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2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998 - 1997 - 1996
Note: links (over 500) are not maintained and may not work.
30 December, 2012, to 6 January, 2013
Map of Great Lakes Stress
From the UPI on Dec 17, a University of Michigan map showing
human impact on this critically important ecosystem that contains 20 percent of the
world's fresh water. Includes coastal development, pollutants, fishing pressure,
climate change, invasive species, and toxics, among the 34 stressors that were examined.
6 to 13 January, 2013
Sheppard
Software Geography Games
Help build that mental map of the world, by using these fun
games to learn continents, countries, capitals, and more. Well organized, at various
levels, and up-to-date.
13 to 20 January, 2013
Rethinking Schools Map Game
A game-based activity, built around the geography of North
Africa and Southwest Asia. Pick a name from the list, drag the name to a country, and
found out if you've labeled the country correctly -- if not, you get further chances. A
good self-test. Note that South Sudan is missing from the outline of Sudan.
20 to 27 January, 2013
Printable Outline Maps
Free blank outline maps, printable, of the countries and
continents of the the world. Part of the about.com website, hosted by Matt Rosenberg.
27 January to 3 February, 2013
The Great Globe Gallery
Based at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, Professor
Zbigniew Zwolinski maintains this site; it offers an amazing collection of links ot
geographic sites all around the web; you can find information and samples for
projections, 3D Earth, Digital Elevation Models, Vegetation and Biodiversity,
temperature, rainfall, land cover, gravity, and much, much more. A good site to
bookmark.
3 to 10 February, 2013
Quick Maps
A very extensive resource of maps and map information. A quick
browse of the index, a quick click, and a small GIF map opens quickly to show you the
map of your choice. By country, by continent, or by themes, a huge amount of valuable
information.
10 to 17 February, 2013
BBC School Site
From the BBC, a website of resources for school use; this one is
for geography for ages 4 to 11, but you can browse around a bit through other topics,
and different age ranges. A rich, rewarding site for teachers.
17 to 24 February, 2013
Great Circle Mapper
Calculate the distance and path between any two (or more) points
on the Earth's surface. You can use Lat/Long coordinates, or Airport Codes. Easiest if
you just enter two codes, with a hyphen, under "Paths", such as BOS-LAX for Boston to
Los Angeles, or LHR-JNB-AKL for London Heather to Johannesburg to Auckland, and see what
it returns. Once you get the idea, it's easy and fun to play.
24 February to 3 March, 2013
Dogs of NY
WNYC in New York has a "projects" page; this is one of their
projects -- mapping the results from a survey of dog breeds and dog names throughtout
New York City. The most common dog names in NY? Female: Bella, Princess, and Lola;
Male: Max, Rocky, and Lucky. They also track dogs named after animals, gods, actors,
and more. It's all quite wonderful, and silly, but also a clever use of mapping.
3 to 10 March, 2013
Mercator Puzzle
A Drag-and-Drop puzzle, using Google Maps API. This is a
remarkable tool for showing the distortions of the Mercator Projection. The countries
that need to be dragged change size (but not shape or orientation) as you move them
around the map -- so you may not recognize a shape until you've dragged it around a bit
and said "ah ha!". Example -- Greenland is shown overlapping a tiny bit of South
America, but as you drag it north, it enlarges, and fits the Greenland underlay on the
map. Have fun.
10 to 17 March, 2013
Get A Customer Service Human
Being
OK, not a geography site, but this is an amazing service and
tool. You want to talk to customer service at, say, Amazon, and nothing on their
website helps you. Go to this site, and type "amazon" into the search box, and you get
a number and several other options, and comments from other users about the best choice
to use. Doesn't matter what company you want to reach, their number is most likely
here.
17 to 24 March, 2013
The US Redrawn
as 50 States with Equal Population
An art project, not a political statement, but fascinating as
both geography and politics. Because the largest state is 66 times as populous as the
smallest and has 18 times as many electoral votes, Electoral College results don't match
the popular vote. The 2010 Census records a population of 308,745,538 for the United
States, which this map divides into 50 states, each with a population of about
6,175,000. Fun to ponder.
24 to 31 March, 2013
The Scale of the Universe
Click "start". Use the scroll bar to zoom in and out from the
entire universe to quarks. Click on objects to learn more about them. An amazing
effort by a couple of California teenagers.
31 March to 7 April, 2013
Online Map Errors
Jonathan Crowe, who for many years ran the blog called The Map
Room, now just runs hiw own blog at jonathancrowe.net. The page linked here, from
the archives of The Map Room, is a collection of online map goofs and errors and
failures. Entertaining and remarkable.
7 to 14 April, 2013
Gravity Map of the Moon
A perfectly cueball-shaped moon would have uniform gravity. As
they write: "If the Moon were a perfectly smooth sphere of uniform density, the gravity
map would be a single, featureless color, indicating that the force of gravity at a
given elevation was the same everywhere. But like other rocky bodies in the solar
system, including Earth, the Moon has both a bumpy surface and a lumpy interior.
Spacecraft in orbit around the Moon experience slight variations in gravity caused by
both of these irregularities." Interesting to ponder.
14 to 21 April, 2013
The Geography of Gun
Ownership
A fascinating look at gun ownership in the US, by state, with a
link to the wikipedia page about gun violence by state; the discovery to be made here is
that the most-armed states are not necessarily the states with the most gun violence. An
interesting addition to the conversation.
21 to 28 April, 2013
Teaching With Maps
From the University At Buffalo Map Collection, this very useful
page called "Teaching With Maps"; it links to map sources, resources, and sites with
geographical data. You can find links to big map collections, as well as to country
maps, GIS maps and shapefiles, gazetteers, outline maps, and more. A great tool.
28 April to 5 May, 2013
The CIA World Factbook
The top page of one of the most useful resources on the web or
in print, The CIA World Factbook "provides information on the history, people,
government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and
transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our Reference tab includes: maps of the
major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a
Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World
map." This is a site where you can quickly drill down for the information you're
looking for, or you can simply stay and play indefinitely.
5 to 12 May, 2013
Maps of India
This is one page from a remarkable site, Maps of India has just
about every piece of information you want to find about India, in maps -- physical and
political geography, road maps, rail and air networks, hotels and temples and hill
stations, and on this particular page, links to maps and information on the States and
Union Territory. Some ads to wade through, but worth the effort.
12 to 19 May, 2013
Projection
Transitions
Mike Bostock designs interactive graphics for The New York
Times, and does a lot of work with methods for data visualization. This page is ONE of
many he has created to show different map projections and their relative distortions of
shape and size. To see the amazing range of his work, go to http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock and
scan through the hundreds of displays of information he has posted
19 to 26 May, 2013
A "Who Do You Hang With"
Map of America
An NPR report on a project to track the circulation of dollar
bills, to see where people "do stuff together". Using data from Where's George, the researchers tracked where
money goes, and -- also interesting -- where it doesn't go. One discovery -- virtual
borders, lines that money rarely cross.
26 May to 2 June, 2013
Azimuthal Map Generator
The most common Azimuthal maps are polar projections, with North
or South Pole at the center, and all the lines of latitude shown as concentric circles
around that Pole. But these maps can be centered anywhere, and can tell you useful
things; they preserve directions from the central point, and great circle routes from or
through the central points show up as straight lines. So you can quickly calculate what
direction to travel from the central point to get somewhere else, and how far away it
is. Ham Radio Operators use these to see which direction to turn their antenna arrays
for best reception of signals from remote places, and so it's unsurprising that Ham
Radio Operators have created generators for these maps. This one does all the
calculations and creates a map for you that is then automatically downloaded as a pdf.
Here's another
azimuthal map generator.
2 to 9 June, 2013
Geoguessr
Great fun -- a really creative and challenging Google Map
Mashup. You get a photo from google, and a map, and you have to identify the place in
the photo by clicking on the map. About 4000 points possible per picture (depending on
how close you are to the real location), and you get 5 pictures. Some are quite easy,
but other pictures remind you that a lot of places in the world have similar features.
9 to 16 June, 2013
Visa Hunter
A site that seems quite authoritative and complete -- caution is
always advised, but this might be a good place to start in that search for elusive
information on visas and entry and exit regulations between countries. Search for a
country of interest, and read the rule for visas -- who needs them, how long they last,
how to get them, etc. Lots of information here.
16 to 23 June, 2013
History Mapped
on Google Maps
This site contains 132 documentaries, in the form of interactive
Google Maps on Historic Events, based on Exploration EBooks that allow you to
digitally experience the events by finding the locations, and following the explorer. A
chance to see up close the actual ancient ruins, forts, and pyramids. Many of the maps
have Google Earth KMZ Movies and Google Earth KML files that enable you to digitally
walk the map in 3D and experience the exploration for yourself.
23 to 30 June, 2013
National Air and Space Museum Resources
Online activities about aviation, space photography, and the
basic principles of flight. There are six separate activities here, including Geography
From Space, Airplane Anatomy, and the planetary CyberCenter. Start with Geography From
Space, and test yourself on a variety of high-altitude photographs of the Earth taken
from space and identify each area. Airplane Anatomy is exactly what it sounds like, and
How Things Fly teaches students the basic principles of flight.
30 June to 7 July, 2013
NOAA Education
Resources
This remarkable collection of resources is about the work of
NOAA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All kinds of useful,
timely, global information here, from Aquatic Food Webs to Weather Systems and Patterns. A valuable go-to source for science
and geography teachers.
7 to 14 July, 2013
World Bank on Climate
Change
The World Bank commissioned this report in their series called
"Turn Down the Heat". It takes a look at rising terperatures in 3 regions: Sub-Saharan
Africa, South-East Asia, and South Asia. Urgent action is needed now to reduce
potential damage, and, as they say, "build resilience". Note -- this is a small image;
click anywhere on it and it fills the page and becomes readable.
14 to 21 July, 2013
New Yorker: Mapping the Rise of Craft Beer
A fun page to explore. From their text: "As of March, the
United States was home to nearly two thousand four hundred craft breweries... What's
more, they are rapidly colonizing what one might call the craft-beer frontier: the
South, the Southwest, and, really, almost any part of the country that isn't the West or
the Northeast. The interactive map... based on newly released 2012 data gathered by the
Brewers Association, illustrates this phenomenon and offers a detailed overview of the
American craft-beer industry.
21 to 28 July, 2013
Mapping the Movement of
the Galaxies
This project, The Cosmic Flows, has mapped visible and dark
matter around the Milky Way, up to a distance of 300,000,000 light years; the maps are
shown as a video, using zooming, panning, and rotation to show how the universe moves.
Worth exploring.
28 July to 4 August, 2013
U.S. River Map
Using only public data available from U.S. government sources,
Russell McLendon, a software engineer, has created a breath-taking map of every river in
the conterminous 48 states. Just amazing to ponder; for me, the most interesting aspect
of the map was those places with no water at all.
4 to 11 August, 2013
RMS Teaching
Site
This is the education portal of the Royal Meteorological
Society. It's a doorway to all kinds of resources for teaching about weather and
climate in primary and secondary schools; although the materials are tagged with British
"Key Stages", they are sure to be helpful to any teacher, anywhere in the world, who
wants to address weather and climate questions.
11 to 18 August, 2013
Placing Literature
Have you ever been reading a book and wondered "where is that
place..."? This brand new site is based on a simple idea -- locate in the real world the
places you're reading about in a book. This is an online database of places from
literature, located by researchers and by readers themselves. If you're a reader or
lover of maps, take a look.
18 to 25 August, 2013
Atlas of True Names
Fascinating atlas and map; while this page is a sales page from
mapsonline.co.uk, you can also click on the image of the map and zoom around to see some
of the "True Names". Worth a visit.
25 August to 1 September, 2013
Teaching With Maps
The library at SUNY Buffalo has assembled this remarkable
collection of resources -- sites of all kinds, with geographical data and activities.
Very wide-ranging and thorough, with something for every teacher.
1 to 8 September, 2013
Geology of Britain Viewer
The British Geological Survey has developed a really
interesting interactive map of Britain that allows users to view the geology of Britain
-- you can pan and zoom, select areas of interest, scan boreholes and 3D models, and
more. Fun and interesting.
8 to 15 September, 2013
An Ancient Roman
Road Map
At the Euratlas.net website, this amazing document. Dating from
1265 CE, this ancient Roman road map was drawn by a monk from Colmar, and is made up of
11 parchment scrolls. Each of the sections can be selected at the top of the page; it
can be very difficult to see what you're looking at, so the archive has done one very
impressive thing -- you can click on a thumbnail in the left sidebar to see a modern map
of the same place.
15 to 22 September, 2013
Euratlas -- History and
Geography of Europe and the world
Following on last week's Ancient Roman maps, here is the whole
Euratlas website. Categories include historic maps, world geography, ancient maps, and
Europe photos. One click on "History of Europe" leads you to thumbnails by century,
from 2000 back to the 1st Century CE. In this same category there are also detailed
regional maps. One click on any of the thumbnails takes you to a larger detailed map.
A really useful and interesting site.
22 to 29 September, 2013
Wired
Magazine MapLab
Wired's Senior Science Editor Betsy Mason and Senior Science
Writer Greg Miller have built this page to "indulge their obsession with maps". There
are many pages of links here, the most recent being a hypnotic interactive map of
London's underground, a collection of colorful maps of National Parks, some information
about Wired's Atlas of the Web, a collection of very detailed fictional maps, and much
more. A fascinating collection; a blog worth bookmarking.
29 September to 6 October, 2013
NGA
GEOnet Names Server
The authoritative resource for geographic names; in their words:
"The GEOnet Names Server (GNS) is the official repository of standard spellings of all
foreign geographic names, sanctioned by the United States Board on Geographic Names (US
BGN). The database also contains variant spellings (cross-references), which are useful
for finding purposes, as well as non-Roman script spellings of many of these names. All
the geographic features in the database contain information about location,
administrative division, and quality. The database can be used for a variety of
purposes, including establishing official spellings of foreign place names, cartography,
GIS, GEOINT, and finding places."
p class="datelight">6 to 13 October, 2013
What was there?
A fun googlemaps mashup, Whatwasthere ties historical photos to
Google Maps, allowing you to tour streets you know, to see how they've changed over
time. NOTE: Does NOT seem to work properly with Firefox.
13 to 20 October, 2013
Travel Posters
Great fun; the LA Public Library's collection of travel posters,
digitized and searchable. Great old scenes of all kinds of wonderful places, airlines,
shipping lines, and more.
20 to 27 October, 2013
Sound Maps
This is the British Library's archive of 50,000 recordings of
sounds -- music, spoken words, and environments. Fascinating to explore; the oral
history section is vast and powerful.
27 October to 3 November, 2013
Geography Games
A fun and challenging selection of interactive geography games
from a company in South Africa. In their words: "Test your knowledge of world geography
here with our many maps of the world games. Pinpoint the right countries, cities,
states, rivers or mountain ranges on the maps. Choose from maps of different parts of
the world and improve your knowledge."
3 to 10 November, 2013
Canadian Pacific
Railway
The Vancouver Public Library has digitized and made available
this fascinating collection of images of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
In their words: "The pictures portray rural and urban railway stations; railway bridges
that are true engineering feats reaching out across the challenging topography of the
province; the workers who laid the tracks and manned the locomotives; the passengers who
travelled on the railway; and a myriad of buildings, hotels, yards and ships, all of
which were part of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. The pictures were
captured by various photographers and they range in date from the 1880s to the 1950s."
10 to 17 November, 2013
Language Mapper
From the U.S. Census Bureau, this tool maps language use as
found in the 2010 census. The information gathered includes how many in a household
speak a language other than English at home, what language(s) are spoken, and whether
English is spoken well or poorly. The Mapper Tool lets you choose languages to view on
a U.S. map, and it also lets you choose a basemap -- a blank map, imagery with or
without labels, or all the way down to street level (and several other base maps). Be
sure to begin by reading the pop-up entitled "Where do I start?" A fascinating and
informative tool for research or just for exploration.
17 to 24 November, 2013
ArcGIS "My Map"
A very comprehensive and thoughtfully-constructed GIS
application to allow you to create a map of any place, with any content, with any
basemap, and then to add notes or features, and share with others. You can start by
zooming in or out to a particular area, or even choose an address or a place, and build
from there. Great fun to play with.
24 November to 1 December, 2013
Global Forest Change
From the University of Maryland, an analysis of Landsat images
from 2000 to 2012, showing forest extent, and forest change, as an interactive map.
Fascinating. You can watch the whole world change, or zoom in one one area of interest.
Worth a visit.
1 to 8 December, 2013
WorldViews Maps
From the Washington Post WorldViews blog. A recent post swept
the web, entitled "40 Maps they didn't teach you in school"; this is the Washington
Post's own collection of maps that are detailed and fascinating and mostly original to
the author, Max Fisher. Starts with a politcal map of the world from 200 AD, and ends
with an image from space, showing the North Polar ice cap over a 12-month period.
8 to 15 December, 2013
Refugees
An interesting presentation from Human Rights Education
Associates, explaining who refugees are, where they come from, where they go, the things
from which they are seeking protection, and more. Read the introduction, and click
through the small number of pages. Worth a visit.
15 to 22 December, 2013
WW2 in 7 Minutes
An amazing map of the changing front lines of World War 2.
Watch the lines move, watch the neutral nations, watch the Axis Powers nearly sweep over
all of Europe before being beaten back by the Allied Powers. It does take 7 minutes,
but it's worth every second.
22 to 29 December, 2013
Peace Indices
Using the Global Peace Index and other indicators, these maps
show the "peacefulness" of the political divisions of different countries, and of the
world. The link above will take you to the Mexico Peace Index -- measuring the level of
peace in each of the 32 states; select a state, and explore. Be sure to click on the
other indices above -- the US and the UK, as well as the worldwide Terrorism Index and
Global Peace Index.
29 December, 2013 to 5 January, 2014
Seterra Map Games
A great assortment of interactive geography games, by continent,
by country, by physical and political features, and more. Fun to visit.
***
2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998 - 1997 - 1996
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