google maps mania

Google Maps Mania turns 10

April 14, 2015

If you are as interested in maps as we are, then you probably already know and follow Google Maps Mania.

Yesterday, April 13th, they turned 10! Happy Birthday!

They were initially focused on Google Maps, but back then there weren’t that many other on-line maps available. Now, however, there is an extraordinary variety of maps out there. To give you a taste, just in the last few weeks they have covered:

Digital versions of medieval maps

Maps of the human body and DNA

A satellite map of Antarctica

Maps of noise

Maps of the TV series / books ‘A Game of Thrones’

And much more. So head on over and have a look!

Mapping the Ebola outbreak in Google Earth

August 5, 2014

A few months ago we showed you some great maps that showed the spread of Ebola and MERS, but given the continued spread of Ebola we felt it’d be a good time to dig into them again.

George at MyReadingMapped has continued to update his Ebola map, showing the increasing spread of the virus. You can view his map in Google Earth by loading this KML file.

Additional Ebola-related maps can be found via this post on Google Maps Mania. Keir has found a few interesting maps around the web, including this one from Channel4.com and this one Al Jazeera.

If you find any other useful maps, please leave a comment and let us know.

Mapping Flight MH370 in Google Earth

March 17, 2014

As the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 continues to baffle those searching for it, tools such as this crowdsourced effort to scour satellite imagery are helping in the effort.

Along those lines, Stefan Geens at Ogle Earth has put together some impressive maps to try to narrow down where the flight may have ended up.

Through a combination of information from the Malaysian government, satellite data from Wikipedia, Malaysian military radar data, SkyVector and other sources, he’s put together an impressive KMZ file that helps compile all of that data into a single location. You can read more about Stefan’s work over on the Ogle Earth blog.

Taking it further, Keir Clarke at Google Maps Mania points us to an interesting map from CBC News that showcases dozens of planes that have gone missing without a trace in the past 50 years. As rare as events such as flight MH370 are, they’re certainly not unheard of.

Google releases the Google Maps Gallery, with solid support for Google Earth

February 28, 2014

Google has just launched the Google Maps Gallery to help “unlock the world’s maps”. It’s an impressive collection of maps of various kinds, easily accessible in one place.

The maps all have a “View in Google Earth” button to generate a KML for your use, and some of them (such as this Tokyo 1680 map) have slick transparency sliders to make them more useful. As Keir Clarke at Google Maps Mania points out, the maps are all embeddable as well and makes it somewhat like a “YouTube for maps”.

There are some great maps in there and I strongly encourage you to check it out. You can browse them all at maps.google.com/gallery/ or read more about it over on this post on the Google LatLong Blog.

The Boston Marathon Manhunt in Google Earth

April 23, 2013

In the wake of the tragic bombing and heroic capture of the suspects in Boston last week, a variety of tools have popped up to show where all of the events took place.

Google Maps Mania is a great place to start for resources like this, as they have a nice post that highlights some of the better maps that have been used over the past week.

Another good resource is this post on MyReadingMapped, which includes a very comprehensive map of all of the events. You can view their entire list of locations on Google Maps, or download this KML file to see them all in Google Earth, as shown below.

The pursuit ended in the quiet city of Watertown, where the suspect was found hiding in a boat. This simple file on Google Earth Hacks will take you directly to location of the boat. As a nice touch, it also automatically adjusts your historical imagery slider to a time when the boat was more clearly visible.

If you have found any other great maps related to the events in Boston last week, please leave a comment and share them with us.