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Some years ago, I began to identify my place in the cartographic world. Being surrounded by so many skilled colleagues can be intimidating. If I walk into a room at NACIS (or open up my social media), I see so many people doing things that I cannot do — we all have different workflows, specializations, … Continue reading Finding One’s Place →
Last year, I created a new map projection, the Asymmetric Monstrosity, designed to make somewhat of an artistic and educational statement about projections in general. I also made a physical world map to demonstrate it. Of course, there is a huge difference between a projection and an individual map that uses that projection (a distinction … Continue reading Asymmetric Monstrosity: Home Edition →
It’s finally time for me to write something about generative AI. While I’ve made occasional comments on social media, I haven’t spoken in any detail. I touched on some colleagues’ genAI work in a recent blog post, but my focus wasn’t really on genAI itself — it was how and where its products were shared. … Continue reading GenAI for the Static Cartographer →
I recently finished up a first draft of a piece for a client, a map that gave me a chance to try some new things and also exercise some cartographic muscles that I haven’t for a while. So, today, I wanted to just highlight a few interesting odds and ends that came up during the … Continue reading A Few Minor Niceties →
To make maps, we must sin against the landscape. We distort the earth’s roundness, and we simplify complex realities down to a series of colors and symbols. Ancient trees become a scattering of green pixels on a screen; a horrific battle becomes a labeled dot; and an awe-inspiring bird migration becomes a simple arrow. But … Continue reading On Sin →
More in cartography
Some years ago, I began to identify my place in the cartographic world. Being surrounded by so many skilled colleagues can be intimidating. If I walk into a room at NACIS (or open up my social media), I see so many people doing things that I cannot do — we all have different workflows, specializations, … Continue reading Finding One’s Place →
Countries often make poor comparative units because they vary greatly in both size and population. India and China each have more than a billion more inhabitants than the world’s third most populous country, the United States. Their populations are more than five orders of magnitude greater than that of a truly tiny country like Nauru. […] The post Three Geopolitically Informed Versions of a Map of Chinese Provinces and Neighboring Countries appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Having recently returned from an international symposium at the University of Macau on “Rethinking Space in Japanese and Asian Studies” (October 23-24, 2026), I am happy to report that geographically informed historical analysis is thriving in Macau, and more generally across East Asia. The symposium was organized by ZHONG Yijiang, associate professor of Japanese Studies […] The post Geographical History is Thriving in Macau appeared first on GeoCurrents.
Another November means another #30DayMapChallenge. Last year I was annoyed at the Gulf of Mexico renaming. This year it's personal! I live part time by the shores of Lake Ontario now. For some incompetent fool to give it some stupid name and for Apple and Google immediately obeying in advance, November is my tiny protest. These maps are nothing special so far, it doesn’t help that the first 3 days prompts are points, lines and polygons like every year. Maybe we can give that a rest for a year at least? Day 1: Points - The Great Lakes as a constellation-with the actual names of the lakes Day 2: Lines - The US/Canadian border line as it travels through Lake Ontario Day 3: Polygons - The name of this polygon is Lake Ontario! Hand drawn, ink on index card. Day 4: Clusters - plastics pollution. The data source is very generalized but for complicated technical reasons the map looks more specific than it should. Next week - the madness continues! *Pardon the brief editorializing but it really annoys me when I look at my weather app for the area and have to see that stupid name every time. Yes there are other weather apps that still show the lake with its correct name and I should switch but habits are hard to break.
Here is an animated map of wind speeds. It stacks up six months of global average wind speed and direction, and uses the flow renderer. The cumulative result is a sort of silky living web. You can click on the link above and reverse engineer it or you can watch this short how-to that walks …
