Been There, Done That Maps

In our user engagement initiative, we received the following idea, shared by Reva Skie: “I perused your site, found the travel section but I don’t see any maps for tourists. I think some maps with tourists in mind would be good idea for some of the more traveled cities of the world. As an example, San Antonio, TX, you don’t need a map of every street in the city to map out the highlights of the Alamo and the RiverWalk.”

The team at Mapsofworld.com evaluated her suggestion vis-à-vis  existing travel-related maps available on the website, and concluded that a brand new section/ sub-domain needs to be developed to cover “been there, done that maps.” This section will initially cover twenty US cities, including Austin (as suggested by Reva), to begin with.  Data-points and feedback on the initial twenty cities will lay down  framework and content guidelines for covering two hundred cities worldwide. Project initiation is slated for August 2011. Here is tentative list of twenty US cities (or regions) we have started looking at:

1. Austin, Texas
2. Boston, Massachusetts
3. Buffalo-Niagara Falls, New York
4. Charleston, South Carolina
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. Honolulu, Hawaii
7. Las Vegas, Nevada
8. Los Angeles, California
9. Miami, Florida
10. Napa Valley, California
11. New Orleans, Louisiana
12. New York City, New York
13. Salt Lake City, Utah
14. San Diego, California
15. San Francisco, California
16. Savannah, Georgia
17. Santa Fe, New Mexico
18. Seattle, Washington
19. Silicon Valley, California
20. Washington DC, Permanent National Capital of the US

This list is not cast in stone, so feel free to post your suggestions and we will carefully go through them.

It goes without saying that Reva Skie will soon receive her $30 Target E-GiftCard. You, too, can work with us to enhance the value of Mapsofworld.com – Where do you want us to go?

Public Transportation Maps

On May 5, 2011, we initiated steps to increase the engagement level for Mapsofworld.com – Where do you want us to go? Suggestions have started trickling in and we are in the process of evaluating them.

Lisa Horlak wrote:

“I would really like to see a map that shows where Public Transportation is accessible. I am planning a trip right now and have found that to be hard to come by and even a little confusing. Thanks!”

Our team evaluated her suggestion and decided to  work on its implementation. We will be sending her $30 Target E-GiftCard shortly.

In the Public Transportation Maps section, our focus would be crowdsourcing and API integration. Contacting all touch-points on our own is very tough – there are roughly 80,000 “Public Transportation Bodies” in the world. This is where crowdsourcing would help us. We will be integrating an image upload and blogging feature shortly to kick-start this section.

Revisit this page soon to find out more about how we are progressing.

Why Maps?

An ancient Egyptian Map of gold mines dates back to 1200 – 1085 BC. This map is widely believed to be the first traceable map in any form in the world. Such maps show the pictorial history of mapping and the skills associated with recording humanity’s relationship with the planet.

Why maps? A question strikes in your mind and you look and see that from the dawn of recorded history, humanity has produced maps of varying degrees and complexity.  And also as science and technology have progressed, the ability of mapmakers to represent the whole world in more accurate manner has also increased. From rudimentary maps to sophisticated maps of those times,  maps were essential to indicate to sailors the location of known hazards or food.

Out of discovery came possession, which is why land ownership in colonial era was shown through maps, and these maps could illustrate the distribution of land between great nation states. While these often took account of major geographical features such as rivers, they were quite often arbitrary in their delineation of borders. At a time when there was no title to the land, these maps were used to have the precise delineation of property holdings. In particular, among the abbeys and major land owners there had been a long tradition of detailed estate maps in Europe, and mapping of a small locality was therefore a skill widely practiced. Finally, possession turned into conflict, which led to the colonization of the Americas in which they had a belief in mercantilism that the world only possessed a fixed amount of wealth and one country could increase its own prosperity by grabbing the wealth of another country.

Even today, it is hard to imagine any facet of life that doesn’t use cartography or maps.  Though we have seen traditional road map have been replaced by technologically advanced global positioning system, these still use maps to show the driver’s location in relation to other roads.  Military were among the most important mapmakers, with the skills and resources to undertake the creation of precise maps. That is why the UK’s primary mapping agency has the name Ordnance Survey as it grew out of department of the military.

Mapping the Japanese Earthquake of 2011

The Japanese earthquake of 2011 turned out to be a calamity far worse than anyone could have imagined. What made this earthquake so devastating?

Here are some facts:

• Magnitude: The 8.9-magnitude earthquake was the strongest in over 100 years for Japan.
• Tsunami: The quake generated dangerous, 10-meter-high tsunami waves. These were responsible for much of the destruction in the coastal areas.
• Nuclear crisis: The Fukushima power plant was commissioned way back in 1971 and thus damaged extensively.

These three major crises hit the country together, and now the death toll continues to rise every day. While the official figure as of now is somewhere close to 10,000, it is feared that the final number may be much, much higher. Some people say this earthquake was reminiscent of the 1923 Kanto tragedy, but we think that the scars this one left will be the deepest.

MapsofWorld.com covered the event throughout, providing useful maps, information, and regular updates. Here’s a visualization of this earthquake, as well as other important information on past earthquakes and nuclear power plants in Japan:

The 2011 Japanese Earthquake

The page also has:

• Helpline numbers
• Addresses of embassies in Tokyo
• Facebook integration to pray for Japan

We pray for the people of Japan to quickly recover from this unforeseen loss.

Learning world facts has never been easier!

Tired of mugging up facts about the world? So were we!

After all, if you don’t have fun while learning, what use is it? To make sure that the topic of general knowledge about the world no longer remains dry for anyone, we have developed World Quiz, a fun game that will enhance your knowledge about the world, and entertain you at the same time. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

How skilled are you?

So, what all can you do with this? Here’s a quick look:

• Play at three different expertise levels.
• Choose from many quiz themes.
• Timeout feature makes learning fast and fun.
• Use your Facebook account to log in.
• Invite your friends and beat them!
• Daily winners are announced!

Those serious about honing their skills are already taking up this challenge. So what are you waiting for?