of cartographies

I must have the look of a guy who could use a map: disoriented, off track, out of place.

For Christmas last year my dad got us a great National Geographic world atlas. It's huge too, like a kitchen door with pages. The same year my brother gave me this beautiful physiographic map of Nevada from raven maps. One of the things I really like about this one is how starkly it shows the caprice of state boundaries, especially with western states, like a cut of meat laid out on white butcher paper. It’s about 4 x 5 feet and takes up an entire wall at our house!

And this year my mom went to visit my sister in Scotland where they found me this fabulous Seale/Rapin map of North America from 1745, “with the European settlements &. whatever elfe is remarkable in ye West Indies, from the lateft and beft obfervations.”It’s from the Carson Clark Gallery in Edinburgh, who does maps and sea charts from the 16^th to 19^th centuries.

While we’re on the subject, and limited wallspace isn’t an issue, here are a few more to look at.

Let's start with an old favorite.

A high school teacher of mine kept this one hung up in his classroom.

Joel Garreau’s “nine nations of north America," as of 1981.

this land is your land, this land is my land

Another favorite. Where to begin.

Maybe even better, this one goes a step further, putting "the West" back out on the margins, splitting the Prime Meridian, and centering the International Date Line.

Above, toy exports & toy imports. These Worldmapper guys have hundreds like this! Like, you can sort of see where Santa's elves live.

clothing imports look similar.

grain exports.


weapon exports.

nuclear weapons.

landmine casualties.

rabies deaths.

and books published.

the Book Depository shows a map of who's online buying what books where. the “live” thing is a little misleading, but a cool idea all the same.

below, a geography of narcissism and leisure, or "who's using facebook?"

On a similar note, here's this little piece of steampunk foppery from boingboing.

And check out Kevin Kelly’s 2009 internet mapping project on the Technium.

Also see mapping stereotypes, where there's an especially fine collection of inter-European prejudices. (Thanks for the tip, Jon P. Spencer!) Now they've even done a 2011 calendar.

Ex: the American view.

And, finally, for some more great old ones, the David Rumsey map collection has thousands of all kinds, like this heights of mountains, lengths of rivers from 1846.