maps

A map of the most hated popular music in every state

Last week, we checked out this map of the music that’s popular in your state (and only in your state), but, now that we know what music your state likes, what music does it hate? This map answers that question. The map is the work of Paul Lamere (who is responsible for creating the first…

An interactive map showing how baby names spread across the US

Using US census data, creator Brian Lee Yung Rowe has developed an interactive map showing how names have grown and waned in popularity in different states since the early 1900s. Inspired by a recent baby name visualization, Yung Rowe wanted to see how a single name spreads across the country based on its prevalence in…

How the Time of Sunrise and Sunset Varies Around the Wrold

Time zones are strange old things, especially the way they prescribe one time to thousands of miles of land mass—so this visualization shows which parts of the world experience unusually early and late hours of daylight as a result. Areas in red see the sun rise and set late in the day; areas in green…

Lose Yourself in these Stunning Lunar Maps

From the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s Lunar Map Catalogue comes a gorgeous series of charts of the Moon’s nearside, farside and poles. Click here to see in hi-res [6105 x 4277]. Click here to see in VERY hi-res [12211 x 8553] According to the chart, the features depicted were “interpreted from the photographic records of…

California Court Says It’s OK to Read Maps on Phones While Driving

A California appeals court has made what could be a controversial ruling: it’s declared that reading maps on a cellphone while driving is perfectly legal. The decision changes a state law that previously meant that checking maps on a phone was prohibited. The ruling, by the the 5th District Court of Appeal, adds a caveat…

The Coolest Cartography in Google’s New Maps Gallery

Google just launched a Maps Gallery, a centralized atlas of maps created by governments, non-profits and other organizations. Though it’s still a nascent project, there’s already a lot of interesting finds in there. The maps in the gallery so far represent organizations like the World Bank, USGS, NASA, and the US Census Bureau—Google says it’ll…

That Other Map Was Wrong. This Is Your State’s Real Favorite Music

You might’ve seen stories over the last couple of days about a map that misguided writers claim show every state’s favorite music. Those stories are lies. This map by the same data nerd, Paul Lamere, shows the most popular artist in each state. Makes a lot more sense this time, huh? https://deadspin.com/whats-your-states-distinctive-musical-artist-1530937632 The map above…

A map of music that’s popular in your state—and only in your state

Musical preferences have become increasingly uniform across the country, but there are still some pretty strong regional preferences. This map breaks down those distinctive preferences along state lines. The map is the work of Paul Lamere, who used musical data from 250,000 listeners through streaming service The Echo Nest, where he’s the Director of Developer…

It’s Ridiculously Easy to Troll Google Maps With Fake Listings

Trust the listings you find on Google Maps? You shouldn’t, because it’s dumb easy to fake them. That’s what Google Maps exploiter Bryan Seely demonstrated for me this morning. And while trolling politicians with dick jokes is never not funny, there’s also a whole sub-community of scammers turning Google Map’s little bugs into cold, hard…

The Most-Visited Countries in the World, Visualized

If you’ve ever wondered which country was the most popular tourist destination, wonder no longer—this map shows which countries get the most visitors every year. It might surprise you to find out that France is the most popular destination, welcoming in 81,400,000 visitors every years. That’s nearly 20 million more visitors annually than the U.S.…

A Second Look at the First Geological Map of Ganymede

Last week, researchers released the first-ever geological map of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. Here’s the map again, flattened into a 2D, rectangular map. https://gizmodo.com/behold-the-first-geological-map-of-ganymede-jupiters-1522360379 I sometimes prefer these planar versions of maps to their three-dimensional counterparts. Their geologic nature (and planetary provenance) are less obvious this way. And sometimes that’s the point – to enjoy…

How wrong is your time zone?

In an ideal world, everyone’s clocks would strike 12 noon just as the Sun reached the highest point in its path across the sky. But clock- (aka “standard-“) time and solar time rarely overlap, with one generally leading or lagging behind the other – a fact this map by math blogger and Google engineer Stefano…

The map of the world if every country had a population of 100 million

Imagine a world with countries re-shaped to have an equal population with each other. Some little countries get absorbed to create one large country while other populous countries get their boundaries re-drawn and are split up into a bunch of difference pieces (I’m looking at you China and India). This is what that world would…

Here’s a map that shows which states have the longest and shortest sex

Well, well, well, New Mexico. Who knew you were so full of love? Turns out, your state ranks number one in the entire country for duration of sex with a ‘whopping’ 7 minutes and 1 second average. Go have some fun because according to this map, you’re the clear winner. As for the state that…

The new version of Google Maps for desktop that was introduced at last year’s I/O is finally coming out of preview and into just plain old “view” today. Welcome to the future.

The UK Is Crowdsourcing Its Next Map Of The Ocean Floor

Believe it or not, we don’t know how deep large parts of the ocean off the British coast really are, and this is obviously not a good thing for the many sailors who cruise around those waters. A new project funded by the European Community is using technology to solve this problem—technology and lots of…

A Rat Map That Shows NYC’s Restaurant Rodent Takeover

Look, rats are a fact of life in NYC. They’re already hanging out in our grocery stores; now, as this map by Steven Melendez shows quite colorfully, they’re lounging around in the restaurants in nearly every zip code in The Big Apple. Yeesh. https://gizmodo.com/an-upsetting-map-of-nycs-grossest-supermarkets-1444852593 As Nell Casey at Gothamist explains, Melendez created the map with…

Urgent NYC Coffee Subway Map Update: Brooklyn and Queens Now Included!

New Yorkers had a great time giggling at a new sort of subway map earlier this month. It looked just like the regular subway map only, instead of the real stops, the New York City Coffee map showed the best coffee shop found at each of those locations—unless that stop happened to be in Brooklyn…

The United States’ weird January weather, summarized in a single map

January was a month of extremes for the continental United States. Pretty much everywhere east of the Rockies endured unusually cold conditions, while most regions west of the range experienced record-breaking warmth (most notably in California, where a devastating drought recently extended into its 13th month). https://gizmodo.com/theres-a-polar-vortex-sweeping-across-america-and-i-1494961441 https://gizmodo.com/californias-terrifying-drought-summed-up-in-two-satel-1506989095 According to Mashable, The divide between East…

Build your own map of The Kingdom of Eliphaz from Knights of Badassdom

LARP comedy Knights of Badassdom (which we enjoyed despite the rumors of editing hackery) is releasing a piece-by-piece map of the fictional Kingdom of Eliphaz. And here’s another section to the puzzle. To check out the rest of the growing map, head over to Knights of Badassdom website.