looking to avoid the intense daylight heat during the summer months, helping them navigate Zurich using footpaths that stay in the shade. The concept of providing sun-avoiding walking directions could also be of interest to shadow mapping platforms such as Shade Map and Shadow Map. Their detailed, time-based global shadow data could be ideal for generating personalized walking routes based on the date, time, and position of the sun.

The Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences's 'vampire mode' is made possible by (OSRM). This is a high-performance routing engine designed to calculate fast and flexible routes using OpenStreetMap data. The Open Source Routing Machine is highly customizable, which means it is perfect for tailoring routing behaviour based on different requirements (eg based on wheelchair accessibility or via green spaces).

The Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences' "vampire mode" is powered by the Open Source Routing Machine  (OSRM) - a high-performance routing engine designed to calculate fast and flexible routes using OpenStreetMap data. OSRM is highly customizable, making it ideal for tailoring routing behavior to suit specific needs, such as wheelchair accessibility, routes through green spaces, or (as in vampire mode) avoiding direct sunlight.

Via: weeklyOSM and the Swiss OpenStreetMap Association

Has a Nuke Gone Off?

Not so very long ago - in the days before America became great again -  Has a Nuke Gone Off would have made a nice Friday Fun post. Now it doesn't seem quite so funny. 

Has a Nuke Gone Off is a simple website that does just thing - it monitors a home-built nuclear blast detector to tell you whether a nuclear bomb has exploded. I am happy to report that as of '2025-07-05 05:47:53' no nuclear blast has been detected.

Has a Nuke Gone Off even includes instructions on how to build your own Bhangmeter V2 nuclear blast detector from a Raspberry Pi.

Via: webcurios

If you want to depress yourself further then you can use NUKEMAP to explore the effect that a nuclear bomb might have if dropped on your home. 

For reference - if Iran were to build a nuclear weapon and deploy it on a ballistic missile, the likely warhead yield would be in the range of 10 to 25 kilotons. The image above shows the result of dropping a  25 kilotons bomb on San Francisco. Just enter your own address into the map to simulate the demise of your own neighborhood.

The Map of the Internet

The Internet Infrastructure Map is an interactive visualization of the physical infrastructure of the global internet, built using data from TeleGeography and PeeringDB. It illustrates the growth of the internet over time, from the early days of subsea cable networks right up to the modern day.

The map highlights two core components of the physical internet: undersea cables (represented by lines) and Internet Exchange Points (shown as circles over cities). It's important to note that the map does not show the vast terrestrial fiber networks that deliver the internet to your home (those local cables running under streets and along highways). However, the size of each Internet Exchange Point on the map is scaled relative to its total peering bandwidth, so the map does show the major hubs of connectivity around the world.

A standout feature of the map is its timeline, which allows users to observe the growth of global internet infrastructure over the past 36 years. The animation begins in 1989 with the construction of the Rønne–Rødvig cable in Denmark. Of course, this wasn’t the start of the internet itself - it’s simply the earliest submarine cable included in the dataset used for the project. 1989 was likely chosen as a starting point because it coincides with Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal for the World Wide Web and marks the era when fiber optic technology began to see widespread deployment (including in undersea cables).

Mapping the Revolutionary War

Esri’s Battles of the American Revolutionary War is an interactive StoryMap that visualizes the major battles of the Revolution. This digital tool offers a compelling, user-friendly experience that brings the war’s geography and timeline to life. 

At the heart of the Battles of the American Revolutionary War is its interactive map interface and timeline. Using these features you can view the Revolution battles by location and by date. Whether you're tracking the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord or analyzing the decisive victory at Yorktown, the map provides a clear visual sense of how the war evolved spatially and strategically.

Clicking on any battle's marker on the map reveals a concise summary with essential details - such as the date, participants, and results - alongside a short historical background.

You can view some of the actual original maps from the Revolutionary War on the American Revolution Institute’s Ten Great Revolutionary War Maps. This curated selection of historical maps of the Revolution highlights maps created by American, British, French, and Hessian cartographers - ranging from hastily drawn field plans to meticulously engraved topographical charts. 

One of the most notable examples in this collection is Sebastian Bauman’s map of the Siege of Yorktown, which stands out as the first major battle map designed and published by an American engineer. Others, like William Faden’s depiction of the New Jersey campaign, and Charles Blaskowitz’s survey of Narragansett Bay, show how European-trained professionals contributed to strategic military planning.

The Doomsday Glacier

Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier took thousands of years to form, yet in just the past two decades, its grounding zone, the critical boundary where the glacier meets the seafloor, has receded by over eight miles.

As the widest glacier in Antarctica, Thwaites spans an area comparable to the size of Florida. Its potential collapse could have catastrophic global consequences, significantly raising sea levels worldwide. The Doomsday Glacier, by Lily Peixuan Yu and Yi-Chun Lan, offers a striking scrollytelling experience that examines the glacier’s rapid retreat and the far-reaching implications of its disappearance.

Through satellite imagery, interactive maps, timelines, and 3D models, The Doomsday Glacier transforms complex scientific concepts into an engaging, visually immersive narrative. In particular, the 3D illustration of the glacier’s grounding zone effectively explains how the massive Thwaites Glacier has begun to detach from its underwater anchor. The impact of this detachment is dramatically visualized using animated satellite imagery, showing how the glacier’s ice tongue has begun to break apart.

The Doomsday Glacier succeeds not only as a scientific explanation but as a compelling call to action. It manages to turn complex climate research into a visually interesting and compelling narrative. In doing so, it underscores the power of storytelling in bridging the gap between scientific insight and public awareness.

The Whole of Human History Mapped

The Wikidata History Map is an interactive tool that visualizes historical events from Wikidata on a dynamic world map. By leveraging the vast database of Wikidata the map allows users to explore events ranging from ancient battles and natural disasters to political summits and cultural milestones - providing a unique way to see how history unfolds across time and space. 

Each historical event is represented on the map by an icon corresponding to its type (e.g., battles, earthquakes, treaties), making it easy to identify different categories of historical occurrences at a glance. 

How to Use the Map

Users can navigate the map by entering a specific date or date range (e.g., "1996," "1996 1," or "1996 1 26" for year, month, or day). A duration control adjusts the time span, while a limit control sets how many events appear on-screen. The interface includes buttons to jump to the previous or next time period, making it simple to browse through history chronologically. Hovering over an event marker displays a brief summary, while clicking on it opens a persistent popup with links to the corresponding Wikidata page - where you can also click through to read more about the event on Wikipedia.

Key Features

The map supports a wide variety of event types, each with a distinct icon—such as ⚔️ for battles, 🌋 for volcanic eruptions, and 🎭 for cultural events. Users can filter events by adjusting the date range and zooming into specific regions. The tool also remembers your last view settings, so returning users can pick up where they left off. Additionally, a help menu explains date formatting and navigation controls, making the tool accessible even to first-time users.

The Wikidata History Map joins a long list of interactive mapping projects that are dedicated to mapping the history of the world. Some of these include:

• Chronas is an interactive that map visualizes Wikipedia entries by date and by location and also shows country borders for different dates in history.
• TimeMap.org is an interactive, web‑based “Google Maps of History” created by MapTiler (the team behind OldMapsOnline and MapTiler.com). It allows you to see historical boundaries, country names, rulers, conflicts, and notable figures overlaid on a modern, zoomable map.
• OpenHistoricalMap - a community-driven, open online map project that lets users explore the world through time. This one doesn't map historical events as such - but reveals how cities and countries themselves change through time.