Maps Mania

The Freedom to Pollute

4.6 million Americans live within two miles of a facility that has been given permission by President Trump to pollute the air. In March, the Trump administration initiated a process allowing industries to apply for up to two-years of compliance exemptions under the Clean Air Act. More than 180 facilities, including coal plants, chemical manufacturing and petrochemical facilities applied and

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-freedom-to-pollute.html

The Housing Potential of NYC’s Parking Lots

There are 2,222 surface parking lots in New York City within walking distance of an MTA station. If these sites were redeveloped for housing, they could provide an estimated 62,820 additional homes citywide.This estimate is based on a mapped analysis by Tom Weatherburn. His story map, How Much Housing Could Fit on the Surface Parking Lots of NYC?, visualizes the number of surface parking lots

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-housing-potential-of-nycs-parking.html

The AI Mapper and the AI Map Doctor

Real-Time Earthquakes Map made by Web Mapper GPT
If you’re new to mapmaking, two recently released AI tools can help you create interactive maps with little or no coding or cartographic expertise. These tools - Web-Mapper GPT and Map Doctor GPT - are designed to simplify both the technical and design aspects of map creation, making it easier than ever for beginners to produce professional-looking

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-ai-mapper-and-ai-map-doctor.html

Mapping a Galaxy Far, Far Away

A well-designed star chart is essential for any galactic adventure. The Interactive Star Wars Galaxy for RPGs is a detailed, dynamic map of a galaxy far, far away, built specifically with tabletop roleplaying in mind. Beyond simply charting hyperspace lanes, registered users can unlock integrated features like a dedicated dice-roller and tools for organizing your next gaming party.Even

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/mapping-galaxy-far-far-away.html

Country Recall - How Well Do You Know the World?

Country Recall
How to PlayIf you enjoy geography quizzes, map challenges, or just perusing a map of the world, then you need to play Country Recall. This brand new interactive geography game asks a deceptively simple question: How many of the world’s countries can you identify on an unlabelled map?Type a country into Country Recall and - if you’re right - it will instantly light up on the world

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/country-recall-how-well-do-you-know.html

New Build Housing in San Francisco

This animated map shows new housing construction in San Francisco by decade- since 1900. The map provides a clear picture of how the number of new homes built in the city has been declining since the 1970s.The orange dots on the map represent the locations of units built in that decade, while the gray dots show the existing housing stock from previous decades.The map is part of San Francisco

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-build-housing-in-san-francisco.html

How to Guarantee a White Christmas

If you’re determined to experience a white Christmas, I suggest booking a trip to Zermatt, Switzerland. According to White Christmas Forecast 2025, residents there have a 100% chance of snow on Christmas Day. (Disclaimer: I'm not in charge of the weather and previous snowfalls do not guarantee future flurries).Last week I linked to NOAA’s Probability of a White Christmas map. This

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/how-to-guarantee-white-christmas.html

Geo Racers: The Ultimate Travel Game

Race Across the World is a BBC television game show in which contestants must travel from a starting point to a final destination on a low budget - using only land and sea transport. For American readers, think The Amazing Race but on a strictly limited budget and with no flying.Geo Racers is a really fun new game that lets you play Race Across the World style challenges without having to

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/geo-racers-ultimate-travel-game.html

Is Your Team an Animal?

Lions, tigers, and grey wolves are the most frequently used animals in sport logos. The interactive Wild League Map shows over 700 sports teams around the world that use wild animals in their name, logo or fans' nicknames. It was developed using research from Wildlife Diversity in Global Team Sport Branding and was developed by the Wild League, who aim to leverage the global

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/is-your-team-animal.html

Who's Dreaming of a White Christmas?

Coldest Day of the Year
If you live in the western United States, then there is a good chance your coldest day of the year is fast approaching.You can find out when your coldest day is likely to occur on NOAA's interactive map, Coldest Day of the Year on Average. On this map, weather stations across the United States are color-coded to show when, on average, they experience their coldest day

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/whos-dreaming-of-white-christmas.html

🌍 Introducing the Global Building Atlas

The Global Building Atlas is a new global, high-resolution 3D dataset of the world's 2.75 billion buildings. Developed by a research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) the Global Building Atlas provides broad coverage of areas historically missing from digital maps, including much of Africa, South America, and rural areas worldwide. All the data is freely available on the project's

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/introducing-global-building-atlas.html

How Russia Smuggles Stolen Ukrainian Grain

Bellingcat has exposed how some Russian cargo ships are managing to circumvent the European Union’s sanctions on the shipment of stolen Ukrainian grain. In its investigation Russia’s Grain Smuggling Fleet Continues Undeterred, the investigative journalism organization tracked and mapped the movements of a Russian-flagged bulk carrier called Irtysh, revealing how it has been smuggling grain

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/how-russia-smuggles-stolen-ukrainian.html

"I Ain’t Afraid of No Map" - Ghost Mappers

The ghost of the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin is said to visit his uncle’s grave in St Mary the Virgin Church in London. He is just one of three spirits believed to haunt the churchyard, which is also visited by a grey lady searching for her dead husband, and a skeletal figure pushing a cart with an empty coffin - forever hunting for his wife, whose body was stolen by grave robbers.This is

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/i-aint-afraid-of-no-map-ghost-mappers.html

Mapping the Wikipedia Rabbit Hole

All of us have, at some time or another, fallen down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. You begin with the noble intention of looking up a single topic, only to find yourself tumbling through an unplanned journey of blue hyperlinks.Start with Geradus Mercator, follow a link to Antwerp, hop over to the Tomorrowland festival, and before you know it you’re reading about Metallica. What began

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/mapping-wikipedia-rabbit-hole.html

Back to Black

Back to Black
Today’s #30DayMapChallenge is Black. For this challenge I decided to create a map that makes use of and demonstrates one of MapLibre’s most powerful features: the ability to programmatically restyle map layers in real time.
My Back to Black map itself isn’t designed to be practical or analytical in itself - it’s simply an exploration of how to change a map's style in

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/back-to-black.html

Deadly Rivers in the Sky

The Washington Post reports that rising global temperatures are leading to ever more extreme rainfall around the world. Since the 1990s global heating has dramatically increased the amount and movement of water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere , in some regions by more than 15 percent. These “invisible rivers” of vapor act like atmospheric fire hoses: and when they encounter disturbances such as

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/deadly-rivers-in-sky.html

The McGritter Tracker is Back!

By 6:00 AM this morning, Skate Bush could already been seen trundling up that hill, and Sled Zeppelin was hard at work sanding the stairway to Leven.Yes, Traffic Scotland’s Gritter Tracker is back in action - your one-stop, salt-powered, pun-splattered window into the heroic world of gritters battling Scotland’s icy roads.The Gritter Tracker map shows the live positions of Scotland's

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-mcgritter-tracker-is-back.html

The History of the World Map

It has been a boom week for Wikipedia-sourced history maps. In the last five days I've reviewed Landnotes & Globe of History, and I’ve now stumbled on another Wikipedia based history map - the Time Travel App.Time-Travel App is a world history explorer that uses Mapbox, OpenHistoricalMap, and data from Wikipedia to let you browse historical events, important people, cultural realms, and even

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-history-of-world-map.html

Blockbusters USA

Population Paths



Day 25 of the #30DayMapChallenge is Hexagons! In response I've created a little hex-map puzzle game.
The aim of Population Paths is to create a continuous path from the West Coast to the East Coast, one state at a time by correctly guessing whether each neighboring state has a higher or lower population than the one you’re currently standing on.
How to Play
You begin

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/blockbusters-usa.html

Mapping the Property Tax Divide

Most U.S. municipalities rely on property taxes to fund public services. This means that the amount of taxable wealth within each city boundary can create stark inequalities - even between neighboring communities. Wealthy municipalities are able to raise far more revenue than places with lower-value property, allowing affluent enclaves to spend generously while less affluent communities -

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/mapping-property-tax-divide.html

A Literal Map of America

Literal Map of America



Today’s #30DayMapChallenge theme is Places and their names. My Literal Map of America reveals the literal meaning behind every U.S. state name (hover over any state on the map and you can reveal its real name).
Many of the states have names that reflect physical landscapes, others describe people or tribes, and several are named for royalty. Wisconsin comes from a

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/a-literal-map-of-america.html

How Much Does it Cost to Live in Every U.S. County?

The Economic Policy Institute has mapped out how much income a typical family of four (two adults and two children) needs to achieve a “modest yet adequate standard of living” in counties across the United States. The EPI's Family Budget Map breaks down costs into seven essential categories: housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, other necessities, and taxes.Load the map, zoom

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/how-much-does-it-cost-to-live-in-every.html

The Map of Human History

You wait an age for a historical Wikipedia map and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of yesterday's post about Landnotes, we can now explore another Wikipedia-sourced map of human history.The Globe of History is an ambitious new interactive map that attempts to visualize the entire sweep of human history - 6,000 years of wars, inventions, discoveries, philosophers, political

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-map-of-human-history.html

Icons of Tokyo

Icons of Tokyo



I recently visited the Pictograms exhibition at the Japan Center in London. At the heart of this exhibition were a number of icons designed by the Nippon Design Center, Inc., a renowned Tokyo-based design studio.Today's 30DayMapChallenge theme is Icons, and my first thought was: how could I utilize Nippon Design Center's beautiful Tokyo tourism icons? I

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/icons-of-tokyo.html

Your Birthday Map

Landnotes



I was born on the very first day of the Dominican Civil War (also known as the April Revolution). Meanwhile, on a completely different continent, Luciano Pavarotti was making his La Scala debut in a revival of La Bohème. Not to brag, but it seems the universe scheduled a pretty dramatic day for my arrival.Over the last twenty years of Maps Mania I’ve seen more Wikipedia maps than I

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/your-birthday-map.html