maps

The Most Crowded Part of the Whole World Fits in This One Small Circle

East Asia is a crowded place. The crazy-cramped architecture of locales like Hong Kong gives you an idea. But this image posted to Reddit by valeriepieris puts that population consolidation in a whole new light. And for the most part, it seems pretty accurate. Of course, it’s all a bit more complicated than this visualization…

Tech News Eric Limer May 6

More than half of the world’s population lives inside this circle

Even more mindblowing: said circle is mostly water. This simple but eye-opening take on global population distribution comes from redditor valeriepieris, who writes: Additional things I’ve realized: There are more Muslims in the circle than outside of it. There are more Hindus in the circle than outside of it. There are more Buddhists in the…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez May 6

How Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map Tessellated The World

Buckminster Fuller applied his patented Dymaxion brand to all sorts of objects over the course of his career, from cars to buildings to entire cities. But one of the most useful and enduring applications? The Dymaxion World map, which unfolds the earth into a long string of shapes, like a carefully peeled orange. 2013 marks…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan Apr 29

A map of U.S. roads and nothing else

Pretty much does what it says on the tin. No topography, no labels, no lakes. Just a big, zoomable map covered with all the roads in the lower 48. We think it’s beautiful. The map (which you must – MUST – check out in its full 10,000×6,000 hi-resolution glory) was created by redditor thechao some…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 26

A Collection of Very Strange Maps

You’ve seen city maps, but what about city maps that show where each gang has its headquarters? Or a map of the globe without water? Here are a few of our favorite randomly bizarre maps. A Map Of Chicago’s Gangland, 1931 (via University Of Illinois Library) The Ebstorf Map, from the late 13th century This…

io9 Vincze Miklós Apr 24

The Most Incredible Fantasy Maps You’ve Ever Seen

Whether you’re reading a fantasy novel or playing a game, it’s crucial to understand where your characters are on their journeys. That’s why the fantasy map has become a genre of its own. Here are some of the most outstanding and classic maps of imaginary worlds. https://kotaku.com/beautiful-video-game-world-maps-5977006 The Land of Oz This map of the…

io9 Annalee Newitz Apr 17

A Brief History of the Google Maps Pegman

You might not think of him very often, but you know the Google Maps pegman quite well. Every time you zoom down into a new, strange locale, he’s there, pointing the way. But where did he come from? Buzzfeed FWD dug into the history, and it turns out there’s a lot more of it than…

Tech News Eric Limer Apr 12

This Map Shows Every Single Photo of Earth the ISS Has Taken—All One Million of Them

Astronauts’ stays on the International Space Station generally last for around 6 months or more, so it makes sense that they’d start getting hit with a little nostalgia for the motherland they’re so casually encircling. How nostalgic, you ask? Very: 1,129,177 photos worth, to be exact. Rocket scientist Nathan Bergey had the ingenious idea to…

Space & Spaceflight Ashley Feinberg Apr 12

What Do Earth’s Mountains and Valleys Really Sound Like?

If you zoom in on the surface of a vinyl record using a microscope, to the untrained eye it kind of looks like a series of mountains and valleys. It’s actually the waveform representation of a song or other sounds, but what would happen if you took a map of the Earth’s mountains and valleys…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Apr 8

Every subway system in North America, connected

Here with your daily dose of infrastructure porn is XKCD’s Randall Munroe, who’s gone and rounded up all of North America’s various subway systems and combined them into one big interconnected map. (Not to be confused withthis metro-inspired map of U.S. highways, which depicts America’s Route and Interstate systems in the form of a criss-crossing…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 8

US Court Rules That Checking Maps on Your Phone While Driving Is a Bad Thing

So, we all know that we shouldn’t text while driving. But in case you thought that checking Google Maps was acceptable, a Californian judge has made it clear that isn’t the case. Despite the fact that many cars have touchscreen satellite navigation systems, a Californian appeals court has ruled that using a mobile phone to…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Apr 8

How Far Can North Korea’s Missiles Actually Reach?

Though we know in theoretical terms that North Korea has missiles that could hit Los Angeles, where else could North Korea’s missiles actually hit? With all the hub bub about North Korea and its redeployment of missiles on North Korea’s eastern coast, the Washington Post created a map showing the range of North Korea’s various…

Tech News Casey Chan Apr 4

Check out Neil deGrasse Tyson’s hand-drawn map of Manhattan(henge)

Over at Brain Pickings, Maria Popova has assembled a great little preview of Mapping Manhattan, a newly published collection of 75 hand-drawn maps, submitted by strangers and famous New Yorkers alike to cartographic curator Becky Cooper. One of our favorites of the bunch is this sketch from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has used his…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 3

Google Maps unveils “Treasure Mode”

Guys. YOU GUYS. Treasure. Google Maps now has a Treasure Mode. For finding gold and stuff. Last year, Google’s street view team discovered a treasure map belonging to infamous pirate William “Captain” Kidd, while shooting footage for their underwater streetview collection beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean. Now, Google has used its custom 3D…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Apr 1

This Secret Google Maps Gesture Is Totally Brilliant

So this is great. Google might have the smartest new gesture we’ve seen in a while: a smart, simple way to zoom in and out with one hand. Just double tap the screen with your thumb—anywhere on the screen is fine—and on the second tap, hold your finger down. Now slide your finger up and…

Tech News Kyle Wagner Apr 1

A Pretty Little Map of All The San Francisco Apartments You Can’t Afford

The Internet is a great place to look at things you can’t have, and this clever map that cross indexes San Franscico real estate listings with location fits snugly in that category. At least the nicer districts do. The “Median Rent” map by Stephanie May takes a half-year’s worth of listing data, and boils it…

Tech News Eric Limer Mar 28

Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map reveals the near-contiguity of Earth’s continents

Most people know that Earth’s landmasses once formed single supercontinent, but how said continent peeled away from itself – or the extent to which Earth’s continents remain connected – is not always immediately apparent. That’s where the Dymaxion map comes in. The Dymaxion map sprang from the mind of architect/inventor/futurist Buckminster Fuller. Writer Alvin Toffler…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 28

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus, to Scale

When it comes to space, perspective is everything. We’ve talked about the importance of scale in the past – about how, when separated by millions of miles of space, many objects in our solar system can seem unrelatably gigantic. It’s what makes images like this one so eye-opening. https://gizmodo.com/and-now-for-a-sense-of-scale-a-map-of-the-u-s-overlai-5984252 Enceladus, the captivating cryovolcanic moon of…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Mar 27

Watch an Entire Year of Foursquare Check-Ins Light Up NYC and Tokyo

We all see the occasional check-in on our social networks of choice, but Foursquare took a whole year of them, and crammed them into one glorious minute of glowing information. The whole mess of data is condensed down into a color-coded 24-hour span so you can see how people—Foursquarers at least—dart around their home cities…

Tech News Eric Limer Mar 21

New York City Is Getting Futuristic Touchscreen Subway Maps

This will be awesome and also deeply unsanitary. New York City has hired a company called Control Group to install 90 47-inch touchscreen subway maps around the city. It looks like real life world-of-tomorrow type stuff. The maps will show you how to get from one station to another. All you do is tap where…

Tech News Kyle Wagner Mar 20

The Most Crowded Part of the Whole World Fits in This One Small Circle

More than half of the world’s population lives inside this circle

How Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map Tessellated The World

A map of U.S. roads and nothing else

A Collection of Very Strange Maps

The Most Incredible Fantasy Maps You’ve Ever Seen

A Brief History of the Google Maps Pegman

This Map Shows Every Single Photo of Earth the ISS Has Taken—All One Million of Them

What Do Earth’s Mountains and Valleys Really Sound Like?

Every subway system in North America, connected

US Court Rules That Checking Maps on Your Phone While Driving Is a Bad Thing

How Far Can North Korea’s Missiles Actually Reach?

Check out Neil deGrasse Tyson’s hand-drawn map of Manhattan(henge)

Google Maps unveils “Treasure Mode”

This Secret Google Maps Gesture Is Totally Brilliant

A Pretty Little Map of All The San Francisco Apartments You Can’t Afford

Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map reveals the near-contiguity of Earth’s continents

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus, to Scale

Watch an Entire Year of Foursquare Check-Ins Light Up NYC and Tokyo

New York City Is Getting Futuristic Touchscreen Subway Maps

Noah Hawley Is Remaking ‘Terrified,’ Which Shouldn’t Happen

Unprecedented Observation Reveals 2 Supermassive Black Holes Locked in a Tight Death Spiral

This Apple MacBook Pro Is Now Under $500 After 78% Off, Grade-A Refurb Deal (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Touch Bar)

Anthropic Launches ‘Project Glasswing’ to Stealthily Spot Cybersecurity Issues for Rivals

Tiny Robots Reveal Hidden Ocean Chemistry in Low-Oxygen Waters

Aunt Lydia Survived ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to Bring New Complexity to ‘The Testaments’

Scientists Think They’ve Finally Discovered Why Your Cat Never Finishes Its Meal

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