Author: andre_sberger

For my second to last calendar post I have another book recommendation. It is the book “The Making of a Land: Geology of Norway”. This is a big book with the geological history of Norway, and it tells well how the landscape has been formed over time. While that may sound dry/boring for anyone but someone really interested in geology this book is the opposite of that. It has a very rich selection of photos, illustrations and maps, which also makes it into a nice coffee table book to just look in. Even someone not very interested in geology may find something interesting in this book. The Norwegian version, which I have, won the price for the most beautiful factual book in Norway in 2007. The link above has some examples of the pages in the book. It is a little on the expensive side, so it may be a gift for yourself or someone who loves geology and deserves a bigger gift. But considering the size I think it’s worth the prize. 

Today’s post is more of a project for the holidays or a weekend. And that is learning to use and edit KML files. KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language, and is a format for geographical information used by Google Maps and Google Earth. ArcGis and QGIS also support and can convert KML files. KML files can be used for something as simple as sharing a trip you have planned in Google Earth, or to display textboxes with embedded pictures or videos on a map.

The easiest way to see the kml code is to right on any feature, like a placemark in Google Earth and copy it. Then if you paste into a simple text editor like notepad the feature will be converted into code text that can be edited in that text editor. Google has a good website with resources to learn KML. Another good resource is the KML Handbook, which is written by a technical writer at Google. On this website there is more information about this book, and also sample code used in the examples in the book.

I have written about the TeleGeography telecom maps before, but I think they deserve a repost this year for their 2015 Submarine Cable Map. It is a beautiful Mercator / old-style map with a lot of information, and some fun elements like the sea creatures. Their maps are realeased with a creative commons attribution and can be downloaded in a big size or viewed online as an interactive map. All their maps can be found on their map gallery page, where they also have a Middle East Telecommunications map for 2015, and other maps in different styles dating back to 1999.

An old map of Bruges in Belgium.

Christmas day is rapidly getting closer, and I still have some presents to finish and an apartment to clean up. If you’re still looking for a gift that can be hung on a wall, then why not an old map? Then all you need is a good printer, and maybe a frame for the map to hang in. Old Maps Online is a good place to find old maps. You can search by location, and also filter by date range and attributes, so it is easy to find, say, a map of Norway from the 1700s. With the few maps I tried it was possible to export the map in good enough resolution to fill a poster. I like looking at older maps and think that someone spent days drawing all the details. Here’s an example of what can be found there. It is not just one, but seven puzzle maps of different continents. With a little time you could glue it to some cardboard and cut it out along the lines to get a set of old puzzle maps.

Back in 2013 The Norwegian National Mapping Authority released a lot of its geographical data in the hope that citiens and companies could use it for new services that could benefit a lot of people. I have downloaded and used some of their data and find it great that it is available. But according to the organisation for geomatics in Norway, GeoForum, there is a higher potential for innovation than what has been done so far. So therefore they have launched a program called “Project Innovation” (site in Norwegian) to help people create things with the available data. They have written a set of tutorials on how to use the national data to make different web maps, they will organise various seminars and they have also put together a pool of experts (of which I know a few) that are willing to answer questions.

While this program is meant for Norwegians and the released data is for Norway, the tutorials on GeoForums GitHub page also has example code for the tutorials to help you get started so they might be useful for others too (and maybe google translate makes the tutorial texts understandable in English).

Living, eating and shopping green and ecological is not always easy, but the Ecomaps website created by the association International Young Naturefriends can maybe help you with that. Ecomaps is a European mapping service and database, showing the most sustainable, ecological and healthiest options in a certain location, area or city. The website also has articles to teach about ecological issues or how to live a green lifestyle. It is also possible to sign up and add places in your own city or area.

Do all roads lead to Rome? That’s what some designers wanted to find out, so they looked at all the roads in Europe to calculate which roads actually go to Rome. They have also created other maps, like the roads to all ten Romes in the US, and the shortest road to all the European capitals. The maps are beautiful and can be found here: http://roadstorome.moovellab.com/

XKCD is one of favourite webcomics, and they have made several good comics about maps. I made a list of them in my last Christmas calendar.

A newer map from XKCD is this upside-down map where every continent and island have been rotated 180 degrees. For Norway that means a place close to the equator, I guess we would have to find other things to do in winter than skiing. All XKCD comics have a fun text that comes up when the mouse is hovered about the comic, and I have added that text in the image below.

Another fun tool is one that can end discussions about where you would end up if you dug straight down through the earth. One would then end up at the antipodes, the place on earth diametrically opposite to it. The antipodes map show exactly this. From most places one would end up in an ocean, but for Europe one could start from Spain and Portugal and be lucky to end up in New Zealand. This clearly shows how much of the world is covered by oceans. According to this website, the only countries ending up in China are Argentina and Chile.