Comments on: Help me find good interactive maps

Question: Help me find good interactive maps

janet lynn — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:16:53 -0800

What interactive maps have you seen that do a particularly good job illustrating an issue? I'm thinking about trying to put one together to illustrate a project I've been working on, which is loosely about policy changes, and I can't believe no one's done this before. This, from Newsweek, kinda gets it ... but I'm looking for other ideas.

By: BadMiker

BadMiker — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:31:24 -0800

BBC have some very good maps. Elections (US or UK)normally elicit one, all I can find at the moment is this

By: aheckler

aheckler — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:49:54 -0800

These are not exactly interactive, but may be of use.

By: devnull

devnull — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:03:34 -0800

I like Gap Minder (also see Wired article).

This BBC article (scroll down for the Titanic graph) is also good, but not interactive.

By: Wilberto

Wilberto — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:10:33 -0800

Toronto Star has a map blog with some interesting ones they've done to illustrate various issues (ie. bike accidents in Toronto, etc.). Sometimes includes a nerdbox that talks about the challenge of constructing the maps.

By: soma lkzx

soma lkzx — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:22:11 -0800

If you measure the quality of an interactive map by how depressed you make young single men, this map I made is pretty high up there.

And here is a[n incredible] TED talk that's pretty much all Gap Minder.

By: Ness

Ness — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:01:57 -0800

You might find further inspiration at http://infosthetics.com/.

By: janet lynn

janet lynn — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:46:11 -0800

Hmm. Thanks. Most of these seem to mine data. I'm not quite looking to do that -- I'm more looking to use a geographical area to explore an issue -- say, for example, what might happen to a small city if the power grid went down, or looking at who controls water rights in a small town in Arizona, or something like that. (Lots of possibilities, no?) Anyway, that raises two questions: are there maps out there that do this? And if not, maybe that's for a reason, and there's a better way to do this project?