In the 16th century, Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer devised a new way of depicting the world on a flat plane. We set off to explore his map in order to illustrate his biggest blunders, unearth curious facts and explain the advantages that make this representation of the globe still relevant today. I especially like […]
Tag Archives: mapping
Inuit Cartography: A Coastline Map Carved out of Driftwood
In Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), the Inuit people are known for carving portable maps out of driftwood to be used while navigating coastal waters. These pieces, which are small enough to be carried in a mitten, represent coastlines in a continuous line, up one side of the wood and down the other. The maps are compact, […]
Can you spot a Map Trap?
Short and funny video on the (in 2013!) aforementioned Trap Streets.
Not your typical map: “Where is all the poop on the moon?”
Ever wondered what the astronauts that landed on the moon did with their waste? Well, they ditched them on the moon itself. It’s been nearly 50 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing. Neil Armstrong’s iconic footprint is still there, undisturbed; there’s no atmosphere, no wind on the moon to blow it away. But the […]
what3words – The addressing system to uniquely identify locations using just three words
what3words is a really simple way to talk about location. We have divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each one a unique 3 word address. It means anyone can accurately find any location and share it more quickly, easily and with less ambiguity than any other system. The […]
GeoPuzzle
Oh I have a weak for this kind of puzzles, especially since it exposes the problem our maps have due to the Mercator Projection. Could spend all day with this. In the Puzzle you need to drag the shape of the territory to the right place. Just like in childhood we collected pictures piece by […]
MySQL ST_Distance_Sphere Polyfill
One of the cool things about MySQL 5.7 is the fact that it sports a few spatial convenience functions (since 5.7.6), allowing one to do operations on geometric values. One of those convenience functions is ST_Distance_Sphere, which allows one to calculate the (spherical) distance between two points. Recently I was working an project where I […]
Spy Viewer – View Historic Mapping within a Spyglass Circle
Ooh I like this: The National Library of Scotland has released Spy Viewer, a tool showcasing a set of historic which maps have been georeferenced so that they line up perfectly on top of the current maps. Using a circular spyglass interface you can watch the old maps peek through. Pictured below is a historic […]
SEDAC Population Estimator
The Population Estimation Service is a Web-based service for estimating population totals and related statistics within a user-defined region. It enables users of a wide variety of map clients and tools to quickly obtain estimates of the number of people residing in specific areas without having to download and analyze large amounts of spatial data. […]
How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps?
In succession to Google Maps’s Quiet Transformation, a new – and very extensive and highly interesting – comparison by the same author. He start off by taking a look at the level of detail when it comes to buildings. But these buildings are more than just a pretty detail—they appear to be the foundation for […]