Art of Geography blog home

Manhattan Elsewhere: Jason Kottke updates Bill Rankin's Errant Isle of Manhattan using Google Maps and Google Earth

Posted: June 6, 2006

Manhattan Elsewhere: "Depending on your vantage point, Manhattan seems either very big or very small. On complete map of the New York City area, Manhattan is dwarfed in size by the other four boroughs and surrounding megopolis. But for someone on the ground in Manhattan, the population density, the height of the buildings, the endless number of things to do, and the fact that many people don't often leave their neighborhoods, much less the island, for weeks/months on end makes it seem a very large place indeed.

Young Americans Geographically Illiterate, Survey Suggests

Posted: May 25, 2006

"Young adults in the United States fail to understand the world and their place in it, according to a survey-based report on geographic literacy released today.

...

Sizeable percentages do not know that Sudan and Rwanda are in Africa (54%
and 40% answer incorrectly, respectively). In fact, 20% place Sudan in Asia and
10% put it in Europe."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0502_060502_geography.html

The Death of Paper Maps

Posted: May 22, 2006

Ben Macintyre writes in the Times Online:

"The paper map will soon die, and with it something central to human experience. There is a joy is not knowing exactly where you are. The electronic gizmo takes you from A to Z, but it does not show you the place you never knew about, off at the side of the map, the road less travelled. The joy of exploration lies in not knowing exactly where you are, or where you are going, in trying to match the visual world outside with the one-dimensional world represented by the map. Wherever you go now, the machine has got there first."

Microsoft's Plan to Map the World in Real Time

Posted: May 9, 2006

Researchers at Microsoft are working on technology that they hope will someday enable people to browse online maps for up-to-the-minute information about local gas prices, traffic flows, restaurant wait times, and more. Eventually, says Suman Nath, a Microsoft researcher who works on the project, which is called SenseWeb, they would like to incorporate the technology into Windows Live Local (formerly Microsoft Virtual Earth), the company's online mapping platform.

The Pearl Gallery Map Updated

Posted: May 2, 2006

Now the galleries are hyperlinked, so if you view the map from within Acrobat or your browser, you can click on a gallery icon to open that gallery's webpage, which might be handy if you want to preview what they are showing. Some galleries appear not to have websites, so I left them unlinked. If you find a gallery I missed, or know the website for a gallery that has no link, let me know!

Note: Acrobat 6 is the oldest version which can take advantage of some of the map features such as user-controlled layers.

Map & Travel Center in Santa Monica Closing

Posted: April 25, 2006

"California Map & Travel Center ... also carried a large selection of globes and a truly outstanding selection of maps. I don’t know of anywhere else I could pick up a topo map of the Sierra Nevadas, a street map of Gdansk, and an upside-down map of the Australian continent all under one roof.."

http://www.gadling.com/2006/04/25/travel-and-map-center-to-close/

via Gadling: the traveler's weblog

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