Maps Mania

What-3-Songlines

Earthsounds


I’m guessing you’ve heard of - and perhaps even used - the popular location-addressing system, what3words. You may even know the three-word address for your home. But do you know your home’s personal songline?
Aboriginal songlines are ancient pathways that crisscross the land, created and sung into existence by Ancestral beings during the Dreaming. Each songline is a living map:

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/what-3-songlines.html

The Restaurant Map Your Gut Needs

Most restaurant maps are designed to answer one question: what looks good right now? The dreadfully named Shittr answers a very different one - what won’t ruin my digestive system for the next 48 hours? Shittr is an interactive map that assigns restaurants a “Shit Score” - a 1 to 5 🚽 risk rating - based on real government health inspection data from the US and UK.💩💩💩At its core, Shittr uses

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-restaurant-map-your-gut-needs.html

Car Parks or Play Parks?

How much of Berlin is designed for cars - and how much for children and nature?Hans Hack has released an interactive map that offers a clear view of how urban space is allocated in Berlin. The tool compares the amount of urban space taken up by parking lots with that devoted to children’s playgrounds and other green spaces across Germany's capital.By centering the map on any point in the city,&

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/car-parks-or-play-parks.html

HOT Export Tool

The HOT Export Tool from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team is an online service for creating custom extracts of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.The tool allows users to select an area of interest and produce custom OSM data extracts. You can choose which map features and tags to include (e.g., roads, buildings, amenities, boundaries) and then download the data in multiple file formats (including

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/hot-export-tool.html

Tracking Santa for Christmas

🎅 Santa’s Big Adventure: Follow Him Around the World! 🌍It’s Christmas Eve - the most magical night of the year - and guess what? Santa is already zooming around the world, delivering gifts to kids just like YOU! 🎁 This year, why not join in the fun by following Santa’s incredible journey around the world? 🎄✨



🦌 NORAD Santa Tracker: Powered by Rudolph’s NoseDo you know how NORAD tracks

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/tracking-santa-for-christmas.html

How Christmas Lights Up America

According to NASA, Christmas lights up the winter. Using nighttime satellite imagery of American cities, NASA discovered that nighttime lights in American cities shine 20 to 50 percent brighter during the Christmas season than at other times of the year. In Even from Space, Holidays Shine Brightly NASA explains that nighttime lights start getting brighter on the day after Thanksgiving. You

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/how-christmas-lights-up-america.html

True-Size Geography Games

True-Size.com has become a go-to destination for anyone curious about the real dimensions of our world. It is best known for its interactive map that lets you compare the true size of countries. The site allows users to drag countries around the globe and make direct comparisons with other countries and regions around the world. It’s a simple idea with a powerful impact, often reshaping

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/true-size-geography-games.html

Fuzzy Neighborhoods

City neighborhoods rarely have crisp, universally agreed-upon boundaries. Unlike political jurisdictions, neighborhood borders are shaped by lived experience: where people shop, who they identify as neighbors, and shifting social and cultural trends. These boundaries are often fluid, overlapping, and contested, changing over time and varying from person to person. As a result, neighborhood

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/fuzzy-neighborhoods.html

The Global Building Atlas Downloader

Easily Download 3D Building Data from the Global Building AtlasThe Global Building Atlas is one of the most ambitious open mapping projects to date: a global, high-resolution dataset describing 2.75 billion buildings worldwide, including their footprints, heights, and simple 3D (LoD1) geometry. Developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the dataset offers an

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

Welcome to My Garden

If you’re planning a long hike or bike trip, then you should definitely bookmark Welcome to My Garden. This interactive map shows the locations of gardens that offer free camping spots for slow travellers.If you’re travelling on a low budget and want to keep your journey low-impact, Welcome to My Garden is the ideal companion. The concept is refreshingly simple: find somewhere to stay, book your

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/welcome-to-my-garden.html

I ❤️ San Francisco

Today I ran a 33 km heart-shaped route around San Francisco to demonstrate my love for the city1.


If you are interested in creating your own GPS art - or you just want to make your daily walk, jog or bike ride a little more fun - you can now use Routista to help you plan a pictorial route.Have you ever seen a bike ride that traces a heart, a star, or even a dinosaur on a map? That’s GPS art

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/i-san-francisco.html

The Flat Earth Map

In 1892 Alexander Gleason, author of Is the Bible from Heaven? Is the Earth a Globe?, published his New Standard Map of the World. The map includes the subheading ‘As it is,’ reflecting Gleason’s belief that the map showed a world that was flat - and not round.The map actually uses an azimuthal equidistant projection (which the map's subheading indicates was borrowed from an English cartographer

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-flat-earth-map.html

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