Map Resources Blog

These are exciting times for South Korea, site of the 2018 the Winter Olympics.  The games are getting underway in the next week, with the Opening Ceremonies taking place on Friday, February 9. The host city for the games is PyeongChang, South Korea.  PyeongChang (not to be confused with Pyongyang, capital of North Korea) is located approximately 125 Kilometers from Seoul, the capital of South Korean.  Most visitors to the Olympics are expected to arrive via the Seoul airport, then travel by bus or train to PyeongChang. The Olympic schedule actually occurs at the same time as the national Lunar...

The storm hitting the east coast today has been dubbed a "Bomb Cyclone Snow Storm" by the weather authorities. But what actually is a bomb cyclone? Although it sounds like another hyperbolic term made up by excited weather casters, there's actually scientific criteria behind it that's related to surface-to-air pressure. The WAPO has a great discussion about bombcyclones http://wapo.st/2lTO7wE Today's storm is also extremely large, and covers an area that extends from Northern Florida to Maine. Satellite images at Vox show how massive the bomb cyclone storm is: http://bit.ly/2CVxgBK For even better maps and graphics, go to NASA's site to...

Everybody knows someone who is passionate about maps. And I don’t mean just cartographers. I mean people who pick up a map like it’s a treasure. Like it holds precious information or a special meaning. Maybe it’s because maps appeal to spatial thinkers, or maybe maps evoke ideas of travel, discovery and adventure. Whatever it is, a lot of people like maps for more than the rudimentary role of getting from one place to another. We compiled a list to help you find the perfect map-related gift for your map enthusiast. #1 City Map Coloring Book Aimed at adults, this book...

The Open Street Map (OSM) community has accomplished great things during its relatively brief existence. Using state of the art mapping technology in an open source platform, OSM is tackling global issues head on, and the track record is very impressive. OSM is currently being used in a large number of humanitarian projects such as malaria elimination, drought and famine relief, plus numerous natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods. For more details on humanitarian mapping projects, go to: https://www.hotosm.org/projects/disaster-mapping OSM is enabling the development of freely-reusable geospatial data, which is an incredibly valuable resource. Geoffrey Kateregga, Lead Mapping Supervisor of...

Open Street Map (OSM) is an exciting community of individuals and organizations that is creating an open source map of the entire world, and making it available to anyone who wants to use it. Simply put, OSM functions for the map world almost like Wikipedia does for the encyclopedia world. Volunteers compile map data, and anyone can use it at no cost. Last month the Open Street Map (OSM) community convened for State of the Map 2017 in Boulder Colorado, bringing together mappers from all over the US and the world. Mappers delved into a wide array of topics -...