Tactile

Just found these extraordinary tactile maps by Inuit travellers. The wood carvings are representations of the East Greenland coastline, designed to be used at night or in low visibility.

(via)

Dialect

Assembled and published by the British Library a record of England's regional dialects makes fascinating listening. A Google map allows easy connection to the range of sounds and vocabulary of our people. The north has a noticeably denser concentration of flags, perhaps indicating the persistent, distinctive and subtly different intonations of our northern industrial towns, it seems.

Strange maps

The strangeness of this site, coupled with its articulate writers has made it essential RSS reading.

One day a map of voting patterns in Poland (see earlier post), another a map of North & South America in strawberry jam (left).

Motorways

Here is a nice Beck-inspired representation of the UK Mainland motorway network. Very neat and tidy.

Nolli

The Nolli Plan of Rome was produced in 1748, and its author revolutionised the way cities were represented by showing buildings in plan form (rather than bird's eye view), and with unprecedented surveying accuracy. Indeed public buildings had their interiors recorded too, helpfully emphasising the continuity of the city into its most prominent structures. The University of Oregon has digitally mastered the map, and added interpretative overlays, including satellite images, which can be viewed via a map engine.

Poland

Follow this to a startling piece of research, demonstrating the persistence of prejudice and national characteristics.

Complexity, drawn

Visual Complexity is a collection of maps and graphical representations of complex statistical data and systems. Look out for the transportation section, which includes a map of the US composed of every single road represented by a line. Utterly brilliant.