The Map Room

It’s been a while since I last posted something about light-pollution maps, which are used by astronomers to determine the best places to observe the night sky. But a couple of online light-pollution maps came… More

Randall Munroe, author of the xkcd web comic, posts a surprising amount of map-related content, which I invariably end up linking to here. With some exceptions, they fall into one of two categories, each of… More

The word of the day is 'toponym'

The Sunday Times reports [Apple News+ link] that a small family business selling map-themed picnic blankets has reached a settlement with the Ordnance Survey. Rubbaglove’s PACMAT series was launched in partnership with the OS, but… More

Touch Mapper is an open source project (GitHub) for generating 3D printed tactile maps for the visually impaired. The maps use OpenStreetMap data and produce a file that can be printed on almost any 3D… More

Comic. Bad Map Projection #194: Interrupted Spheres. To avoid the distortion inherent to a single flat world map, each continent is projected onto its own globe. [spheres of different sizes with a single continent on each]

Bad Map Projection: Interrupted Spheres

xkcd.com/3122/

Ordnance Survey settles in ‘David and Goliath’ design dispute with family Guy and Megan Eaton’s Rubbaglove business prevails in legal case with government agency over its trademark-protected blanket

David vs Goliath, not a great look for @ordnancesurvey.bsky.social

Ordnance Survey settles in ‘David and Goliath’ design dispute with family

www.thetimes.com/article/f941...

Several things coming up at Chicago’s Newberry Library in October: An exhibition, Mapping Outside the Lines, runs from 9 October 2025 to 14 February 26 at the Newberry’s Trienens Galleries. For centuries, mapmakers have experimented… More

NOAA’s hurricane forecasts will continue to be able to use data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Michael Lowry reports that in a last-minute reversal, the U.S. Department of Defense will continue to allow… More

Fundamentally, Allen Carroll’s Telling Stories with Maps: Lessons from a Lifetime of Creating Place-Based Narratives is a book about using Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMaps service for creating digital narratives with maps. It’s of little use to… More

Responding to my post about Joanathan Bessaci’s map cutout art, Fred DeJarlais wrote to point out that the California Map Society’s journal, Calafia, featured another artist using a similar technique, Mark M. Garrett, in its… More

CNN reports that two NOAA officials who led the internal “Sharpiegate” inquiry—which found that NOAA leadership violated its ethical standards and scientific integrity policy when they backed Trump’s Sharpie-adjusted hurricane forecast map—were placed on administrative… More

New: Globe projection in locator maps | Datawrapper Blog Create locator maps using a globe projection

*Huge* new feature in Datawrapper! You can now create locator maps using the globe (aka orthographic) projection. Makes small scale maps so much better compared to the Mercator projection! All thanks to the amazing folks at @datawrapper.de and @maplibre.org ❤️
www.datawrapper.de/blog/new-glo...

Nick Pannell wants the Ordnance Survey to change the route of the Abbot’s Way path through Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. Pannell says his own research shows that medieval monks took a more northerly… More

Vector tiles have been deployed on OpenStreetMap (see the “Shortbread” layer in the map layers menu). This technical upgrade was first announced last year; it’ll provide, they say, “a visual layer that is sharper and… More

Comic. The Most-Observed Animal and Plant in Each State on iNaturalist. (Not the most common species in the state, just the one people have reported the most times.) [labeled map of the US] WA: Mallard/Western Sword Fern. OR: Mule Deer/Western Ponderosa Pine. CA: Western Fence Lizard/California Poppy. HI: Green Sea Turtle/‘Ōhi’a Lehua. ID: Mallard/Big Sagebrush. NV: Common Side-Blotched Lizard/Creosote Bush. MT: White-Tailed Deer/Common Yarrow. WY: American Bison/Sticky Geranium. UT: Mule Deer/Utah Juniper. AZ: Ornate Tree Lizard/Saguaro. CO: Mule Deer/Great Mullein. NM: Mule Deer/Creosote Bush. AK: Moose/Fireweed. ND: American Bison/Prairie Rose. SD: American Bison/Hoary Vervain. NE: American Robin/Common Milkweed. KS: Ornate Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. OK: Pond Slider/Eastern Redcedar. TX: Northern Cardinal/Pinladies. MN, WI, IL: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Common Milkweed. IA, MI: White-Tailed Deer/Common Milkweed. MO: Brown-Belted Bumble Bee/Amur Honeysuckle. AR: Three-toed Box Turtle/Chinese Privet. LA: Green Anole/Baldcypress. IN: American Robin/Amur Honeysuckle. OH: Eastern Pondhawk/Virginia Springbeauty. KY: Common Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. TN: American Robin/Christmas Fern. MS: Northern Cardinal/Pale Pitcher Plant. AL: Gulf Fritillary/American Sweetgum. GA: Green Anole/American Sweetgum. FL: Brown Anole/White Beggarticks. NY: Eastern Gray Squirrel/White Snakeroot. PA: White-Tailed Deer/Garlic Mustard. WV: White-Tailed Deer/Great Rhododendron. VA: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern Poison Ivy. MD: White-Tailed Deer/Wineberry. DE: Fowler’s Toad/American Pokeweed. NC: Eastern Gray Squirrel/Christmas Fern. SC: Northern Cardinal/American Sweetgum. NJ: Spotted Lanternfly/Common Mugwort. VT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. NH: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern White Pine. MA: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. CT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Striped Wintergreen. RI: American Herring Gull. ME: American Herring Gull/Canadian Bunchberry.

iNaturalist Animals and Plants

xkcd.com/3118/

Mark Wallinger’s World Turned Upside Down, a 13-foot globe on the LSE campus with the South Pole on top, generated controversy (and vandalism) after its unveiling in 2019 for how it handled contested borders: it… More

I missed that a jigsaw puzzle version of Anton Thomas’s Wild World (previously) was released in January. The puzzle has 1,500 pieces and measures 39×20 inches when completed. Anton says that if you’re in the… More

The Journal: “A 12ft by 11ft wool map of Ireland, which took four years of knitting and crocheting to complete, is in search of a new home to go on public display.”

Rehousing the Library of Congress’ Rare Globes | Guardians of Memory The Library of Congress holds one of the largest collections of globes in the world. Globes present many difficulties when considering aspects of storage and housing, they are an unusual shape, they have moveable or detachable pieces, can be very fragile, and staff and researchers may need to view the entire circumference of the globe. Preservation Specialist James Thurn explains how the Library of Congress houses these globes in an innovative way that makes the globes easier to view and access and creates secure, protective housing.

Rehousing the Library of Congress’ Rare Globes #Preservation 📜 blogs.loc.gov/preservation...

The History of Cartography Project’s fifth and final volume, Cartography in the Nineteenth Century, has finally gone to press, though the massive book will take two years to work its way through the production pipeline.… More

9to5Mac notes two features coming to Apple Maps as of iOS 26 this fall: natural language search and commute notifications. Meanwhile, Apple Maps briefly failed to treat Ontario’s Highway 407 as a toll road earlier… More

A new contact page replaces the old contact, FAQ, link submission and review guidelines pages. Simpler and less repetitive. And instead of a contact form, there’s just an email address. So much spam was coming… More

Map of sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea showing parts of it reached 30C such as off the coast of Calabria, and the islands of Majorca and Sicily. Below the map is a chart showing daily maximum temperature at a buoy next to Majorca where it reached 30C for the first time this early in the season.

Parts of the Mediterranean Sea reached 30C this week, much earlier than usual, raising fears for marine life.

For some areas, this is 6 or 7C warmer than usual at this time of year.

Our story with more maps by @markpoynting.bsky.social and me here:
www.bbc.com/news/article...

The art of Joanathan Bessaci includes maps cut out and layered to form images. I presently work with old Michelin maps dated from roughly 1920 to 1970. I use old French Michelin maps because I… More

New post: Mapping the Best Places to See the Aurora Borealis

Damien Saunder’s book about maps on record covers, Maps on Vinyl, got a writeup in the Guardian last week. Some designs address global social or environmental issues. Others map the mind, imaginary places, feelings, worldviews—or,… More

Upcoming changes to The Map Room’s weekly email digest:

International Vegetation Classification Groups v1.0 This layer presents information on the distribution of International Vegetation Classification (IVC) Groups for North America.

Map of Ecosystems of North America Completed!

@natureserve.bsky.social has released a first-of-its-kind map of ecosystems across the conterminous U.S. & nearby regions w/ a level of detail & consistency not previously available.
🧪 🌎 #GISchat
geohub-natureserve.opendata.arcgis.com/maps/Natures...

Cartographic projections: deforming the Earth to represent it The history of a compromise that was created to resolve an unsolvable geometry problem. The virtues and shortcomings of some of the most iconic map projections.

Cartographic projections: deforming the Earth to represent it

The history of a compromise that was created to resolve an unsolvable geometry problem. The virtues and shortcomings of some of the most iconic map projections.

www.cartographerstale.com/p/cartograph...