China historic maps
Harvard has released a complete GIS dataset of historic maps on China. The data consist of populated places and political boundaries for China proper from 222BC to 1911CE and have all place names in English. Frontier data are available from 19th century onward. There’s also DEM data and background image derived from GTOPO-30. A bit dated, but comes by handy if you just need a quick fix. It can be downloaded for free for academic use.
The wonderful website contains portions of Army map scans and Russian historic maps on China as well.
Filed under: China, Datasets, GIS, historic map, map, mapping, maps | 2 Comments
Year of the Pigs
While researching for some historical maps, I came across this Map of World Production of Hogs from U of South Florida’s interesting site. Well, it seems that China did have a disproportionate number of pigs, so there’s actually a good reason for naming this the Year of the Pigs. But then, giving the population density then (and now), one really shouldn’t be too surprised at the outcome. I’m just curious as to where the underlying data came from, as this one was made in 1922.
Filed under: China, mapping, maps | Leave a Comment
Google’s official mash up
Mashups have been around for a while but you need to do a bit of programming with Google’s API. Now the gorilla has released a mass market version of its own mashup with MyMaps. So I’ve taken a test drive by creating a rough one on the places that I’d visited. The service is easy to use and allows for embedding pictures and videos, beating Microsoft Live Map hands down. Other mapping sites like Platial will also be in trouble. Wish WordPress will have widget for this soon.
Filed under: cartography, Google, map design - web, mapping, Mash-ups, travel | 1 Comment
earth shaking new start
It’s been 2 weeks and I’ve only been able to access wordpress.com recently. While there wasn’t much damage to people and properties, the underwater cables were basically cut. The words out there is that service will not return to normal until end of this month. Talk about an auspicious start for the Year of the Golden Pig!
This is a historical seismicity map by Prof. Koji Okumura of the Hiroshima University. Unfortunately it contains only data upto the massive 1999 quake which killed over 2000 people. While the 2006 one suffered only 2 fatalities, communication cables had been wrecked and caused more damage within the region.
We are finalizing a map of the Pacific Ring of Fire this week, and guess where Taiwan’s located…
Filed under: cartography, earthquake, map, mapping, maps, pacific ring of fire, Taiwan | Leave a Comment
On The Road Cartography 