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Geoff Wallace

@geoffmakesmaps.bsky.social

Cartographer with a PhD in history, vintage cycling enthusiast, and problem vinyl hoarder in Durham, UK. landscapearchive.com

479 Followers  |  556 Following  |  20 Posts  |  Joined: 12.11.2024  |  1.9351

Latest posts by geoffmakesmaps.bsky.social on Bluesky

It's #StarTrek Day. I can't overstate how important this franchise was to me growing up and how relevant it remains to me today. But the fact that the weasels at Paramount are profiting from its utopian vision of the future makes my skin crawl. It's also mostly kept me away from the new shows.

08.09.2025 09:51 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Visualizing the History of Connections in the Ancient American Art Galleries - The Metropolitan Museum of Art A new state-of-the-art digital map welcomes and orients visitors upon entering the Ancient American Art galleries.

Hugo Ikehara–Tsukayama, Sofia Ortega-Guerrero, and I wrote an article about our decisions and the production process behind the animated map of the Americas for the Met Museum's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing!

#gischat #history #arthistory #gis #cartography #maps

05.06.2025 10:32 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The second half of the Oceania video is a visualization of the Pacific worldview called "Spheric Oceania" by artist Sean Connelly.

03.06.2025 20:36 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

God this is my whole life

06.02.2025 20:46 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Das Map

06.02.2025 20:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I did this for the Yucatán peninsula from 1550 to 1690 in my PhD and even in the tiny number of documents that still exist the depredation of empire was just astonishing. It enrages me when I think of that playing out across a whole empire for centuries. It’s time we started collecting the receipts.

06.02.2025 20:38 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A complete dataset of all archival records detailing colonial Spanish taxation/appropriation/forced sale of goods/currency/labour from indigenous communities across the empire from 1500 to 1820. A full accounting of the wealth and work stolen by the colonial project with coordinates. #gischat

06.02.2025 20:32 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
A map entitled "The Province of Yucatán in the Early Colonial Period" showing the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico in the seventeenth century. The extent of Spanish control is demarcated as covering the northeastern third of the Peninsula, with both the interior and eastern coast labeled as beyond Spanish colonial influence. The provincial capital of Mérida and the Spanish towns of Campeche in the southwest and Valladolid in the east are labeled, as are prominent Maya towns called "cabeceras," through which the Spanish extended their influence into indigenous society and territory. Major roads criss-cross the region under Spanish control linking major towns and cabeceras together and connecting them to port cities dotted along the coast. The following approximate political regions are prominently: Sahcabchén (extreme southwest), Champotón (far southwest, north of Sahcabchén), Camino Real Alto and Camino Real Bajo (north of Champotón and following the highway from Campeche to Mérida along the western coast), Sierra (along a ridge that extends from northwest to southeast across much of the Peninsula), Costa (the northern central coastal region), Beneficios Bajos (between Sierra and Costa, essentially in the central region of the area under Spanish control), Dzonot (a small district east of Costa and largely uninhabited), Tizimín (in the northeast, east of Costa and Dzonot), Chancenote (the extreme northeastern part of peninsula under Spanish control), Chancenote (south of Tizímin and north of Valladolid), Valladolid (in the central eastern region, named after the eponymous Spanish town), Beneficios altos (south of Valladolid and southeast of Beneficios Bajos), and Bacalar (in the extreme southeast, and abandoned in around 1650). A large uncolonized region called the "Montaña" or Borderlands is also labeled, beginning south of Sierra and extending southwards off the map.

A map entitled "The Province of Yucatán in the Early Colonial Period" showing the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico in the seventeenth century. The extent of Spanish control is demarcated as covering the northeastern third of the Peninsula, with both the interior and eastern coast labeled as beyond Spanish colonial influence. The provincial capital of Mérida and the Spanish towns of Campeche in the southwest and Valladolid in the east are labeled, as are prominent Maya towns called "cabeceras," through which the Spanish extended their influence into indigenous society and territory. Major roads criss-cross the region under Spanish control linking major towns and cabeceras together and connecting them to port cities dotted along the coast. The following approximate political regions are prominently: Sahcabchén (extreme southwest), Champotón (far southwest, north of Sahcabchén), Camino Real Alto and Camino Real Bajo (north of Champotón and following the highway from Campeche to Mérida along the western coast), Sierra (along a ridge that extends from northwest to southeast across much of the Peninsula), Costa (the northern central coastal region), Beneficios Bajos (between Sierra and Costa, essentially in the central region of the area under Spanish control), Dzonot (a small district east of Costa and largely uninhabited), Tizimín (in the northeast, east of Costa and Dzonot), Chancenote (the extreme northeastern part of peninsula under Spanish control), Chancenote (south of Tizímin and north of Valladolid), Valladolid (in the central eastern region, named after the eponymous Spanish town), Beneficios altos (south of Valladolid and southeast of Beneficios Bajos), and Bacalar (in the extreme southeast, and abandoned in around 1650). A large uncolonized region called the "Montaña" or Borderlands is also labeled, beginning south of Sierra and extending southwards off the map.

Early colonial Yucatán. This map appears in "The Friar and the Maya: Diego de Landa and the Account of the Things of Yucatan" by @restall.bsky.social, Amara Solari, John F. Chuchiak, and Traci Ardren (2023, Univ. Press of Colorado).

#mapmonday #GISchat #history

16.12.2024 22:46 — 👍 8    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0
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Bering Bog Bridge? New research rewrites key crossing’s landscape New research finds Bering Land Bridge was boggy with meandering rivers, not an arid steppe as previously thought

AGU put out a press release about our #AGU2024 presentations on the Bering Land Bridge (which, ICYMI is it a massive amount of exposed land during sea level lowstands!)

Check out the teaser below and come see our posters if you are in town! PP23C-0564 to 0569 (Tuesday afternoon)

09.12.2024 14:53 — 👍 24    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 3
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The Pacific. This map appears as a double-page frontispiece in "Migrant Ecologies: Environmental Histories of the Pacific World" (ed. Beattie, Jones, & Melillo, University of Hawai'i Press, 2022).

#mapmonday #cartography #envhist #GISchat

02.12.2024 16:47 — 👍 18    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

I've struggled to map exactly this multiple times - this projection is a beautiful and elegant solution. Well done!

26.11.2024 19:02 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Why didn’t anyone warn me that my dad was here too

21.11.2024 19:42 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Ooooh me! This looks great!

20.11.2024 10:10 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Not sure why it's showing up in lower res, but it looks good on my desktop - try that. If it doesn't work I'll root around for a less compressed version.

19.11.2024 11:32 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yes! For maps from scratch: No labels smaller than 6pt, no lines thinner than .3pt, and at least 25% K values between shades of gray (so you really only have 3 shades to work between black and white). For conversion from color to grayscale: Start over 🤦🏻‍♂️

18.11.2024 19:06 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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I'm currently working on an atlas of environmental history with a few historian colleagues of mine. It won't be ready for a few years, but here's a sneak peek.

#envhist #history #maps #gischat #cartography

18.11.2024 12:54 — 👍 14    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0
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I do maps for museums too! This map of early civilizations in Africa was on the wall at the @metmuseum.bsky.social last year, and I've got another 30-or-so maps going up at the Met when they finish the Rockefeller Wing renovations later this year!

#maps #cartography #history #gischat

18.11.2024 12:52 — 👍 20    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0
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[obligatory WWII map post by historical cartographer]

#gischat #cartography #history #geosky #maps

18.11.2024 12:50 — 👍 15    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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I also occasionally faff about in Blender, where I made this map of the solar system for @dagomardegroot.bsky.social and this wall map of a land parcel in New Mexico for a friend.

#gischat #cartography #maps #geosky

18.11.2024 12:48 — 👍 13    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 0
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I also make maps for print publications, most recently a huge set of 30 different maps for an upcoming collection on climate history from Oxford University Press.

#gischat #maps #cartography #geosky

18.11.2024 12:47 — 👍 9    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Intro time! I'm a mapmaker who works mostly on historical cartography, but occasionally does more contemporary stuff (like this map of ESNET6 I made for the US Department of Energy a few years back)!

#gischat #cartography #maps

18.11.2024 12:22 — 👍 18    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 1

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