This fall's supercharged hurricanes are a reminder that despite the dishonest rhetoric coming from top Republican politicians, global warming is definitely not a hoax. The University of Maryland has a new mapping tool to show you where on earth your climate will most resemble in 60 years.  So if you're in Chicago 60 years from now it will feel like you're near Tulsa.   Here are some images from an article in the Los Angeles Times. While most places follow a similar pattern (in the northern hemisphere heading a ways south),  the unique geography of coastal California means if y ..read more

While researching the Ferraris Atlas of Belgium from my last post, I came across a Github page that lets you create your own Ferraris style map using QGIS. The author, Manuel Claeys Bouuaert did an excellent job creating a hand drawn looking style using modern technology. Warning: if you try this at home you will likely end up with many computer crashes and very slow data loads. Here was my first attempt. I chose a village in northwestern Belgium based on a combination of city size and ability to navigate through the giant countrywide data set before the computer crashed. One recommendation i ..read more

While I was at the British Library in May, I spent much time admiring and puzzling over this atlas. The Ferraris maps of the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) were created by Count (and cartographer) Joseph de Ferraris in the 1770's. He was commissioned by Austrian empress Maria Theresa to create detailed maps of the country, at the time ruled by the Austrian Habsburg empire. The maps were made at a very detailed 1:11,520 scale (1 inch = 960 feet) and were hand colored.  The coloring is quite vivid and exquisite as you can see just from the cover. Here is an example showing the fortifie ..read more

 The Sopranos is having a bit of a moment with the recent HBO documentary about David Chase. Illustrator Robert Sikoryak made a nice map to orient fans to the New Jersey landscape of the show. You can click above to see a larger version. I've only watched bits of the show so I can't comment too much on the plot elements. I can say that having traveled through this area many times, the intro really captures the North Jersey feel with landmarks like the Wilson's Carpet lumberjack statue under the Pulaski Skyway, Satriale's Pork Store, and the "Drive Safely" gas tank, not shown on the map ..read more

This past weekend I saw a traveling exhibition in Boston about the Auschwitz concentration camp. It contains over 700 objects from shoes to gas masks to implements of torture and experimentation. The exhibit was co-produced by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and has been in several other locations but is only up for a few more days in Boston. There is no information about where it might be next. You can read more about it on their site.  The exhibit's tag line "Not long ago. Not far away." is a great reminder that those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it. In today ..read more

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center produced a video showing the increase in harmful algal blooms over the last 50 years. If the above video does not load try clicking here. This version ends by opening the globe into a world map to show everywhere at once. There is another version that ends with a zoom in on Florida. Algal blooms happen when algae grows out of control.  Red tide is a type of bloom that emits toxins that kill fish and cause irritating odors and respiratory problems. The video above is part of a larger video showing the problems facing our oceans and how the newly launched ..read more

The New York Times has a piece where the author ditched his phone and walked across Switzerland guided only by hand drawn maps from the people he met along the way. I love a nice hand drawn map and this article provides lots of good examples. These maps illustrate the things that are important to the people making them. For example, the cheesemakers put most of their detail into the house where the cheese is made. This one has some detailed mountains, flowers and oddly drawn cows. A nice touch is the sign that reads "Wow!! How good is life?"  Here is a nice one with some towns indica ..read more

Here is another installment of what is becoming an annual summer tradition. Just like the light beach reading, here is some light map reading. Not much to comment about, just some maps and related items I like. First of all since the Olympics are in Paris, a nice papercut map you can enjoy, or buy here. A very colorful map from Wikimedia Commons showing the different sections of the Rhine River. As one reader pointed out it looks like a water quality map and probably is as river quality tends to get worse as more cities and farms downstream dump pollution into them. A map of things to do in ..read more

Here is another installment of maps on display at the British Library - part 1 can be found here. Estate Map by Margaret Bowles, 1659 Apologies for the dark and shadowy picture, the display hall is not brightly lit. Margaret Bowles was an English cartographer whose surviving maps are rare. Her husband and a team of surveyors took measurements of this estate and she transformed the data at reduced scale to make this map. It was made for the estate's managers and is one of the earliest depictions of an English rural landscape. Mapping Mountains in Wales, 1838 From the library's description: "I ..read more

Paris will host the Olympics in a few days. They previously hosted them 100 years ago. Here is a small map of the 1924 Olympic venues.  via metropolitiques Artist Pauline de Langre has some nice, artistic maps showing the venues in 1924 and 2024. A bit hard to read at this scale but you can click above or here to see it better. Here are screen shots of the central area for 1924 and 2024 respectively to compare them more easily. 1924   2024 It is easy to confuse the Stade de Paris (now Stade Bauer) and the Stade de France. Their locations are nearby but St ..read more