maps

Tracking an Ebola Outbreak in a City Without Maps

If you Google Map Guéckédou, the Guinean city smack dab in the Ebola virus’s deadly domain right now, you’d see just an abstract blotch of beige and yellow. Zoom all the way in on satellite view, and you can barely make out the outlines of buildings. Don’t even think about trying Street View. Google Maps…

Health Sarah Zhang Apr 11

Colorful Map Shows L.A. as a Patchwork of Rancho-Era Land Grants

Los Angeles County commissioned this 1888 map for a mundane reason—to record property holdings—but the result was an eye-catching, colorful artifact that seems to depict a land of dueling principalities. And for a while, it was. Beginning in 1784, first Spain and then Mexico carved the Southland into vast tracts of land, or ranchos, that…

Tech News Nathan Masters Apr 10

This Map Shows Which Jobs Are Most Unique To Your State

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has crunched the numbers of the jobs Americans have now. The most common profession overall for the nation: office and administrative support. But what about the jobs that are both unique to your state and common there? The findings are the result of a numbers crunch using BLS data from…

io9 Ria Misra Apr 10

Maps of Alienation

South African sculptor and photographer Barbara Wildenboer has a unique talent for endowing abstract concepts with striking physical forms. These maps, titled “Deluge,” are part of her latest exhibition, The Lotus Eaters, which she says, reflects upon environmental apathy as a symptom of our alienation from our physical world as wellspring, the source from which…

io9 Mark Strauss Apr 9

What If Every Single Subway Map Was Designed By the Same Person?

Transit maps are as unique as the cities they represent. To know Tokyo’s subway, you have to know the quirks of its subway map; to navigate NYC, you have to familiarize yourself with its mapping idiosyncrasies, too. But what if design was standardized across every city in the world? That’s the idea behind INAT, a…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Apr 8

A Game That Lets You Build — Or Destroy — Your Own Solar System

If you’ve ever wondered just how skillful you might be at designing a solar system, here’s your chance to try your hand at it. A new game lets you build a solar system — and then see it in action. The game is the work of Stefano Meschiari, a postdoctoral fellow at The University of…

io9 Ria Misra Apr 8

The Twitter-Popularity of Different Beers, Mapped

Ever wondered how far and wide the love of your local cheap brew spreads? Well, wonder no longer, because this map shows where regional beers are most loved. Taken from a forthcoming book chapter called Offline Brews and Online Views: Exploring the Geography of Beer on Twitter, this maps is a result of mining Twitter…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Apr 7

One Map Showing Where the Water Shortages Will Hit

When we talk about a future of drought and water shortages, we’re not just talking about the amount of water. We’re also talking about how it’s distributed — a feature that this world map of the per capita renewable water resources in each country illustrates nicely. The map, which is the work of the UN’s…

io9 Ria Misra Apr 4

Watch the City of Los Angeles Metastasize into Sprawl

Over the past hundred years, Los Angeles has grown from a tiny desert city to a sprawl of suburbs that stretch deep inland and down the southern coastline of California. In this quietly disturbing video, you can watch the city creeping outward over time. This is just one of three visualizations from NYU’s Stern Urbanization…

io9 Annalee Newitz Apr 4

How Our Early Ancestors Spread Far and Wide, Mapped

Over six million years ago, we split off from our common ancestor with chimps. But, recently, scientists have been finding fossils all over the planet that show that hominins diversified into a wide range of species away from their native Africa. New Scientist has a wonderful feature about the research called The Lost Humans That…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Apr 4

A Step by Step Walkthrough of the World’s First Great Infographic

Data visualization is an amazing way to get a point across. That is, when you’re making infographics that aren’t just dumb. Charles Joseph Minard‘s famous visual telling of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia is one of the first great examples, if a little intimidating at a glance. And this explanation by the folks at Numberphile…

Tech News Eric Limer Apr 3

An Animated Map Showing Which States Are Drinking More Wine Over Time

Americans are consuming more wine than ever before. But how does each state compare? This animated map from Vinepair shows how wine consumption has increased in each state over the past two decades — a trend that doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon. According to Vinepair, American wine sales bottomed out at 449…

io9 George Dvorsky Apr 3

Find The Closest National Park With This Handy Map

Looking to restore a little sense of wonder this weekend? Why not visit your nearest national park? The United States is home to 59 officially designated National Parks, the approximate locations of which appear on the map below. Using the mathematical concept of Voronoi tesselation, reddit user wouj divided the map into sections that can…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 2

See the Global Shipping Revolution In These Beautiful Ocean Maps

The global shipping industry has completely transformed our world: Today, 90 percent of everything in your life arrives via cargo ship. These two maps prove just how dramatically international trade has increased, by comparing the oceans of the 19th century with those of the late 20th. Ben Schmidt, an assistant history professor at Northeastern University,…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Apr 2

A Map Of Everywhere In The World People Are Migrating To And From

This web may not look much like a map at first glance, but it is. Instead of mapping physical geography, though, this map charts where in the world people are moving to and from, to give us a snapshot look at the worldwide migration patterns over 20 years. Top image: A working map of migration…

io9 Ria Misra Apr 1

A Treasure Trove of Historic Maps

The New York Public Library scanned a huge number of maps. The maps are released under a Creative Commons license, so they’re in the public domain for you to study, modify, and modify, or whatever other cartographic desire your little heart holds. A chart of the West Indies from Cape Cod to River Oronoque. Filed…

Tech News Mika McKinnon Apr 1

Extraordinary picture: Three dragon storms sweeping the US

This is a really unusual weather situation, according to the National Weather Service: Three low pressure systems in line over the entirety of North America. NASA Goddard describes them as “three atmospheric dragons.” They do look like dragons! It must be a Game of Thrones’ marketing ploy. There are three low pressure systems around the…

Sploid Jesus Diaz Mar 31

Interactive Maps Show How English Words Translate Across Europe

Here’s a fun language web toy to while away your afternoon. Type in an English word, and you’ll see a map of how that word translates in different parts of Europe. James Trimble created the European Word Translator, which uses Google Translate to source its translated words. He notes that the system isn’t perfect; some…

io9 Lauren Davis Mar 30

How Would You Redraw North America?

Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper recently proposed splitting California up into six distinct states. Draper’s plan is getting a good deal of ridicule in the press, despite the fact that it could actually make its way to California ballots in the next election. But it’s easy to forget that throughout history, political boundaries have indeed…

Tech News Matt Novak Mar 27

Depth Maps Hidden in Google Street View Create Flickering Ghost-Cities

This is awesome: Patricio Gonzalez Vivo found a way to scrape Google Street View for its depth map data, then rebuilt the streets as ghostly spatial models in openFrameworks. The weird and flickering results, seen in the video above, are like a holograph dreaming of electric streets, with facades and sidewalks tuning in and out…

Tech News Geoff Manaugh Mar 25

Tracking an Ebola Outbreak in a City Without Maps

Colorful Map Shows L.A. as a Patchwork of Rancho-Era Land Grants

This Map Shows Which Jobs Are Most Unique To Your State

Maps of Alienation

What If Every Single Subway Map Was Designed By the Same Person?

A Game That Lets You Build — Or Destroy — Your Own Solar System

The Twitter-Popularity of Different Beers, Mapped

One Map Showing Where the Water Shortages Will Hit

Watch the City of Los Angeles Metastasize into Sprawl

How Our Early Ancestors Spread Far and Wide, Mapped

A Step by Step Walkthrough of the World’s First Great Infographic

An Animated Map Showing Which States Are Drinking More Wine Over Time

Find The Closest National Park With This Handy Map

See the Global Shipping Revolution In These Beautiful Ocean Maps

A Map Of Everywhere In The World People Are Migrating To And From

A Treasure Trove of Historic Maps

Extraordinary picture: Three dragon storms sweeping the US

Interactive Maps Show How English Words Translate Across Europe

How Would You Redraw North America?

Depth Maps Hidden in Google Street View Create Flickering Ghost-Cities

This Is Supposedly the Final, Final, FINAL Look of the Foldable iPhone

Scientists Watch Brain’s Self-Cleaning Process During Sleep in Real Time

LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant Sees 30% Off on Amazon While LEGO and Nintendo’s Official Stores Keep It at Full Price

‘No Data Centers’ Sign Found After Shooting at Indianapolis Politician’s Home

‘Dark Matter’ Season 2 Sees Joel Edgerton Forced Back Into the Multiverse

Astronomers Found the Closest Thing Yet to the Universe’s First Stars

Samsung’s 55″ 4K Smart TV (2025) Comes Without the Pricey Tag in Amazon’s Clearance Sale, Skip Smaller Budget Displays

KAMRUI’s High-Performance Hyper H2 Mini PC Hits Its Lowest Price for Amazon Prime Members Only (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD)

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

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

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