Art
Mapping the Fossils and Meteorite Impacts in London's Architecture
The building blocks of urban landscapes are often riddled with fossils, with Jurassic reptile bones and Cretaceous sea creatures sometimes emerging from the stone surfaces.
Maps
Art
Charting Chinese History with 17th-Century Jesuit World Maps
Mounted on remnants of the old Ming Dynasty city wall, which once surrounded Beijing, are Western clocks and astronomical instruments for observing celestial bodies.
Books
A Collection of Creative Cartographers' Madcap Maps
Originally intended purely as tools for navigation, maps have long branched off from this practical function to become an unexpected medium for visual expression.
Art
A New Tool Maps the NYC Landmarks Near You
Last month, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to recommend 30 of the sites from its backlog of nearly 100 as potential landmarks.
Art
Painted Maps Jam-Packed with Data
Paula Scher, the first female principal of Pentagram and designer of identities for the Public Theater and Tiffany's — not to mention hundreds of hit album covers — grew up surrounded by maps.
News
A Map Library Is Digitizing Its Rarest Globes as 3D Models
"Globes have a very low survival rate," explained Ian Fowler, director of the Osher Map Library (OML) at the University of Southern Maine.
Art
Why Cannibals Were on Every 16th-Century Map of the New World
Many of the first European maps of the Americas included warnings of cannibalism, despite no proof of such activity.
Art
Mapping the Gender Imbalance in City Street Names
This August, activist group Osez le Féminisme (Dare to be Feminist) installed guerrilla signs in Paris to rename streets and parks after women like singer Nina Simone, sailor Florence Arthaud, and author Simone de Beauvoir.
Art
Mapping 13 Centuries of English Metaphors
A three-year project from the University of Glasgow's School of Critical Studies mapped 13 centuries of metaphors in the English language.
In Brief
Researchers Decipher the Map That May Have Guided Columbus Westward
You might call Henricus Martellus's 1491 world map — which many believe Christopher Columbus consulted before setting out on his voyage — a symbol of the limits of human knowledge.
Art
An Avant-Garde Map that Enticed Fearful Customers to Air Travel
When aviation took off in the early 20th century, safety was still shaky and the public needed some convincing to get them soaring among the clouds in the noisy metal contraptions.
News
Open-Source Maps Help Guide Nepalese Earthquake Relief
A crucial need in any rescue effort — perhaps just as important to saving lives as medical supplies, food, and tents — is an up-to-date map that humanitarian workers can use to more efficiently navigate the rubble.