The Onion: World Map Rearranged To Accommodate Poor Geography Skills Of Americans

From The Onion:

World Map Rearranged To Accommodate Poor Geography Skills Of Americans — Nations Ordered Alphabetically

Gnomes of North America via Mexico!

Cartophilia, the love of maps, is universal and international.

Recently discovered: ¡Mapas, mapas! a Spanish language map blog by Fernando Augusto López Plascencia of Mexico.

What map has caught Fernando's eye? Gnomes of North America:



In particular, the Gnomes of Frankenmuth, Michigan. Frankenmuth is famous throughout Michigan for its year-round Christmas themed shopping and "family-style" chicken dinners. We used to go there every year when I was younger, but no one ever told me about the Gnomes...

I guess they are secret no more...

#465

Birds Bring World Peace?

There's a young lady who works in my department. Normally she is dressed in black, her T-shirts usually depict punk bands, death, or other depressing subjects.

So imagine my surprise when she walked in other day wearing this:



"It was the only thing clean."

Birds, helping hands, peace, love... and a map!

#450

Make Way for the Amero

Snopes.com, the Urban Legend Reference site, today addressed the rumor that the United States will soon replace its currency with the Amero. This new currency would combine the Canadian and United States Dollars with the Mexican Peso to create a single economic union, not unlike the European Community's Euro.

While Cartophilia does not wish to feed the paranoid fears of the wing-nuts, we will heartily endorse this new currency, as long as it includes a map! Daniel Carr of DC-Coin and the Moonlight Mint has created a collectible fantasy Amero coin that does just that:





It is rumored that the postage stamps of this new economic union will feature black helicopters...

#365

New World Porter

The last time I bought beer because it had a map on the label, I was less than impressed with the results. However, Mrs. Cartophiliac recently visited Jungle Jim's International Market near Cincinnati, or as she calls it, The Food Museum.

She brought back a special treat for me: a six-pack of New World Porter from Avery Brewing. I found this cartographic beer to be more to my taste.

Twittervision

Hey, I'm fairly tech savvy... For an old guy, I'm into a lot of this "Web 2.0" stuff. I blog don't I? I'm on Facebook... but I still don't get the whole Twitter thing... Why exactly do I want to spend time on yet another social networking site, posting about what I watched on TV today, what size coffee I ordered, or the weather? Even worse, why would I want to read anyone else's Twits? Don't I waste enough time already?

So, on Facebook, my friend, Hunter, posted this article from the Zen Habits blog: A Minimalist’s Guide to Using Twitter Simply, Productively, and Funly. The article's advice is: Try it, you'll get used to it... OK, that's the same advice I was offered when encouraged to begin smoking... However, another friend, Matt, pointed out that Twittervision 3D, mentioned in the article, is very cool. I must concede that point:



Jaxsomethingerother, from Jackonsville, Florida, appears to be mocking his friends up north for their recent cold spell...

Twittervision is a real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter. 3D is apparently the latest update to the original flat map application:



Yes! Now that was... not very interesting.

Except for the cool maps, I cannot say I'm sold yet on Twitter.

Iraq-Pakistan Border

On Good Morning America, while commenting on Barack Obama's Middle Eastern tour, John McCain made a bit of a geography "gaff":

"We have a lot of work to do. It’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border."

While I will not likely be voting for McCain, it wouldn't be because of this silly little slip of the tongue. However, the satirical side of the vast left-wing media conspiracy is having a field day. I just enjoy the maps:

Countdown with Keith Olbmermann

Media Matters

CrooksandLiars.com

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Matthew Yglesias

Hip Hop is Read

In the interest of fairness, as soon as the vast right-wing media conspiracy mocks Barack Obama with maps, I'll be sure to cover it here.

UPDATE 7/23: Mr. RW Anon (see comments) is making me do all the work. OK, here we go:

I had forgotten about Obama's 57 states comment... in fact I vaguely recall an editorial cartoon that included a map... but I found this one from the Power Line Blog:



"Reader Porter Yates created the 57-state map above in honor of Obama's recent slip of the tongue. The map highlights all 18 states that voted for Kerry in 2004, all 31 states in Mexico, the 6 provinces in Canada that didn't vote conservative in 2006, Jamaica and Cuba (naturally)."

However, I think this new lapel pin is the funniest image to come out of that whole flap:


#224

North America Wired

Wire sculpture by Elizabeth Berrien

The artist, "often felt that the intricate, organic lines of our living planet and its features - continents, great river and mountain ranges would make a glorious translation into wire."

Indeed it does.


Via Her Majesty of Maps

Ten Nations of the United States

In an earlier post I discussed Joel Garreau's The Nine Nations of North America. In 1989, Garreau took a look at North America, erased all of the international, state and provincial borders and redrew the lines around regions that have common interests in culture, politics and and industry. This way of looking at regional interests, that transcend state and national boundaries, forever changed my understanding of those regions.

The folks at Beyond Red & Blue, a political blog, have updated this concept, using election data:

Beyond Red & Blue" was conceived about four years ago, in anticipation of the 2004 presidential election. The idea was to divide the United States into 10 regions of equal voting power, each with a distinct history and political bent... Keep in mind that for at least 60 years, no one has ever been elected president without carrying at least five of these regions.

The original article with the 2008 map was posted in September 2007, and last week offered more detail on What went into deciding the 10 regions. It is hard for me to think of myself in Western Ohio, and people living in Indiana or Illinois as having the same identity (Cumberland) as the folks in Appalachia, or that people in the San Joaquin Valley of California are part of the same voting block as North Dakota... But this approach to an electoral map is fascinating nonetheless.

Via The Electoral Map

Alternate Nations of North America

In my previous post, I mentioned the CommonCensus Map Project. From their website:

The CommonCensus Map Project is redrawing the map of the United States based on your input, to reveal the boundaries people themselves feel, as opposed to the state and county boundaries drawn by politicians. View the maps to see how the country is divided into 'spheres of influence' between different cities at the national, regional, and local levels.

This information will finally settle the question over exactly where cultural boundaries lie, contribute to the national debate over Congressional redistricting and gerrymandering, and educate people everywhere as to the true layout of the American people that they've never seen on any map before.

This is a fascinating project. Click on this map to see the project as of its last update in August. I live in a suburb of Dayton, generally refer to myself as being from Dayton, but sometimes think of myself as living within the larger sphere of Cincinnatti. In some ways, these areas are analogous to Nielsen Media Markets or Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA). But what this project is really about is defining affinities that trancend artificial borders. Which immediately reminds me of The Nine Nations of North America, by Joel Garreau.

While it was written in 1989, most of his observations still ring true. Garreau took a look at North America, erased all of the international, state and provincial borders and redrew the lines around regions that have common interests in culture, politics and and industry.

When I first saw this book, I was naturally attracted by the map on the cover, however, the insights I gained from this book continue to color my understanding of how things work in this country. In this week between the caucuses and primaries, I have a better understanding of what is important to Iowans in the Breadbasket and New Hampshirans in New England.

In the classic alternate history of North America, For Want of a Nail, Robert Sobel allows history to take a different turn.

Over the two centuries following the failed American Revolution, two rival nations emerge and divide the continet between them. This work of fiction is written as a complete, detailed historical text. The two nations develop on a parallel path that includes some of the best and worst traits of America. According to this article, John J. Reilly described them as two strands of American nationalism, "the utopian impulse, resulting in a penchant for social reform" and "quixotic experiments in economic equality," that is "very keen on liberty and indifferent to equality".

Maps on Magazine Covers

An assortment of maps on magazine covers from my collection:

If you want to demonstrate your "global reach"... put a globe on your cover...











While I suppose it is not suprising to find a map on the cover of the Journal of Geography... I particularly liked this "melting Earth" image... (see global warming).



If you want to tell your readers "we're covering the news" put a map on the cover:



Map in an editorial cartoon on a cover:



Like the recent Time magazine cover, here is a map on the body to imply how "widespread" a disease can be:

Here Comes the Flood

In honor of the flood in my basement last night, I share this worst-case-scenario map of global warming:


From Bits & Pieces

Not relevant to maps, but still funny, in a dark way, these are the Christmas cards we're sending out this year.
From The Onion: Merry Second-To-Last Christmas

The Clumsiest People in Europe

Neither of the books in this post are about maps, but they make clever use of maps for their covers.

The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World, edited by Todd Pruzan.

When I first started browsing through this book, I was not convinced that it wasn't all a hoax (not unlike the Flashman Papers). Mrs. Mortimer does not have many good things to say about people she has never met, and places she has never been:

"It would be well if the Germans were more neat and clean, especially the poor ones."

"The Turks are so grave that they look wise. But how can lazy people really be wise?"

"Washington is one of the most desolate cities in the world."

Her outrageous statements seemed to good to be true. Then I did some checking. It appears that Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer was in fact an author in Victorian England. She was best known for her series of children's books.

But of course, it was not the content of the book that caught my eye, so much as the cover. Click on the image above and look sideways. The countries of Europe have been relabeled with their supposed attributes. Germany is "Unclean", Austria is "Coughing", and Romania is "Robbers". On the plus side, Iceland is "Harmless".

Built for Growth: Expanding Your Business Around the Corner or Across the Globe, by Arthur Rubinfeld.

How to make your business the next Starbucks. I'm sure you need more than a map, pins and some string... but its not a bad start...