Ptolem.io

We love geography as much as Claudius Ptolemy did.

[ptolemio-blog]

DYMAXION QUILT Searching for a mappy Christmas gift? What about this beautiful quilt by Haptic Lab with a Fuller Projection map on it? 

Go get it at https://www.hapticlab.com/collections/new/products/dymaxion-quilt (for $289).

[ptolemio-blog]

WHEN CALIFORNIA WAS AN ISLAND After Cortés sent the navigator Francisco de Ulloa to explore the region, early maps in the 16th century (e.g., Mercator or Ortelius) correctly depicted Baja California as a peninsula. However, someone messed up and from 1622 on, starting with Michiel Colijn, cartographers began depicting California as an island. This misconception survived on the maps long until the 18th century.  

Ferdinand Konščak, a Croatian missionary, explorer, and cartographer, was one of the key persons to set the matter right. In 1748 he created a correct map of Baja California and in 1750 a map of the Gulf of California. The issue was definitively laid to rest by the expeditions of Juan Bautista de Anza (1774-1776).

Find more: Old Cabo, Frank Jacobs @ BigThink, Wikipedia

Maps: Joan Vinckeboons (circa 1650), Peking in 1674 (Glen McLaughlin Map Collection), English map from 1646 (Glen McLaughlin Map Collection), Michiel Colijn (1622)

[ptolemio-blog]

BELLERBY & CO. GLOBEMAKERS What started as an unsuccessful search for a present turned into a unique London-based workshop crafting amazing globes. Peter Bellerby and his small team of artisans have been creating one-of-a-kind globes since 2008. Look at the process, check some more pictures or watch a short documentary about the studio.

[mapsontheweb]

The town of Os de Civís is a “practical exclave” because the only road out goes through Andorra.

[ptolemio-blog]

CARTA HISTÒRICA DE BARCELONA

Explore the evolution of Barcelona through the centuries in this interactive visualization.

http://cartahistorica.muhba.cat/

[ptolemio-blog]

FLAG STORIES

Jeppe & Birger Morgenstjerne from Ferdio analyzed flags from many different angles in their infographic called “Flag Stories”. I think that Sheldon Cooper would be very happy with their work and you can go and check it out at flagstories.co or ferdio.com/flagstories.

[astonishingmaps]

16 century map of Scandidavia(1500x1111)

Source: http://imgur.com/7s5HIPe

[ptolemio-blog]

16 CENTURY MAP OF SCANDINAVIA

[ptolemio-blog]

MEASURING DISTANCES IN ASTRONOMY

by Crash Course Astronomy

How do astronomers make sense out of the vastness of space? How do they study things so far away? Today Phil talks about distances, going back to early astronomy. Ancient Greeks were able to find the size of the Earth, and from that the distance to and the sizes of the Moon and Sun. Once the Earth/Sun distance was found, parallax was used to find the distance to nearby stars, and that was bootstrapped using brightness to determine the distances to much farther stars.

[ptolemio-blog]

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

http://roadstorome.moovellab.com/

We all know the saying mentioned in the title of this post, but who has ever seen these roads actually leading to Rome? Now you can due to Benedikt Groß, Philipp Schmitt and Raphael Reimann from moovel lab. They carried out this amazing project called Roads to Rome, which visualizes paths from hundreds of thousands of locations in Europe to this metropolis. It’s done in such a great way that it is literally a piece of art. And indeed, you can buy prints. Or browse an interactive version with Rome or all other European cities as the destination.

The map is based on Open Street Map data using the GrassHoper API for routing and leaflet.js + mapbox + turf for the interactive visualization.

[ptolemio-blog]

BACK 2 SCHOOL

http://jonahadkins.github.io/noland-trail-gl/back2school.html

An interactive version of the school map we all loved is here. Thanks to Jonah Adkins and his skills in Mapbox Studio.

[ptolemio-blog]

SMELLYMAPS

http://bit.ly/smellymaps

THINK ABOUT YOUR NOSE. NOW THINK ABOUT BIG DATA. YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T REALIZE IT, BUT YOUR NOSE IS A BIG DATA MACHINE. SMELLYMAPS ANALYSES SOCIAL MEDIA DATA TO MAP THE ENTIRE SMELLSCAPE OF CITIES, NOT ONLY THE BAD ODORS BUT ALSO THE POSITIVE ONES. Project by - Daniele Quercia, Luca Maria Aiello, Rossano Schifanella, and Kate McLean. (http://goodcitylife.org)

[ptolemio-blog]

Kiritimati - such a small island and so many important destinations: London, Paris, Poland, Tabwakea & Banana.

https://www.google.no/maps/@1.8799057,-157.4496066,62947m/data=!3m1!1e3

[transitmaps]

Subway Systems at the Same Scale by Neil Freeman

We’ve covered to-scale maps on Transit Maps before (See here and here), but I do really like this poster of every subway/rapid transit system in the world – 140 in all – to scale, organised by system size by Neil Freeman. Posters are available from his website for $20 plus postage – a late addition to the Holiday Gift Guide!

Source: Fake is the New Real

[mapsontheweb]

One of the earliest surviving copies of Ptolemy’s 2nd century map of the British Isles. Originally published in Ptolemy’s Geographia. This is the second issue of the 1482 map, also printed at Ulm, which was the first woodcut map of the British Isles and the first to be printed outside Italy.

[furtho]

Josef Bělohlav’s map of state railways, Czechoslovakia, 1930 (via mikey)

[nordpil]

World map by Pietro Coppo, Venice, 1520 #map #world via [Pinterest pinned to the Nordpil Interesting Maps Pinterest Board]