maps
-
June’s 3,282 heat records, in one handy chart
In the U.S., June heat broke 2,284 daily maximum temperature records and tied a further 998. Here's what that looked like for the lower 48 states.
-
The best subway map tattoos
There are people who like public transportation, and then there are people who want to rub public transportation all over their body parts — or at least get it permanently inked on them. Here are some of our favorite transit-map tattoos from the internet. Here’s a nice-looking Chicago El map, done large enough that you […]
-
Infographic: The later it gets, the more crap we eat
I don’t have to tell you that people eat crappier food late at night than they do in the light of day. You probably figured that out when Taco Bell invented a fourth meal in the middle of the night. But according to Massive Health’s interactive map of self-reported food quality, we’re on a slippery […]
-
Mesmerizing data visualization shows a day in the life of a city’s bike usage
[vimeo 40866482][vimeo This video is probably what Ralph Steadman sees when he takes half a tab of acid and looks at a map of Budapest, but it’s also a data visualization of the city’s bike usage during a 24-hour period. The size, location, and direction of the bubbles reflect how many people are on bikes at […]
-
Mesmerizing wind map is the coolest-looking weather map ever
Data visualization wizards Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg have devised a real-time map of wind speeds in the U.S., and it beats the pants off spiky cold fronts, happy suns, and whatever else they’re putting on weather maps these days. It’s simple, elegant, and crazy hypnotic — watch it together with the lava lamp ocean currents, and […]
-
Awesome vintage bike map shows cycling’s golden age
Big Map Blog has turned up a fantastically detailed map of California's bike routes in the 1890s. It was published by George W. Blum and endorsed by H.F. Wynne, the president of the California Cycling Club in 1895. Mr. Blum was based, it seems, in San Francisco, and that's where the map is centered. It […]
-
Watch a time-lapse image of 2011’s crazy weather
Sure, we all know 2011's weather was bananapants, but just how banana WERE those pants? The Natural Resources Defense Council has put together an interactive map showing all the record weather events from the last year. The map shows record snowfalls, record rainfalls, record high and low temperatures, and the affected range from disastrous events […]
-
Cool map shows density at a glance
The pixels on Fathom Information Design's Dencity map get smaller the more people they represent — meaning that sparsely-populated areas are low-resolution, and densely-populated ones are sharp and bright. It illustrates both the positive and negative aspects of density: Each pixel gets less space the more pixels there are, but that means that denser areas […]
-
New atlas shows climate change effects — including a brand-new island
The new edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World includes an island that's only existed since 2006. Uunartoq Qeqertaq -- "Warming Island" -- surfaced when the Greenland ice cover retreated because of global warming. It's only one of the climate change side effects that have now been deemed permanent enough for inclusion in the atlas.