Cartographic Perspectives (E-Journal - North American Cartographic Information Society, NACIS)
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James Monteith: Cartographer, Educator, and Master of the Margins
No full textJames Monteith (1831–1890) was a leading figure in American geography education in the late nineteenth century, but his career has been largely forgotten and his contribution to cartography has been underappreciated. Monteith’s maps and geography textbooks were targeted at the general reader, but included innovative ways to highlight comparative spatial relationships. Much of the text in Monteith’s books is typical of that found in other works of the period, but his geography volumes included unique illustrations to help the reader visualize terrain on a continental scale and place individual maps in a global context. Monteith produced fairly pedestrian maps in his books but surrounded them with remarkable symbology and amplifying data that ought perhaps to earn him the title “master of the margins.
Frequently Updated Maps and their Public Display
No full textThe display of maps on computer monitors in a public setting can be used to emphasize their value in conveying spatial patterns. For thematic maps, by removing the possibility for interaction, more attention can be focused on the mapped distributions. Maps that lend themselves best for public display are those that are frequently updated, such as weather maps. Other types of frequently updated maps (FUMs) include those of earthquakes, air pollution, and health conditions, such as the spread of a virus. These types of maps are increasingly provided through the internet in an interactive format, making the resultant maps less suited for public display. Described here are available maps that could be displayed in a public setting, and a method to make maps for quick display based on available data. A series of these maps can then be assembled and shown in a continuous loop. The display of maps for the public can be implemented using the low-cost, Raspberry Pi computer. Maps that are suitable for public display, instructions for implementation, and the required code are available at: maps.unomaha.community/FUMPD/About.html
A Comparison of Feature Density for Large Scale Online Maps
No full textLarge scale maps as provided by Google, Microsoft Bing, and Mapbox among others provide users an important source of information for local environments. Comparing maps from these services helps to evaluate both the quality of the underlying spatial data and the rendering process. A comparison procedure is used that generates large scale map pairs at random locations using the Application Programmer Interface (API) for three different mapping services. The quality of each representation is then evaluated for feature and label density. The comparison is done for three different continents. For North America, it was found that maps from Google had consistently higher feature and label density than those from Microsoft Bing and Mapbox. Google Maps also held an advantage in Europe. Maps from Microsoft Bing were more detailed in Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison to both Google Maps and Mapbox. Maps from Mapbox, that relies exclusively on data from OpenStreetMap, had the lowest feature and label density for all three areas
Geography, Maps, and the Annals: 67 years of History
No full textGeographers are often asked “what is geography?”, and the number of answers to this question nearly equals the number of geographers. We (and others) argue that it is the spatial dimension that makes geography different, and that to do geography, one must communicate spatial information. Cartography is one of the key forms of spatial communication. However, the geographic literature often lacks maps. To examine this, we reviewed 67 years of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers to test any trends in the presence/absence of maps, the influence of editors, and how any trends related to changes in the field of geography. On average, 24% of the papers published did not contain maps. Roughly speaking, papers from the 1950s, mid-1970s through the 1980s, and from 2000–present were the least likely to contain maps. Papers in the 1960s, early 1970s, and mid-1990s contained the most. The influence of editors on the percentage of papers published without maps was significant, but weak. We found a relationship between the changes in numbers of papers with maps and broad changes in the field of geography. There was a slight increase in the number of publications that included maps during the quantitative revolution after World War II, which declined during the discipline’s shift toward social and critical geography in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2001, the format of the Annals changed from publishing all the articles in one section to dividing the publications in four thematic sections with different editors. From 2001–2017, the Physical Geography and Environmental Sciences section was the most likely to have maps (11.9% of articles without maps) while the People, Place, and Regions section was the least likely (47.7% without maps). Overall, the changes in the percentage of articles without maps can largely be explained by changes in the fields of geography and cartography—up to about the year 2000
