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I know it’s short notice, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m doing a livestream tomorrow. It’s been well over 2½ years since my last one. I’ll be covering a few monochrome maps I made for an upcoming book. Please come on by to ask questions, offer feedback, and share your thoughts … Continue reading Going Live →
3 months ago

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More from somethingaboutmaps

Planetfall

Gentle readers, I have just wrapped up a fun side project that will be of great interest to a very small number of you. The result of one of the most technically demanding efforts of my career, I am very pleased to share it with you. Most of you will wonder what this place is, … Continue reading Planetfall →

a week ago 9 votes
Map of the Month: An Experiment

Friends, you might remember that, last year, I wrote to you about how I was finally able to see a dream I’d had for many years come true: bringing together a bunch of map creators onto a single website. I had hoped that this would only be the beginning of our cooperation with each other. … Continue reading Map of the Month: An Experiment →

2 weeks ago 13 votes
2025 AFC Freelancer Survey

Though it’s been about a week since we sent it out there, I just recalled that I haven’t alerted all of you to the 2025 edition of the freelance cartographer survey that Aly Ollivierre and I conduct. Due to popular demand, we are going to try conducting it annually, rather than biennially. This survey is … Continue reading 2025 AFC Freelancer Survey →

a month ago 34 votes
A Usefully Useless Projection

Friends, I’m excited to share that I have just completed a world physical map, in my new asymmetric monstrosity projection. It’s free to download, or if you want to buy a 30″ × 20″ print, you can also do that (and I will be pleasantly surprised). If you download it and print it yourself, I … Continue reading A Usefully Useless Projection →

a month ago 27 votes

More in cartography

Taxing for War
15 hours ago 2 votes
The First Ghetto

The first ghetto was established in 1516 in Venice, Italy. Jewish residents were forced to live in a small industrial area by the government and locked in at night. Here is a picture of a ghetto map from I took while there a few weeks ago.  According to the sign Jews were only allowed to work as doctors, money lenders or second hand clothing sellers. The ghetto was expanded to two squares, the Ghetto Vecchio (old, which is actually the newer one) and Nuovo (new). After the French took over Venice in 1797, Jews were finally allowed to freely move about the city but this area remained a center of Jewish culture. It still is despite most of Venice’s Jews having been murdered in the Holocaust. There are still a handful of restaurants and places of worship. The origins of the word ghetto are disputed. It could mean foundry, street, little town or “throw away” depending on which theory you choose. Here is a simplified (but also hard to read) map of the area by artist Gianluca Costantini.

7 hours ago 2 votes
Make a cross stitch style map in ArcGIS Pro

Yes, yes, maps are spatial communication devices and we can obsess over precision and clarity. But it all depends on your map’s purpose. Maps are also designed objects so they can carry within them the power of sentiment. Memory, joy, nostalgia. Or just plain old wonder and curiosity. Here’s how you can create a charming …

yesterday 4 votes
Taming the Frontier, Part 1

I didn’t have a proper vacation in awhile. Then, unexpectedly, I had abundant time on my hands. I also needed to bring a kid home from Michigan State University who just finished the first year of a graduate program. So I planned a delightfully inefficient route through rural eastern Ohio to build my County Counting […] The post Taming the Frontier, Part 1 appeared first on Twelve Mile Circle - An Appreciation of Unusual Places.

2 days ago 4 votes