Tag: geography

  • Mapping the Borders

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    Brendan Barry
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    This map by Dorothy Gambrell looks at US state borders formed by natural, well, borders. None of those lines drawn by a bunch of old men wearing wigs. What I really like is how those artificial borders are drawn as a thin grey line and labelled as “just some line”. Credit for the piece goes…

  • Charting and Mapping Income Mobility

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    Brendan Barry
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    After two weeks out of the country, I come back and find early this morning (thanks, jet lag) an interactive article published by the New York Times on income mobility. What does that mean? From a medium side, a long narrative interspersed with charts and graphics with which the user can interact to uncover specific…

  • Mapping Boston’s Neighbourhoods

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    Brendan Barry
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    Ever wonder what neighbourhood you really live in? In every city I have ever visited, neighbourhoods have clear cores but murky, fuzzy borders. Last year, bostongraphy.com took a stab at defining Boston’s neighbourhoods with a survey. If you read through the description and don’t just look at the pretty pictures, you will see they talk…

  • Black and White Maps

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    Brendan Barry
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    Rarely do I have criticism for infographics or pieces published by the New York Times, and admittedly this time I no longer have the original. However, in May, the Times published a map that was printed in black and white in their paper. I could not make heads or tails of what the map was…

  • Political Pangea

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    Brendan Barry
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    Theoretical/hypothetical maps can be a lot of fun, as well as informative. Today’s post exemplifies both. Pangea was one of those super-continents where all the Earth’s landmass was mashed together into one giant continent. It broke up a few hundred million years ago into the geography with which we are roughly familiar. But I have…

  • On Holiday in Ganister

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    Brendan Barry
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    Well, actually, your author is driving back from Ganister today. Unfortunately, while on holiday I was not working (nor was I planning to.) So while I could of run silent today, I wanted to share with all of you again a project I created last year about my return drive from Ganister. For all of…

  • The United States Compared to the Rest of the World

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    Brendan Barry
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    Have you ever wondered how big the United States is? MAPfrappe allows you to compare different geographies in Google Maps. My employer has an office in Chicago and an office in Santiago, Chile. How big is Chile? North-to-south it is quite large. But east to west, the distance is like that of driving from Chicago…

  • The Threat of Climate Change

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    Brendan Barry
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    We are warming the planet. And like ice cubes in a glass of water on a hot summer’s day, Earth’s ice caps will, over the course of centuries, begin to melt and contribute to a rise in sea level. Unfortunately, most of the world’s population lives close to shorelines or the rivers connecting continental interiors…

  • Palestine

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    Brendan Barry
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    With Palestine admitted to the United Nations as a non-member observer state, the Middle East tensions between Israel and Palestine have reached a new level. Regardless, Palestine may now have access to international institutions and is closer to being a recognised, sovereign state. Toronto’s National Post published a large infographic looking at the state of…

  • Climate Change

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    Brendan Barry
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    When I was younger—albeit not by much—I applied my interests in geography, history, and politics to create maps of fictional places. I used knowledge of things like the Hadley cell and the Koppen climate classification system to figure where on the maps I drew people would be able to live in temperate climates and where…