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The Art of Geography

Comic Cartography: Maps, Comic Books, and the "-Nessness" of Each

Sep 7, 2017
6 min

Comic Cartography: Maps, Comic Books, and the "-Nessness" of Each

Drawn by A. Degen - from Mighty Star and the Castle of the Cancatervater I’ve been writing about maps in comics, albeit at a glacial pace, since the start of January 2014 at Comic Cartography. After posting for the past few years, I thought I had some things figured out. When I met the editors of The Coordinates Society, though, they asked me a great question: Why? Why think about the relationship between maps and comics? And it’s a hard question. I’ve spent months trying to

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The Urbanik Preserve: Discovering You are On The Map

Mar 15, 2017
9 min

The Urbanik Preserve: Discovering You are On The Map

I opened the envelope from my parents and pulled out a slightly crinkled tri-fold brochure from the East Haddam Conservation Commission. It was for the Urbanik Preserve, an 86-acre protected parcel of Connecticut that, according to the description, includes a man-made pond, level paths, and a grassy dam “perfect for warming up on winter days or while watching the clouds roll past in early spring.” A map reveals the preserve’s boundary, its topography, and footbridge, and ma

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Mapping Melbourne

Jan 18, 2017
4 min

Mapping Melbourne

My name is Adam Mattinson, and I’m a cartographer who, along with 4.5 million other folks, calls Melbourne, Australia home. While most of my fellow Melburnians might visualize the city in the manner of Google Maps or the Melway street directory (an International Cartographic Award-winning mapping icon of our city, responsible for introducing many Melburnians to the world of cartography), my perspective, however, is overlaid with a complex network from an alternate dimension.

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A very brief history of America's nautical charts

Jun 9, 2016
4 min

A very brief history of America's nautical charts

Not too long ago almost all of our goods arrived to us by sail. Navigation by sea is now done mostly with the use of computer and GPS (global positioning systems) technology. However, there was a time when paper charts ruled the waves. What follows is a very brief history of American chart making (also called chart cartography) and the aesthetics of this special art and science. Nautical charts--essential to good seamanship--are coastal maps showing water depth, navigation

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Famous Boots of Wimberley, Texas: A Story Map

May 24, 2016
4 min

Famous Boots of Wimberley, Texas: A Story Map

Take a story map tour of a public arts project in Wimberley, Texas to see how one community shares its sense of place. I recently created a story map on the “Famous Boots of Wimberley, Texas”. This beautiful small community of about 4,000 people in the Texas Hill Country started as a trading post settlement in 1848. The people of the town of Wimberley began a project in 2014 called “Bootiful Wimberley” as a way to highlight community arts and enhance cultural tourism there.

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Creating a Story Map

May 24, 2016
4 min

Creating a Story Map

Learn how to create your own story map using free Esri software and start sharing your unique geographies! Why story maps? What makes you and/or your community unique? Each community, family, or person has a rich and diverse history, set of experiences, and links to geography. This richness can be communicated in a compelling way using multimedia through maps. Today’s maps, through the evolution of geographic technologies to the cloud, are dynamic, easy to update, can inc

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Curio: 1932 Map of Medicinal Plants

coordinatessociety

May 18, 2016
1 min

Curio: 1932 Map of Medicinal Plants

This 1932 Medicinal Plant Map was published by the National Wholesale Druggists' Association for a campaign called Pharmacy Week. At the time, pharmacists were experts about plants and how to mix them for health purposes. Today, pharmacists work mostly with synthetic drugs made in laboratories. Click on the map to be taken to it's original location in David Rumsey's map archive where you can zoom in to see the intricate details. #maps #plants

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Curio: Cloth Maps from the WVS

coordinatessociety

May 13, 2016
1 min

Curio: Cloth Maps from the WVS

The British Women's Volunteer Service began in 1938 to help support the troops during WWII. Their ranks would ultimately rise to 1 million and their work covered nearly every aspect of life in Britain. One of the most fascinating projects they were tasked with was to sew cloth maps to help with military planning. This video, from 1943, shows how they made they maps - not only were they useful for the war effort, but they were clearly works of art in and of themselves. Britis

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Miscellany of Curious Maps: A Video Review

Places Familiar and Fantastical

Stentor Danielson

Mar 22, 2016
5 min

Places Familiar and Fantastical

In the spring of 2014, I was struck with inspiration to draw a map of my home city of Pittsburgh in the style of a map from a fantasy novel. Working on this map, and a series of similar ones of other cities, was a revealing look into how people relate to the places that they live. Fantasy maps have an important place in my life, starting with the iconic map of Middle-earth (drawn by the author’s son Christopher Tolkien) from Lord of the Rings. When I read LotR for the first t

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