Category: GIS Christmas

For todays post I want to share one of my favourite websites about maps, Strangemaps. This website is filled with interesting maps and discussions about them. One of my favourite posts is about what happens to your head if you look at too many maps. Another is the map of Procrasti-Nation, and the explanation about which words are used to describe procrastination in different languages. BBC made a very good tv series about maps called the The Beauty of Maps, and one of the episodes were about cartoon maps, politics and satire. Some of these maps in this episode can be found on Strangemaps for those interested in learning more about them.  Here’s a link to that episode on Youtube:

Mercator Puzzle

Today I want to share a link to a game that is useful for learning how the Mercator projection distorts the shape of countries closer to the poles. This game is made by Google who uses the Mercator projection for their maps due the square grid which makes it easy to make tiles (Google’s map tiles are 256 x 256 pixels in size). Speaking of projections, XKCD has a good and fun webcomic about map projections. On the website of Steve Waterman it’s possible to learn more about the Waterman butterfly projection, and he also have a poem where he compares his projection to other map projections. Here’s the Mercator Puzzle