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maproomblog.com
The Map Room
@maproomblog.com
310 followers 44 following 210 posts
A blog by @jonathancrowe.net about maps in all their forms, on and off since 2003. maproomblog.com
Email digest: maproomblog.com/about/subscribe
Mastodon: mapstodon.space/@maproomblog
Support via Patreon: patreon.com/jonathancrowe
Posts Replies Media Videos
maproomblog.com
This week on The Map Room:

First Radar Images from NISAR
www.maproomblog.com/2025/09/firs...

Ethics in Cartography
www.maproomblog.com/2025/09/ethi...

Review: Earth Shapers
www.maproomblog.com/2025/10/revi...
Imagery of Maine’s Mount Desert Island captured by NISAR’s L-band radar on 21 Aug 2025. NASA/JPL-Caltech. Book cover: Earth Shapers
October 3, 2025 at 7:19 PM
maproomblog.com
@mapper.bsky.social Mapstodon n’est plus? Voici ce qui me salue quand je le visite.
Safari Can’t Find the Server: Safari can’t open the page “https://mapstodon.space” because Safari can’t find the server “mapstodon.space”. [screenshot]
September 24, 2025 at 1:17 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: Fuller Goes to Washington
www.maproomblog.com/2025/06/full...
A crop from Gareth Fuller’s pen-and-ink pictorial map of Washington, D.C., published as The DMV in 2025.
June 30, 2025 at 1:06 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: Star Wars Galaxy Map Updated
www.maproomblog.com/2025/06/star...
A crop from the map of the Star Wars galaxy found on Starwars.com. https://www.starwars.com/star-wars-galaxy-map
June 25, 2025 at 3:45 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: 27.3% of the Ocean Floor Has Now Been Mapped
www.maproomblog.com/2025/06/27-3...
A map of the world showing where the seafloor has been mapped. New bathymetric data added in the past year is shown in red. Source: Seabed 2030. https://seabed2030.org/2025/06/21/seabed-2030-announces-millions-of-square-kilometers-of-new-seafloor-data-on-world-hydrography-day/
June 24, 2025 at 9:27 PM
maproomblog.com
Empty Land Doesn’t Vote (and Neither Do Kangaroos): What Australian and Canadian Election Maps Do (and Don’t Do) About It www.maproomblog.com/2025/05/empt...
Screenshot of an interactive map of the 2025 Australian federal election results from the Guardian website. The Guardian calls it an “exaggerated” map, in that geographically small urban constituencies are slightly enlarged for visibility while maintaining a reasonably geographically accurate shape overall.
May 7, 2025 at 2:58 PM
maproomblog.com
Three posts:

Maps and Games Roundup
www.maproomblog.com/2025/04/maps...

If You Thought There Would Be Nothing More to Report About the ‘Gulf of America’ Nonsense, You Were Mistaken
www.maproomblog.com/2025/04/if-y...

Daniel Huffman’s Asymmetric Monstrosity
www.maproomblog.com/2025/04/dani...
Daniel Huffman’s map of the world using his 'asymmetric monstrosity' composite map projection.
April 11, 2025 at 12:49 AM
maproomblog.com
New post: New York City Subway Map Gets a Complete Makeover www.maproomblog.com/2025/04/new-...
MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber, NYCT President Demetrius Crichlow, and Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara unveil a major redesign to the New York City Subway Map at Times Sq-42 St on Wednesday, Apr 2, 2025. Marc A. Hermann/MTA. CC licence. A complete New York City Subway map from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
April 2, 2025 at 7:27 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: Seafloor Features Mapped by Satellite www.maproomblog.com/2025/04/seaf...
A map of the world showing the vertical gravity gradient on the ocean floor. The gradient is used to model seafloor topography. NASA Earth Observatory/SWOT.
April 1, 2025 at 8:09 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: World of Maps Owners Retiring, Seeking New Owners www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/worl...
A photo of the World of Maps storefront in a snowy day in Ottawa on 27 November 2017.
March 31, 2025 at 4:47 PM
maproomblog.com
Membership drive update! We’re now past the halfway point and more than halfway there. Just seven more paid members by the end of the month and we make the goal—and paid members get to see my presentation on fantasy maps.
www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/pled...
www.patreon.com/jonathancrowe
A selection of slides from my 2019 presentation, “The Territory is Not the Map: Exploring the Fantasy Map Style.” The slide at left outlines the talk: 1. What we talk about when we talk about fantasy maps; 2. What fantasy maps look like; 3. The origins of the fantasy map style; 4. The implications of the fantasy map style. The slide at right has an inset of the Tabula Peutingeriana and has the title 'A Pseudomedieval aesthetic'. Bullet points: - A purely medieval aesthetic would not be understood by modern fantasy readers - A purely modern map would be rejected as anachronistic - Result: A modern map that looks and feels like an old map, but isn't.
March 19, 2025 at 12:59 PM
maproomblog.com
Two new posts!

Mapping the University of Chicago’s Expansion into Its Surrounding Neighbourhoods www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/mapp...

A New Map of the Land Beneath Antarctica’s Ice www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/a-ne...
An elevation map showing the topography of Antarctica underneath its ice sheet. Polar projection centred on the South Pole. Colour. From Pritchard et al., Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica. Sci Data 12, 414 (2025).
March 18, 2025 at 2:40 PM
maproomblog.com
Two new posts!

Apple Maps Surveyor www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/appl...

The Trouble with Inflight Maps
www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/the-...
A screenshot of Maps Surveyor from the Apple App Store
March 17, 2025 at 7:08 PM
maproomblog.com
Two new posts:

Google Maps Has a Lot of User-Contributed Imagery in the Wrong Places
www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/goog...

Multispectral Imaging Comes to a 15th Century Portolan Chart
www.maproomblog.com/2025/03/mult...
The 1452 mappa mundi by Giovanni Leardo held in the collection of the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
March 12, 2025 at 10:17 PM
maproomblog.com
New post! ‘Gulf of America’: Compliance and Resistance www.maproomblog.com/2025/02/gulf...
A screenshot from Apple Maps, showing how the Gulf of Mexico is labelled as Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). A user-generated map of the Gulf of Mexico from Mapquest’s gulfof.mapquest.com tool, labelling the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Compliance in Advance.
February 17, 2025 at 3:16 PM
maproomblog.com
Three new posts!

1. Turkish Museum of Cartography www.maproomblog.com/2025/02/turk...

2. Google and the Gulf www.maproomblog.com/2025/02/goog...

3. Paranneaux Globes www.maproomblog.com/2025/02/para...
A screenshot from Google Maps showing the Gulf of Mexico labelled as 'Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)' An image from the Paranneaux Globes website, showing a selection of small sculpted globes on metal stands.
February 11, 2025 at 7:55 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: More reactions to ‘Gulf of America’:
www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/more...

So help me, this is my third post on the subject. Previously:

Naming the Gulf www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/nami...

Google Maps to Use ‘Gulf of America’—Others Not So Much
www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/goog...
Detail from Mercator, Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate (1569), showing the Gulf of Mexico labelled as 'Golfo Mexicano' 456 years ago. Wikimedia Commons.
January 30, 2025 at 1:08 AM
maproomblog.com
Kathleen Jennings Shows Us How She Draws a Fantasy Map
www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/kath...
A series of sketches by Kathleen Jennings of what would become her map for The Wild Huntress by Emily Lloyd-Jones.
January 29, 2025 at 1:07 PM
maproomblog.com
Three new posts:

TPR on the Map Center www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/tpr-...

A Map of Polar Bears in Iceland, Where They Don’t Belong www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/a-ma...

Moon Lidar www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/moon...
Left: a map of Iceland showing where polar bears have been reported in recorded history. Right: A screenshot from moonlidar.com, showing a colour-coded topographical 3D virtual globe of the Moon.
January 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
maproomblog.com
Naming the Gulf www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/nami...
“Les costes aux environs de la rivière de Misisipi: découvertes par Mr. de la Salle en 1683 et reconnues par Mr. le Chevallier d’Iberville en 1698 et 1699,” from Nicolas de Fer, L’Atlas curieux, 1701. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.
January 22, 2025 at 4:22 AM
maproomblog.com
New post: The Palazzo Vecchio’s Map Room, Restored and Virtual www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/the-...
A screenshot from the virtual version of the Pallazo Vecchio’s Map Room.
January 10, 2025 at 4:49 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: Daylighting Rivers
www.maproomblog.com/2025/01/dayl...
Screenshot from a CBC News interactive story about daylighting rivers: an interactive map showing buried rivercourses on the Island of Montreal.
January 9, 2025 at 2:28 PM
maproomblog.com
New post: Online Exhibition Introduces Cincinnati Library’s Map Holdings www.maproomblog.com/2024/12/onli...
Plan of Cincinnati and Vicinity (1860). CHPL.
December 20, 2024 at 2:13 PM
maproomblog.com
On The Map Room today, a review of Paulina Rowińska’s new book, Mapmatics: www.maproomblog.com/2024/11/revi...

Plus! Independent Map Sellers: www.maproomblog.com/2024/11/inde...
Cover of the U.S. edition of Mapmatics Cover of the U.K. edition of Mapmatics
November 22, 2024 at 5:03 PM
maproomblog.com
Two new posts!

A Social Media Update www.maproomblog.com/2024/11/a-so...

The Yellowhead Treaty Map
www.maproomblog.com/2024/11/the-...
Screenshot from the Yellowhead Treaty Map website, showing areas covered by treaties with Indigenous peoples in Canada.
November 8, 2024 at 4:20 PM