The Street Names of Paris

Le Figaro has been researching the history of street names in Paris. In particular it has examined how many Parisian roads were named for people and which historical periods those people are from. It then colored those roads on a map of Paris to show which historical period is most commemorated in Paris' roads.

In What Paris Street Names Reveal the newspaper says that a total of 2,500 streets in Paris are named for people. Only 15% of these roads are named for people born before 1700. One reason for this is that after the French revolution street names referring to the monarchy or Catholicism were banned. 1700-1850 is the most represented period in French history in the street names of Paris. 56% of streets in Paris named for people are named after figures from this historical period.

Le Figaro discovered that political figures were most likely to be commemorated by having a Paris street named for them. The next most commemorated group are writers, followed by military leaders.


A few years ago Strassenkrieg mapped out all the roads in Berlin named for battles, important military leaders or German army regiments. On this map all the military connected roads are highlighted on the map with colored lines. The colors of the streets indicate the historical period associated with the road's name, e.g. Prussian, the Weimar Republic, National Socialism or post-WWII.

In January of this year Zeit Online released a fascinating analysis of the most popular German street names. They then extended their examination to explore what the names given to roads reveal about the past and how German attitudes have changed over the centuries. In Streetscapes: Mozart, Marx and a Dictator Zeit Online explores how there is a distinct east-west split to many German street names, which owes a lot to the differing politics of the former East and West Germany, before reunification.


The History of San Francisco Place Names was the original place name etymological map. The History of San Francisco Place Names is a fascinating insight into the history of the names behind the California city's landmarks and streets. Click on any of the streets or landmarks, marked in blue on the map, and you can find out who it was named for or where the name originally came from.

Street Names in Vienna visualizes all the streets named for men and women in the Austrian capital. On the map streets named for men are colored blue and streets named for women are colored red. You can click on the individual streets to learn a little more about each individual memorialized in Vienna's street names.

It isn't only in Vienna where a patriarchal view of the world is reflected in the names of the streets. Mapbox has analysed the number of street names named after men and women throughout the world and determined that far more streets are named for men than women. According to Mapping Female versus Male Street Names if you add up all the streets in Bengaluru, Chennai, London, Mumbai, New Delhi, Paris, and San Francisco only 27.5% are named after women.

Geochicas have also been investigating the under-representation of women in street names. They have looked at a number of Latin American and Spanish cities to explore the number of streets named for men compared to the number of streets named for women. Las Calles de las Mujeres is an interactive map which shows all streets named for men and women in Asuncion, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Cochabamba, Lima and Montevideo.

The Shark Tracking Map

You can now explore the movements of 45 sharks off the east coast of America on Oceana's interactive Global Fishing Watch map. Millions of sharks are caught and killed every year by fishing boats. By overlaying the shark tracks on top of the Global Fishing Watch map users can view where these sharks have intersected with nearby commercial fishing vessels.

Global Fishing Watch aims to help monitor global fishing and protect fish stocks around the world which are threatened by over-fishing, illegal fishing and habitat destruction. The Global Fishing Watch interactive map tracks over 35,000 commercial fishing vessels around the world in near real-time. It also includes historical data on fishing vessel activity from January 1, 2012 until the present day. The near real-time activity and the historical data will hopefully deter illegal fishing and allow fishing managers to understand and manage fishing activity in their waters.

The newly added shark tracks can be viewed by turning on the 'Shark Tracking' layer in the 'Active Layers' menu. The shark tracks are shown in yellow on the interactive map. If you click on one of the yellow tracks on the map you can learn more about the selected individual shark being tracked. This information includes the species of shark, its sex and its length.

Mapping the Global Refugee Crisis

Refugee Flow uses an interactive 3d globe to visualize the current migration crisis across the world. The site uses a number of different datasets and interactive visualizations to explore different aspects of the crisis that force millions of people to flee from their homes.

Refugee Crisis is divided into two main sections; Armed Conflicts and Migration Routes. The Armed Conflicts section visualizes the number of fatalities from conflicts around the world in order to better explain the conditions that force people to leave their homes. If you select any of the fatality markers on the map you can read more about the selected armed conflict and the number of fatalities involved.

The Migration Routes section maps out a number of migration routes around the world. If you select one of the migration routes you can view an overview of the route and why it has been used. An interactive map shows the locations and cause of migrant deaths experienced by refugees on the selected route.

The data used in Refugee Flow comes from a number of different sources. The conflict data used in the visualization comes from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The Asylum application data  comes from the UNHCR database. The migratory routes come from the IOM missing migrant database and the illegal border crossing data is sourced from the Frontrex database.

Refugee Flow was built using d3.js, WebGL, React and mode.js.

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them

Fans of Danish bacon won't be surprised to learn that there are a lot of pigs in Denmark. Although they might not be aware that pigs in Europe are also heavily concentrated in northern Belgium and the Netherlands. Fans of pizza and buffalo mozzarella might be interested to learn that European buffaloes live almost exclusively in southern Italy.

I learnt all this from Maarten Lambrechts Herds of Europe. The Herds of Europe is a series of fascinating population bubble grid maps showing the geographical distribution of farm animals in Europe. His series of static maps shows the European distribution of cows, pigs, sheep, goats and buffaloes.

Each of the maps was created in R (the R Project for Statistical Computing) and the R code for the maps is listed below the maps on Maarten's blog post.

UK Marine Traffic

The tracks of fishing boats off the coast of Cornwall

One of my favorite real-time vehicle tracking maps is Marine Traffic, which shows the live positions and tracks of boats around the world. It is always fascinating to explore the major shipping lanes in and around coastal waters that emerge on Marine Traffic. One thing that never occurred to me when using Marine Traffic is that different types of marine vessels obviously use different routes and engage in different types of marine journeys.

The different types of routes and journeys taken by different types of marine vessel can be seen in a new series of maps by Alasdair Rae. In Watching the Ships Go By Alasdair has created a series of static maps showing the vessel tracks of different types of vessel in the coastal waters around the UK. These include maps showing the different type of marine traffic and shipping routes taken by cargo ships, passenger ships, fishing boats, high speed craft, military vessels, tankers and recreational craft.

Each of these individual vessel maps is fascinating (and beautiful) in its own right. For example the fishing vessel map reveals not only where British waters are being fished but the ports around the UK which are still active centers for marine fishing.

Also See


Shipmap.org - an animated map visualizing the movements of the global merchant shipping fleet over the course of 2012.

Global Fishing Watch - tracks over 35,000 commercial fishing vessels around the world in near real-time in order to help monitor global fishing and protect fish stocks, which are threatened by over-fishing, illegal fishing and habitat destruction.

Billionaires on the Sea - Forbes's interactive map shows the journeys around the world taken by a number of super-yachts owned by the super-rich during 2017.

Where & When New York Eats

A new interactive map reveals where New Yorkers like to eat and what they like to eat when they get there. Bites of the Big Apple is an animated map which plays through one whole day of food related Instagram posts in the Big Apple. To make the map Crimson Hexagon identified the most popular food and drink hashtags used in New York during the 6th-12 May 2018 and where & when in the city those tags were posted.

In truth I don't think the map reveals anything particularly insightful about New York's eating habits. For example it will probably surprise no-one that the map shows a lot more people eating in new York restaurants at lunch-time than people eating at four in the morning.

However the map does have some nice touches. I particularly like the circular (clock) mask on the map which has an animated line rotating around it to show the currently displayed time on the map. I also like the block neighborhood inset map which allows users to quickly pan to different New York neighborhoods.

The map also includes a drop-down menu which allows you to filter the Instagram posts by type of food & drink. I guess there may be more insights to be had into New York's dining habits by looking at where & when individual foods or drinks are taken. For example where & when cocktails are being taken or where & when New Yorkers like to eat oatmeal.


If you are interested in the pulse of New York over the average day then you might also like the Manhattan Population Explorer. The Manhattan Population Explorer is a mapped visualization which allows you to explore how the population of Manhattan changes block by block for each hour of every day.

You might also enjoy Chris' NYC Taxis: A Day in the Life, a mapped visualization of the journey of one New York taxi over the course of 24 hours.

Mapping Bird Migration Routes

Tönn, a Greater Spotted Eagle, was born in Estonia in 2008. Every year Tönn flies south to his winter grounds in Spain. Usually in March-April he flies back to Estonia. You can explore the migratory route of Tönn and hundreds of other birds on the Birdmap.

The Birdmap is an interactive map which shows the tracks of Estonian birds that have been tagged with GPS trackers. You can select to view any individual bird or combination of birds from the map menu, where the birds are listed by name and species. The selected birds' current positions and tracks are then shown on the interactive map.

The map includes the option to animate the birds' tracks for the whole year. You can also select to view the routes taken in previous years from a drop-down menu. If you click on an individual bird's marker on the map you can see how far it has flown (up to the date selected). Where available you can also view photos of the selected bird.

Also See

Julie's Improbable Journey - an Esri Story Map tracing the 2,500 mile migration of a young osprey from her birthplace in southeast Michigan to Venezuela
Where Do They Go? - National Geographic map tracking the annual flight patterns of American bird species
Tracking Cuckoos to Africa ... And Back Again. tracking the migration of cuckoos between the UK and Africa
Other animal tracking maps featured on Maps Mania

Melbourne in 1945

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest sports stadium in Australia and the tenth largest in the world. The MCG hasn't always been used for sports. During World War II the stadium was occupied in turn by the United States Army Air Forces, the Royal Australian Air Force and the United States Marine Corps. Now you can view the stadium as it looked at the end of World War II on Melbourne 1945.

Melbourne 1945 is an interactive map which allows you to compare aerial views of Melbourne captured in 1945. The map allows you to make a direct comparison between the historical imagery and the city today by placing the vintage and modern day imagery side-by-side on a Leaflet map. The original aerial survey maps were put together by the Victorian Department of Lands and Survey using aerial photographs taken by Adastra Airways in 1945.

How America Uses its Land

America belongs to its cows. More than one-third of U.S. land is used for pasture. It is by far the largest land-use type in the contiguous 48 states. But that's not all a large proportion of the USA's cropland is used to produce feed. This cropland added to all those pastures results in 41 percent of land in the contiguous states given over to livestock. That is a lot of land set aside for America's cows.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture divides the U.S. into six major types of land. In Here's How America Uses its Land Bloomberg has used these categories to explore the amount of land dedicated to various economic activities. As you progress through this story map Bloomberg divides a map of the USA into these six major types of land to illustrate how America uses its land.

The U.S. map in this visualization is used as a chart which is divided proportionally to show the percentage of the country given over to each type of land use. As you can see in the screenshot above the amount of land given over to the human population is very small. Just 3.6 percent of the total land in the 48 contiguous states is classified as urban. So cows get 41 percent of the USA while its people have to make do with miserly 3.6 percent.

Unsafe Waters in the Delaware River Basin

The Delaware River Basin watershed provides drinking water for more than 15 million people. Environment America's Delaware River Basin Map visualizes the potential threats to waterways in the basin. It allows citizens, activists and officials to find out whether their local waterways are safe enough for swimming, fishing and / or drinking.

Enter your address into the the Delaware River Basin Map and you can view all the impaired and safe waterways near your home. Impaired rivers are colored red on the map. Waterways identified as 'impaired' by the state and listed by the EPA are those that fail to support their designated uses, such as fishing, swimming, or provision of drinking water.

The map also includes a number of layers which can help you pinpoint the possible pollution sources of impaired rivers. This layer includes information on major pollution threats in the basin, including:

1) runoff from agriculture and impervious surfaces
2) 660+ industrial sources
3) 250+ sewage treatment plants
4) fossil fuel infrastructure such as pipelines, abandoned coal mines, and refineries

You can learn more about each of these pollution threats by clicking on the 'methodology' link on the map.