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Mapping Tools
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Where in the world are we? A handful of great digital mapping
resources have come to my attention lately. In addition to geography courses,
these websites would fit nicely in history, sociology, anthropology,
archaeology, foreign language, and even literature courses; maps are also a
wonderful addition to digital storytelling projects.
First, a few specific resources:
If the ancient world is your thing, ORBIS:
The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World would
be a wonderful classroom addition. Like a travel site for ancient world, users
can select their departure point and destination, the time of year travel is to
take place, their method of travel, and their goal (speed or cost savings). The
site then maps a route. No better way to bring home how ideas, people, and commerce
might - and might not - spread. (Thanks to Chris Clark at Notre Dame's
Kaneb Center for tipping me off to this resource.)
There are two great interactive projects related to slavery in
the United States. First, National Geographic has a great
digital branching story about the Underground Railroad. In this
simulation, users make choices and receive feedback as they attempt to journey
from Maryland to Canada. Though plenty of historical images and rich
descriptions accompany each step, there are no useable map images.
The above site, however, would pair nicely with Visualizing Emancipation, a project from
the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond (funded in part by a
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities). Visualizing Emancipation
specifically focuses on the emancipation of slaves during the Civil War; data
was gathered from a detailed study of primary documents including runaway slave
notices, articles about returned slaves, troop locations, seasonal patterns,
and instances of African-Americans helping the Union. For another review, you
can consult the article in Chronicle of Higher
Education about the project.
And now some more general digital mapping resources:
The United Nations Cartographic
Section has a great list of regional political maps (all in an
easy to use and re-use PDF format), maps about current peacekeeping and
peacebuilding missions, and a small selection of institutional, historical, and
regional maps. If you'd like a map of the Okavango River basin, they've got it.
For more extensive geopolitical maps and facts,the CIA World Factbook
is a great resource; this site even supports country-to-country comparisons,
audio files of national anthems, and includes detailed information about each
country.
I'd be remiss not to direct to you one of the finest digital map
archives online, the Perry-Castañeda Library Map
Collection at the University of Texas. Like the UN site, they
have maps related to current events, but their collection also includes general
interest maps, historical maps, and fully digitized versions of several
historical atlases.
For a more interactive map experience, check out the University
of Oregon's Mapping History Project. Broken down by
region and time period, these maps allow you to move a slider along the bottom
of the map to illustrate the chronological progression of political, social,
economic, and intellectual events. Sadly, they seem to be missing a section on
Asia.
Last, to round out this survey of mapping resources, here's a
great little animation reviewing how
astronomers learned to measure celestial distances.
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