Last week I heard that the London School of Economics Geography Department was disposing of its maps and that anyone interested was free to rescue them. My first reaction was one of surprise as maps are one of the few things geographers are associated with, so it doesn’t seem right to have a geography department without a map room. My more rational side, however, understands that a change of research priorities within geography, combined with the fact that all up to date maps are now stored digitally probably means that the map room drawers have remained shut for a number of years. As universities expand there is an increasing demand for space and the “use it or lose it” policy is likely to apply.
So it fell to a number of enthusiasts to save the maps. I think the majority have been rescued and will be given new life as posters, artworks or simply keepsakes to be pulled out and admired on a rainy day. Rifling through the maps was a bit like going through an old photo album. Snapshots from the past, such as maps showing the narrow air corridor in 1970s Germany
or the size of the Haut Glacier d’Arolla glacier and famously retreating Unterer Grindelwladgletscher 75 years ago cast insights into a world before my time.
For something closer to home, I picked up some really nice maps from the “Phillips Series of Comparative Wall Atlases” (dated 1956) that show the summer and winter temperatures across the British Isles. I suspect that today we can add a couple of degrees to many of the contour lines drawn on the maps.
My favorite find is a couple of Ordnance Survey maps of the Greenwich Area dated 1917, though some lucky person had made off with the rest of London! Highlights from the maps include the “Thames Soap and Candle Works”
and detailed outlines of the housing.
If anyone knows what the colours mean I would be interested in hearing from them…
I think it is a real shame that such a great collection of maps has had to be broken up and I suspect LSE Geography will not be the last to send its maps to recycling. Still every cloud has a sliver lining and I am now trying to find the wall space to hang my newly acquired maps!
Thanks to Ollie O’Brien for the tip off about the map room giveaway.
Following my previous post I have been digging around archive.org for interesting spatial/ geographical related resources. A search for “geographic” yielded a number of back issues of the National Geographic Magazine. They date back as far as 1888 and contain some great images and maps. There are some real gems to be had, such as the “Scenes from every land” series (link to one here) that contain century-old photographs from every continent. I was also amused to see an article titled “Notes about ants and their resemblance to man“. I have shared a few of my highlights here.
The top map is taken from the 1907 edition of “Scenes from Every Land”. It shows a map of the world with its key trade routes. I suspect today’s equivalent would be much more complex such is the nature of contemporary global transport.
My final two favourites are taken from the 1894 edition of the National Geographic Magazine and illustrate climatic variables for the USA. The top shows the mean temperature for the hottest 6 weeks of the year, and the lower map shows the sum of daily mean temperatures above 6 degrees. Despite their age I really like the clarity and detail in these maps.
Embedded below is my presentation to the British Cartographic Society’s Annual Conference 2010, held in Nottingham. You will find high resolution versions of many of the maps featured in the presentation available for download on this blog.
Last Sunday I visited the Magnificent Maps Exhibition at the British Library. The exhibition has been hugely popular and I can see why- I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. The amount of information within the maps means I want to make a second visit. My favourite map overall was the Klenke Atlas for its sheer size (1.75 by 1.9 metres) and also the level of detail within its pages. The Frau Mauro World Map was one of the most interesting and it takes a while to get your head round due to its south facing orientation. Steven Walter’s “The Island” (image above) and the propaganda maps (especially the “Tea Revives the World” map) were highlights among the more contemporary maps featured.
I am not convinced that contemporary GIS will ever fully replace the beauty of hand-drawn maps. In a world full of spatial data, detailed, high quality, cartography is often put aside in preference to the speed and convenience of default colour palettes and layouts. Magnificent Maps serves as a reminder that the visual portrayal of spatial data can be just as detailed and useful on paper (or parchment in many cases) as the electronic maps we have become accustomed to.
The exhibition closes on the 19th September 2010 and there are additional events throughout the summer (more info).
Mark Easton reports on his blog that the Thames is back on the tube map!
It is amazing that every day we view maps and rarely think twice about the amount of information they show, or consider them abstractions of reality representing the map maker’s view of the world. This is one of the major criticisms of GIS and spatial science as many believe it is impossible to represent the world effectively, and impartially, within the confines of current map making technology. It is therefore interesting that two relatively minor changes to the London Tube Map have caused such controversy. The intention is to de-clutter the maps as the London transport network becomes more extensive. I accept that the removal of the travel zones can be misleading for people as they will struggle to judge the correct cost of their tickets. It is the removal of the River Thames, however, that has generated the most interest. The Evening Standard quotes Caroline Pidgeon of the London Assembly who is keen to see it as a political issue pointing out that removing the Thames is one of the first revisions under a Tory mayor. Of course, maps are used as political statements all the time but people tend not to notice as they rarely become so integral to daily life. The comments attached to the Evening Standard article are also interesting, with one stating that removal of the Thames will be responsible for “destroying the city’s north-south character.” The suggestion here is that a map can go beyond representation and actually influence the real world. If there is any truth in this it makes maps extremely powerful. For example poorly thought out crime maps may give the wrong impression of high crime in an area, driving down house prices as people choose to live elsewhere. I therefore hope that when we consume maps we subject them to the same scrutiny and scepticism as we have the new London Tube Map.
Judge for yourself:
New Tube Map
Old Tube Map
Maxwell Roberts has written an interesting blog on “Information Pollution and the Underground Map“.
