maps

11 Totally Free Images From NYC’s Best Museums and Libraries

Over the past few months, a number of museums have begun digitizing their rare and beautiful pieces of art, historical documents, and rare artifacts, and offering them online in high-resolution, downloadable formats. The latest museum to join in the trend is Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum, which put some 400,000 works online for free last week. But…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich May 27

This Map Shows How L.A. Grew Into a 469-Square-Mile City

When the colonial administrators of New Spain founded Los Angeles in 1781, they granted the pueblo four square leagues of land—a grant that defined the city’s limits when it incorporated under American law in 1850. For decades, Los Angeles confined itself much to its original borders. Then, in the 1890s, it suddenly engorged itself on…

Tech News Nathan Masters May 22

This Company Uses Earth’s Magnetic Field To See Inside Buildings

In some ways, it’s an ominous pitch. By measuring the “magnetic fingerprint” of any building in the world, the Finnish company IndoorAtlas can conjure up a startlingly precise indoor map of any building. It’s technology that sci-fi has dreamt of for decades. But instead of surveillance, it’s being used for shopping. According to The New…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan May 20

A Map Of Where El Niño Will Strike Around The World

It’s looking more and more likely that we’re going to have another El Niño year starting this summer — one that could possibly rival 1997’s infamously bad event. But just what does that mean? As this map demonstrates, it can mean very different things around the globe. https://gizmodo.com/this-could-be-a-horrific-year-for-el-nino-1576307459 The map is the work of NOAA…

io9 Ria Misra May 20

Half Of The U.S. Is Now In A Drought

It’s now just as likely for an area of the U.S. to be in drought as not. This drought map showing which half of the country is currently in drought and by how much was put together by the U.S. National Drought Monitor, who points out that not only is the scale unusual, it’s also…

io9 Ria Misra May 14

The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

What’s the language that the most Americans speak after English? As you’d probably guess, the second-most common language spoken in the U.S. is Spanish. But if you look at the most common languages after English and Spanish, the results get a little more surprising, especially when you parse them by state. Using data from the…

Tech News Alissa Walker May 13

The Most Common Language In Each US State—Besides English And Spanish

In 43 of the 50 United States, Spanish is the most commonly spoken language after English. But if we remove Spanish from the mix, which language turns up most in each state? Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Ben Blatt at Slate has created several language maps of the US that go…

io9 Lauren Davis May 13

Which Country Drinks The Most?

According to a new WHO report looking at alcohol consumption around the world, the average person consumes just over six liters of alcohol a year, but that average doesn’t quite tell the whole story as this map shows. As you can see on the map, while the average is six liters per person over 15,…

io9 Ria Misra May 13

Meet the New Language Empires

The Economist decided to take Vladimir Putin’s assertion that he had to protect Russian speakers literally and have reimagined a world organized by languages spoken. Unsurprisingly, we mostly end up with the old colonial empires. But isn’t that a low price to pay for a place called “Vikingland”? The Economist’s article on this thought experiment…

io9 Katharine Trendacosta May 11

More than half of the US population lives in this thin border line

Reddit user metricmapsore made this great visualization showing how our country is divided and found that more than half of the entire US population—54% that is—live on the edges of the map. It makes sense, that’s where the biggest cities are and thus, that’s where the people are. Why would anyone live anywhere else! It’d…

Sploid Casey Chan May 9

A Gods-Eye View of L.A.’s Transit Network in Motion

Google Maps is great for transit directions, but what if you want a gods-eye view of a city’s public transportation network in motion? Try TRAVIC. Developed by University of Freiburg grad student Patrick Brosi and geOps, TRAVIC (Transit Visualization Client) harvests public data feeds supplied by transit operators like L.A. County’s Metro to visualize the…

Tech News Nathan Masters May 8

Here’s What City Transit Looks Like When Everything Runs On Time

If you take public transit in a big city, especially New York City, you know the stresses of train delays. But in a perfect world, the flow of transportation is actually an elegantly coordinated system. A visualization called Travic, a collaboration between Geops and the University of Freiburg, lets you look down on the idealized…

Tech News Michael Hession May 8

Interactive Map Showing How Income Inequality Has Changed In 100 Years

This interactive map shows just how much the percentage of income made by the top 1 percent of earners around the world has changed over the last 100 years. In the U.S., starting at around the ’80s, the amount of income concentrated among the top 1% starts to really build steam. By the time we’ve…

io9 Ria Misra May 8

Watch Ikea’s March to World Furniture Domination

Ikea was founded in 1943, and its first showroom didn’t open until 1953. Since, though, it’s become an unstoppable furniture juggernaut hellbent on making it into everyone’s living room. This map shows how unrelenting that’s been. Not dissimilar to a map showing Apple’s worldwide retail takeover—though arguably this Ikea one looks a hell of a…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe May 8

A Map Showing Which Time Of Year You’re Most At Risk Of A Tornado

We’re well into tornado season now in the U.S., and we’ll stay there through the summer. But when are the riskiest days for tornadoes in your particular region of the country? This map provides an overview of just when peak tornado season happens, but it also highlights just how differently tornado season falls on different…

io9 Ria Misra May 7

You Can Soon Buy Historical Map Engravings From The U.S. Government

From the 1880s to the 1950s, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published maps depicting transportation routes, cultural borders, topography, hydrography and geologic cross sections. And the stunning handmade engravings used to create these maps will be put on sale for the general public this summer. The engravings, mostly made from a copper alloy or zinc,…

io9 Mark Strauss May 6

Watch As This Map Tracks the Whales Swimming Around Hawaii

Would you rather be swimming off the coast of Hawaii right now? You aren’t alone, and I can’t get you there—but your imagination and the Smartmine Whale Tracking map can! This interactive animated map was put together by the earth sciences and tech company GeoEngineers using data from the Cascadia Research group. It lets you…

Tech News PJ Smith May 5

An Animated Map Tracking The History Of The Death Penalty In The US

Capital punishment is legal in 32 states in the US, and the primary method of execution in each of them is lethal injection. But that hasn’t always been the case. The New Republic created this animated map as some states are figuring out how to respond to a shortage of the drugs used in punitive…

io9 Lauren Davis May 2

The Coming Antibiotic Crisis, Revealed in Maps

A new WHO report takes the widest look yet at the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the news is not good. The report goes into detail about some of the problems facing us with increasingly treatment-resistant strains of contagious bacteria. It also includes a number of maps showing how widespread — both in terms of…

io9 Ria Misra May 1

Finally, a Map For Your Complaints About NYC’s Worst Streets

Speeding cars! Jaywalking! Cyclist… behavior. As part of Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero plan, which aims to cut traffic deaths to zero, the city just launched an interactive map where you can report any number of complaints about the hazards of street life. The map went up less than 24 hours ago, but it already…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Apr 30

11 Totally Free Images From NYC’s Best Museums and Libraries

This Map Shows How L.A. Grew Into a 469-Square-Mile City

This Company Uses Earth’s Magnetic Field To See Inside Buildings

A Map Of Where El Niño Will Strike Around The World

Half Of The U.S. Is Now In A Drought

The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

The Most Common Language In Each US State—Besides English And Spanish

Which Country Drinks The Most?

Meet the New Language Empires

More than half of the US population lives in this thin border line

A Gods-Eye View of L.A.’s Transit Network in Motion

Here’s What City Transit Looks Like When Everything Runs On Time

Interactive Map Showing How Income Inequality Has Changed In 100 Years

Watch Ikea’s March to World Furniture Domination

A Map Showing Which Time Of Year You’re Most At Risk Of A Tornado

You Can Soon Buy Historical Map Engravings From The U.S. Government

Watch As This Map Tracks the Whales Swimming Around Hawaii

An Animated Map Tracking The History Of The Death Penalty In The US

The Coming Antibiotic Crisis, Revealed in Maps

Finally, a Map For Your Complaints About NYC’s Worst Streets

Tubi Manages to Turn People Against Recommendations With Bad AI Branding

Gizmodo’s Favorite Photos From NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission

Lucasfilm Keeps Telling Authors Not to Bring Back Mara Jade

As Mass Drownings Add Up, Emperor Penguins Officially Join the Endangered List

OpenAI: Hey, We Also Have a New Tool That Is So Scarily Powerful We Can’t Release It

Razer’s Wireless Gaming Earbuds Are Back With Upgraded ANC

How ‘The Testaments’ Uses Voiceover to Add Layers to Its Characters

The Trump Regime Really Wants You to Know About Its Cool Secret Agent Gadgets

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

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