World Cup 2026 GIS resources

I've been sharing World Cup stories as we get ready for the tournament that starts later today. There are mixed fortunes for the hosts and those who want to go and pay extortionate amounts to view matches... they're being shown on the telly you know...

Here are some GIS and data-related resources.

Brendan Conway has shared some GIS Maps ahead of the tournament which may be of interest to people.

First up.

The #WorldCup2026 is geographically the most extensive ever:
- More participants than ever before (48 countries)
- The distances are vast: 5000km (3000mi) north to south; west to east
- Three international 'regions' for the venues across 4 time zones
How can we use #GIS #filters to show the extent of the tournament?
Here's a webmap with #Bookmarks + #PopUps to step the presentation:
- Stadium locations, images, time zones and links to further details
Use from the front or as follow-up; homework; retrieval practice

Webmap created using #Geo Mapper2D

Check out Geo Mapper by the way...

Secondly...

An above average array of issues around the #WorldCup2026...
- How can we compare the track record and development of each country?
- How many flags and anthems do you recognise?
- What about the teams in England and Scotland's groups?
- How can we use #GIS #filters to manage big data?
Here's a webmap with #Bookmarks + #PopUps to step the presentation:
- 2026 FIFA ranking, HDI rank flags and🔊🎵most anthems🎵🔊
- All national FAs shown; 48 qualifiers; desire lines show #FootballMiles
Use from the front or as follow-up; homework; retrieval practice

Check out the webmap made with Geo Mapper.

Andy Funnell meanwhile posted this over on LinkedIn.

The FIFA World Cup will soon be upon us, which means I'm back to loading up the GIS maps from the CIES Football Observatory to fuel geographical debates in the classroom.

Click the tabs....

A fantastic way to explore themes such as migration, globalisation, demographics, culture and identity:

⚽ Demography Maps
Which national team has the tallest players on average?
Which squads are the youngest?
Are there regional patterns in player profiles?

⚽ Migration Atlas
Why do so many Brazilian footballers migrate to Portugal?
Which countries are the biggest exporters of football talent?
What historical, cultural and linguistic links help explain these patterns?

I looked at the diaspora from Iceland... some interesting figures..

Brendan Conway to finish with this post... there will be plenty more World Cup related posts over the next month or so... like it or not...

Another demography link here.

This is from the International Longevity Centre UK. I'd not heard of this before but will be investigating their resources and a future post will be appearing.

The page from this link is a complete stats-fest, with bubble charts and all sorts of tables on the longevity and age of players, managers etc.

Plenty more to come over the weeks ahead...

Earth NullSchool - now available as an app

Earth NullSchool is probably in the top five websites I've used in my teaching over the years, alongside sites like Digimap for Schools and Google Earth.

It is now available as an app for iOS and Android.

It works perfectly in landscape or portrait format on your device, and has all the same features as the desktop / web browser version.

Bob Lang's 30 Days of Mapping

During November, Bob Lang shared a map a day and there were some very useful resources. He has now produced a map which shares details of all the resources that he created.

Thanks very much Bob! These are great.

  

OS Map Tile Explorer - from Alasdair Rae

A little Christmas gift from Alasdair Rae.

A little map creation, where you can click on the OS 100km map tiles that you have visited. I've been to most of them apart from a few extremes...

How many have you visited?

Global Building Atlas

A project by the University of Munich has aimed at producing a map showing all the world's buildings.

There are estimated to be 2.75 billion buildings.

The researchers have created the first high-resolution 3D map of Earth’s 2.75 billion buildings, producing a dataset 30 times finer than previous global maps. Called the GlobalBuildingAtlas, it was funded by the ERC Starting Grant and built using 2019 satellite imagery.

Each structure is modelled at a three-by-three meter resolution, allowing estimates of height, volume, and density.

The researchers created the project to serve a socioeconomic and environmental purpose. For instance, such a comprehensive, bird’s-eye-view map offers detailed information about the “footprint” of urbanisation and poverty around the world,

Glacier Melt Visualisation

This nice interactive infographic visualises the ice loss from Switzerland's glaciers.

It is one of several from the VisQuill site, developed by Dr. Benjamin Niedermann.

Visualisation of population by age in London

Thanks to Bob Lang for the link to this visualisation...

 

Using the new 2021 Census mapping - a student guide

Thanks to Ahmad Barclay for the heads-up (once again) on ONS data and map releases from the Census 2021.

📈Big new data release today on #CensusMaps!📉
See how your area has changed over the past 10 years, right down to a neighbourhood levelhttps://t.co/mIj0ahCHBd
1/3 pic.twitter.com/RiBEdwmq9E

— Ahmad Barclay (@bothness) March 7, 2023

These maps are going to be very helpful for a lot of teachers and students. 

I put a quick guide together which you are welcome to use / download / distribute: 

Census data and maps are shared under an Open Government License.

Popbuilder

Thanks to Brendan Conway for the tipoff to this site, which provides population estimates and structure for specific small areas in the UK.

🆕 What's the population of your area? Instant #demographic profiles for #LSOAs (Eng+Wales) #DataZones (Scot) mid-2020 using 'Population Builder' by brilliant @olihawkins #demography #COP26 #population #GIS @GIS4Schools @Dav1dM0rgan @Glasgow_Live @madewulf https://t.co/a2TFgZVj3J pic.twitter.com/DFHkV0ZZXj

— BC (@mildthing99) October 31, 2021

Popbulder is a web-app that lets you build a population estimate for a set of small areas in Great Britain. The estimates are for the population in mid-2020.

1. The boundaries appear automatically when the map is zoomed in.

2. Click or tap the areas of interest: the estimated population is shown in the top right.

3. Click or tap “Get data” to see the age-distribution.

4. Turn the boundaries on and off manually using the boundary control in the bottom right.

Created by Oli Hawkins.

Here's the pyramid for my particular part of mid-Norfolk - as you can see it's quite a top heavy population distribution.

Geofolio

Thanks to Geofolio for an opportunity to explore your area and generate loads of information automatically.

As it says on the website:

Define an area of interest anywhere in the world, and we'll automagically create thematic factsheets containing interactive maps, charts, written overviews, and statistical summaries – all based on open geodata.

I had a play of course. I went to North Norfolk, where colleagues took part in 2 days of coastal fieldwork earlier in the week. What would the site tell me about this location?

Here's the report that was generated... 

Geofolio North Norfolk from GeoBlogs

It was a tipoff via Richard Allaway.

This has great potential for generating secondary data about locations.

Parallel Maps

There are many map visualisations out there, and most of them have appeared on LivingGeography over the years.
Parallel maps have been getting a lot of attention over the last few days as one of their latest projects (from October 2017), which maps census data on population structure has been more widely discovered.
It includes a 3D option with panning and tilting of the mapping.
 
The population pyramids are drawn instantly as the cursor is moved over a particular Census output area.
This allows for instant comparisons between different parts of a city, or urban/rural comparisons, or a look at how certain areas are attracting retirement populations.

Here's evidence of Student populations being concentrated in certain areas of Leeds - linked to the OCR 'B' Geography chapters that I wrote.

It's worth remembering that there are other Parallel map projects too - explore the whole website to find maps on air quality and other variables.

For example, how about these COLOUR IN YOUR OWN MAPS options.

Zoom to an area, and then use the buttons to identify a particular colour for it...

These maps can also be switched to other views.

Also try the RISK OF FLOODING maps, from April 2017, which are particularly useful when exploring flood risk topics with students.


There are plenty more.... Lovely work by the folks at Parallel...