Pinlight

Pinlight is a new one on me. 

Thanks to Cameron from Pinlight for getting in touch. Pinlight gives everyone the same five street-level photos each day. Pin the map, score by distance, and you can paste a Wordle-style score card. 

It’s free to play this daily game, and no account is required. Similar to Mapcrunch.

Urban growth visualisation

Brendan Conway has been at it again.

Using his Navigatio GIS platform and Claude coding he has created a new data visualisation app which allows you to see how cities have grown over time.

Choose your city from the drop down top left.

An Eclipse Atlas

Outstanding work from Alexandre Bogachev. Via LinkedIn.

An atlas of eclipses with visualisations of their track and progress and what you would have seen...

Can you map music?

That's the question asked by GIS consultant Madeleine Ratcliffe, who works for ESRI.

On a recent LinkedIn post she described the inspiration for an ESRI StoryMap she has created.

I first heard Smetana's Vltava (or The Moldau) while driving with my mum. We're both flautists, and she knows the piece well. As we listened she explained how it traces the course of the Vltava River through Czechia. It begins where two mountain streams meet, represented by two intertwining flutes. From there, the music carries you downstream past hunters in the forest, a village wedding, moonlit dancing by the water, the dramatic St. John's Rapids, and finally to Vyšehrad Castle in Prague. 

She gave a running commentary as we listened, and it completely changed how I thought about music. I hadn't realised it could tell such a vivid geographical story.

When I joined Esri UK two years ago, I couldn't shake the idea of bringing this piece to life on a map.

Using an ArcGIS StoryMap, I've traced the journey of Vltava along the river itself. As you explore, you can listen to each section of the music, discover the historical and cultural context behind it, and see how the landscape, geography and composition are all woven together.

Thanks to Brendan Conway for the tipoff to Madeleine's work.

Jerry's map - now available as an interactive map

I've blogged about the remarkable work of Jerry Gretzinger before - but not for 14 years.

Back in 2011, I became aware of Jerry's work to create a massive map based on imagination. Dan Raven Ellison sent me a link to a Vimeo film.

Over 60 years ago, in 1963, Jerry drew a map of his fictional city Wybourne on a piece of A4 paper. 

When it was complete, he continued on more pieces of paper, sticking them all together to create a whole new world. When the map got really big, Jerry started to revise it, using aprocess involving a pack of cards to decidewhat amends should be made. In 1983 he put it in the attic and stopped making it, until it was discovered by his son.

In 2011, I was able to contact Jerry and he provided me with some answers to some questions which ended up in GA Magazine - that section is shown to the right here from the Spring 2012 issue. Inspired by the map, I purchased a piece of the map on eBay. Jerry was selling off pieces back then to fund the map's development.

They returned in 2014 and now you can buy some pieces of his generative art.

Earlier today, I saw that Keir Clarke on the wonderful Google Maps Mania blog had shared a new rendering of Jerry's map as an interactive map.

Jerry's Map consists of more than 4,000 individual 8-by-10-inch panels arranged in a giant circular formation. Together they form a sprawling imaginary world that sits somewhere between a city plan, an abstract artwork, and a living organism.

It's been made with Leaflet. Pan and zoom....

Watch the video of Jerry here.

Explore the map. You're in for a treat...

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...

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,

Going where the car doesn't...

This is an interesting story on the mapping of Britain away from the roads.

Here's the story of Dr. Uy Hoang:

Dr. Uy Hoang, 51, decided to act after realizing he couldn’t see his local town path online and now he is single-handedly mapping Britain's waterways as a hobby.

He has taken a staggering 300,000 snaps and uploaded them to the online mapping service - making him the most prolific contributor in Britain and ninth in the world, he says.

Starting in 2015, he has spent the last 10 years covering the nation's rivers and canals - walking an estimated 1,600 miles.

Uy, from London, says he’s covered at least 75% of the nation's canal network so far.

250 000 page views

Well it's taken a while to get here... this blog is one of my older ones... thanks for your interest and for reading.

Maps on Vinyl

Coming to the UK later this month is a book by Damien Saunder.

It is called Maps on Vinyl.

Description from the author/publisher.

Visit the website and scroll down to see lots of examples.

Presenting 415 album covers – beautifully reproduced, expertly laid out and accompanied by deeply researched text – Maps on Vinyl will especially appeal to map enthusiasts, vinyl junkies, music fans, graphic designers and artists.

The book is the brainchild of renowned Australian cartographer Damien Saunder, whose expertise has been utilised by Apple, National Geographic, Earth (the world’s largest atlas) and even Roger Federer. A keen crate-digger, he has amassed possibly the world’s most extensive private collection of records featuring maps on their covers, resulting in this one-of-a-kind book. 


Records by artists including Madonna, Oasis, Coldplay, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, XTC, MC5, Queen, New Order, James Brown, Brian Eno and Weezer are featured, with cover art created by many giants of the design world, including Peter Saville, Curtis McNair, Richard Gray, Alton Kelly, Stanley Mouse, Neville Garrick, Roger Dean and Pedro Bell.

The records headlined span music from 1939 to today, and the book is divided into eight chapters highlighting different aspects of the collection – ‘C(art)ography’, ‘We Built This City’, ‘On the Road’, ‘African Beats’, ‘Astroworlds’, ‘Ocean Whispers’, ‘Maps with Attitude’ and ‘Music from Here’.

Maps on Vinyl is a beautiful artefact, but it’s also an important historical and cultural document, revealing how maps have been used in album cover design to reinforce a lyrical story, share a political view, express concern for the state of the world or creatively identify the origins of the music and the people who make it.

There's a Guardian piece about the author here.

It provides more details about the book.

The selection criteria for the book was strict: no landscape paintings; no satellite photography. “A map had to be an abstraction of a geographic form – real or fictitious – and show spatial relationships. That distinction helped narrow the collection.”

While maps are often celebrated for their beauty, they can also contain layers of meaning, says Saunder. “Even the most basic shapes of countries can draw out a lot of feelings – positive and negative.”

It also provides a few examples of maps that were included...

Such as this cover from Talking Heads.

All proceeds from the sale of the book are going to Support Act, an organisation helping musicians deal with the emotional, physical and financial challenges rife in the industry.

I shall certainly be getting a copy of this.

How big is Glastonbury?

Always good to have little map 'experiments' / projects like this appearing. Glastonbury's gates opened yesterday.

Glastonbury is big. Fifteen years ago today, I was there... in the heat, working with the Geography Collective in the Greek Kids Zone. I've blogged about it before - search the blog for 'Glastonbury'.

This map shows you how big, although from my experience it felt quite a lot larger than it is shown here. I think there are other areas still beyond what is shown here - whether car parking or additional camping and the security zone.

It's made by Geoffrey Prytherch.

Here's Ely compared to the site.

And here's one of my images from up near the letters... at night, it looks pretty awesome too. This was sunset on the 24th of June.

Image: Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

Map of the Week blog

The Map of the Week blog has been around for quite a while - dating back to 2005 (which is about the time I started some of my blogs). Produced by Dug from Massachusetts, USA.

Why not lose yourself by digging into the archive for a few hours...

EMU Analytics

 

EMU Analytics have shared a number of interactive maps on their Location Insights Explorer.

The Christmas Dinner interactive map visualizes where your Christmas dinner ingredients come from and also allows you to compare their 2018 agricultural production to that of 1945. You can therefore use the map to see if the areas associated with different livestock and crops has changed since World War II. You can also how their production has dramatically increased. For example in 1945 there were 1.6 million pigs. There are now 3.9 million pigs in England. 

Conversely the number of hectares given over to growing potatoes in 1945 was almost 4 times higher than it is today.

One thing that the map clearly reveals is that farming is much more intensively concentrated in certain areas today. Back in 1945 the farming of potatoes, pigs and turkeys was fairly evenly distributed across the country. In 2018 there is a less even distribution with livestock and crops being grown much more intensively in specific areas of the country.

This shows where cities are at risk of high temperatures which may make them unliveable.

Text from Keir Clarke's marvellous map blog.

Use the drop downs on the left hand table to discover a whole host of other maps on a range of themes

e.g. here's one on Social Infrastructure. As you can see, Norfolk doesn't have a great deal of this, and I live in a dark red area...

Other useful maps are:

- a fly-tipping map showing where incidence is highest

- HDI and Global risk mapping

- Tescos coverage in London

- areas where you are more likely to get stuck in a lift

Don't forget the CDRC maps as well for location insight.

Scrambled Maps

 

I've been following Keir Clarke since the early days of Google Earth and he has always shared fascinating map links, many of which I have shared here and on my other blogs.

His latest (ish) is a game he has been developing called Scrambled Maps.

Go here to give it a go.

Living England 2022-3 Habitat Map

The new Living England 2022-23 habitat map is now live! Download freely from https://t.co/rR1gT2IaPl (coming soon on Magic). It’s more reliable & user-friendly than ever - providing essential habitat data for natural capital monitoring across England. pic.twitter.com/5PmDIHjeli

— NE Chief Scientist (@NEChiefSci) November 12, 2024

Visit the link, and see the details in the technical report.

 

Watershed Pollution Map

 A new mapping option linked to the current river pollution issues...

Very excited to announce the launch of
THE WATERSHED POLLUTION MAP!

River health, landfills, sewage, road run-off, intensive farming, big industry, forever chemicals, abandoned mines, bathing waters, flood risk, protected areas and so much more... 🧵https://t.co/upIKfAJQhP pic.twitter.com/FnlRgip9ld

— Rachel Salvidge (@RachSalv) June 27, 2024

Visit the map here. 

What are the sources of pollution in your own local area?

Make Ways

 

We've started #MakeWays for walking - colouring the landscape to show good and bad ways to go.https://t.co/M6ZWPvKgAE

We're going to have different maps for different ways of getting about. What should we add to the pilot next?👩‍🦽🏇🛹🏊🏽‍♂️

I'd love to hear from wheelers!… pic.twitter.com/schrj5nMTD

— Dan Raven-Ellison (@DanRavenEllison) May 17, 2024

The Coal Authority Maps

The Coal Authority has a GIS site where you can identify the locations of previous activity to mine for coal.

This was a big part of my life growing up in South Yorkshire. My grandfather and other family members were coal miners and we knew there were coal seams running under our village and surrounding areas - I remember a house collapsing from subsidence once. Now you can find these signs of the past on this map from the Coal Authority.

The miners' strike was something else I remember well. Several friends spent a lot of time marching and fund raising. Our minibus was occasionally stopped when carrying out undergraduate fieldwork as the police thought we might be flying pickets.

The village where I lived was only a few miles from the Maltby Colliery, and there was a lot of ill feeling between those who stayed out and those who went back. Orgreave was only about four miles from home too and the TV coverage of the time was all over the local news in the evening. This was a desperate time for many. There has been a number of recent TV dramas and documentaries as it is now coming up to 40 years on from the strike - amazingly.