Can you recommend sites with cool timelines and maps?

June 15, 2004 11:01 AM

A geek with an internet connection, time to kill, and money to burn: it's a Good Thing. So I've spent the morning looking at cool maps, interesting posters, and timelines. I'd love to look at more. Can you recommend sites with cool, geeky, information-packed maps and.or posters that would look good on a wall? I'd love to find a good historical timeline, for example. Help me fritter my life away!
posted by jdroth to grab bag (17 comments total)

Calling mcwetboy! Go back through the archives of his Maproom - scads of really great linkage there.
posted by iconomy at 11:29 AM on June 15, 2004

Heh. I would have recommended Raven until I scrolled over your first link. I've bought a couple of their maps in the past as gifts and they are stunning. Highly recommended.

The French Institut Geographique National has some cool stuff. They ship overseas. (The in-store experience is much better than their webs ite, so if you really have some monet to burn, you know what to do :)
posted by Dick Paris at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2004

Heh. I would have recommended Raven until I scrolled over your first link. I've bought a couple of their maps in the past as gifts and they are stunning. Highly recommended.

The French Institut Geographique National has some cool stuff. They ship overseas. (The in-store experience is much better than their webs ite, so if you really have some money to burn, you know what to do :)
posted by Dick Paris at 11:50 AM on June 15, 2004

I'd second the Tufte poster. I've always wanted the one outlining Napoloen's campaign against Russia in 1812.

Asthetically pleasing, no, but the amount of information per square inch! Astounding!
posted by sleslie at 12:19 PM on June 15, 2004

Apologies for the self-link, but I've collected some map links over the years: xBlog: Mapping. Hope that helps. Definitely check out The Map Room as iconomy recommended.
posted by bkeaggy at 12:52 PM on June 15, 2004

Great links, folks. Thanks. More more more!

And you know, I'd really love a giant frameable print of a zeppelin. Or some sort of DK-style comparitive poster of zeppelin history.

Seriously.

Ah, decorating a new house is fun, isn't it? :)
posted by jdroth at 1:27 PM on June 15, 2004

Ooooh nice question! Will be reloading this thread often today. Wonder if any can ship by father's day...
posted by Voivod at 1:58 PM on June 15, 2004

If you're into antique maps & prints, these folks are a good resource. Alas, the owner appears to be closing up shop (but has a great many ebay auctions);the site still has many wonderful scans & plate information that could help you find something cool elsewhere.
posted by Sangre Azul at 2:21 PM on June 15, 2004

curta calculator poster.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:40 PM on June 15, 2004

Raven maps makes some good stuff. Check out the "computer view" maps.
posted by Hackworth at 2:52 PM on June 15, 2004

This map of the Land of Make Believe, long out of print, is one of my favorites. I found a copy on eBay many moons ago, and had it laminated to a piece of wood (I forget the name of the process). It's beautiful.
posted by jdroth at 3:00 PM on June 15, 2004

What a great map! I think you might be referring to decoupaging. I do that with vintage-looking posters sometimes, to great effect.
posted by iconomy at 6:15 PM on June 15, 2004

I recommend Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion Map, which distorts sizes and shapes less than other flat maps, and makes all the world's land look like an island chain in one ocean.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 7:23 PM on June 15, 2004

I posted this once, didn't get a good reaction, but maybe you'll like it:

World History Timeline
posted by tetsuo at 8:02 PM on June 15, 2004

Hmm. Methinks I should get my act together and make with the new posts on the aforementioned Map Room. (It's been over a month, and people are still submitting links. Needless to say there's a backlog. I've been too busy elsewhere. Back to it with me.)

Can't think of anything off-hand; I'll be using this thread myself for new links. I know less about maps than many people here; the blog is an exercise in self-education. Always scares me when people ask for advice.

I do know that many map stores -- I love map stores -- have neat stuff for walls, sometimes even already dry-mounted, and not just maps. I picked up a poster of a 360° panorama from the summit of Mt. Temple (Banff National Park -- I also like mountains) at a map store in Edmonton about eight years ago. The one in Ottawa had some reprints of old railway network maps (I also like trains) that I was staring long and hard at, though I was ostensibly there for some topo maps . . .

I've got to get it restored -- I got it second hand, already with major rips -- but the coolest thing on my wall for the longest time was a Soviet-era map of the world in Russian.
posted by mcwetboy at 9:11 PM on June 15, 2004

Not for the wall, but in Germany I bought a set of DVDs with combination maps and aerial photographs for the entire country. For larger cities, the photographic detail was very high, I could pick out the vent shaft of my small building in the city center. It was even affordable. The equivalent in the UK I've seen was only regional and pricey.

I love maps, on the wall, in books and especially on the computer. But as a renter in the UK, hanging stuff on the walls requires repairs when moving. Not so much as a single picture hook. And the IDIOT real estate agent told the landlord to even remove the hooks she had already!
posted by Goofyy at 11:41 PM on June 15, 2004

Tetsuo, good factual threads don't always get a lot of posts. I thought it was good.
Here's the thread from the blue about timeline posters.
posted by milovoo at 8:57 AM on June 16, 2004