“In the age of Google Earth, watches that triangulate and cars with built-in GPS, there’s something about a globe—a spherical representation of the world in miniature—that somehow endures.” The Associated Press has a fairly light feature on the relevance and popularity of globes today; the bespoke globes of Bellerby and Co. (whence) are prominently featured, of course (Replogle not so much, oddly), but they’re intermixed with some historical trivia. Not in-depth in the slightest, but something a few newspapers would have found interesting enough to run ..read more

Randall Munroe, “Every Eclipse Path Map,” xkcd, 17 Apr 2024. Looks like we’re not quite done with eclipse maps, especially the whimsical sort, and it’s not at all invalid for xckd to have (what is probably going to be) the last word on the subject (at least for a while), with this fictional map showing the fictional path of a fictional eclipse over a fictional landscape, with rueful descriptions of fictional places where trying to see the fictional eclipse will come to a bad end for the fictional observers. (And you thought it was bad you got clouds ..read more

This Mastodon post makes a bad map of this week’s eclipse into the funniest map of this week’s eclipse ..read more

CNN: “New map calculations have raised some concerns that the path of totality—where it’s possible to see the moon completely block out the sun—is slightly narrower than NASA calculated. That means some cities on the edge of the route that were expecting to experience a second or two of total darkness might be left out.” The calculations were done by John Irwin, whose revised map can be found here. This page has the technical details, while Jamie Carter explains the implications: if Irwin’s correct, we’re talking about a literal edge case of a few hundred metres. Go further into the path of to ..read more

GIS analyst and cartographer Andrew Middleton moved across the country to become the new owner of the Map Center, a Rhode Island map store, after the previous owner announced that he was looking for someone to give the store away to. In an interview with GeoHipster’s Randal Hale, Andrew outlines what he sees as the state of the market for paper maps: the antique map business is pretty healthy; what he’s interested in is contemporary cartography. The bigger and more mysterious question for me is: Can I build a store off of something that focuses on contemporary cartography and do it in a physi ..read more

Randall Munroe, “Greenland Size”, xkcd, 25 March 2024. The 25 March 2024 xkcd honours Greenland’s place as a measure of cartographic distortion. It’s also, unexpectedly, a riff on the idea of the 1:1 scale map (cf. Borges), especially if you consult the comic’s alt text (“The Mercator projection drastically distorts the size of almost every area of land except a small ring around the North and South Poles.”). Previously: xkcd: The Greenland Special ..read more

The U.S. congressional electoral map was redrawn after the 2020 census, but now parts are being redrawn again. ABC News has a page tracking developments in what they call midcycle redistricting. “More than a half-dozen states face the prospect of having to go through the redistricting process again, mostly due to federal and/or state litigation over racial or partisan gerrymandering concerns. Both Democrats and Republicans have the opportunity to flip seats in districts drawn more favorably than they were last cycle. For example, Democrats appear poised to pick up at least one seat in Alabama ..read more

Another map of GPS interference, also based on GPS accuracy information reported by aircraft, this one from Flightradar24. Data updates every six hours. And once again high levels of interference are being reported from conflict zones: Ukraine and other foci of Russian mischief like the Baltics, plus Israel/Palestine, though to be honest I didn’t expect Myanmar. Data is archived, so you can look up previous dates (7 days free, more than that needs a site subscription). [Maps Mania] Previously: GPSJam Maps GPS Interference ..read more

Eclipses aren’t any fun if you travel to go see one and it’s cloudy. I’ve been debating with myself what to do about next month’s total solar eclipse: the path of totality is a couple hours’ drive away and therefore manageable, but from what I’ve gathered the odds of clear skies aren’t great. These odds are based not on weather forecasts—still too early for that—but on historical data. For example, NASA Earth Observatory’s map, above, shows the average of the past 20 years of cloud cover across North America’s eclipse track on the day of the eclipse (April 8). Want more detail? Like, a lot mo ..read more

Author K. M. Alexander has some thoughts about rivers on fantasy maps, and the mistakes authors make with rivers when drawing those maps. When it comes to rivers, I’ve noticed that quite a few fantasy writers don’t understand the basics. While their intent is noble, I’ve seen plenty of examples of authors struggling with the underlying science of rivers and river systems. I sympathize. These are mistakes I have made myself. Early on, in one of my first projects, I made a mess with the waterways in my fantasy world. Mistakes like these—I like to jokingly call them “river sins”—might go unnotic ..read more