I find this map both fascinating and humorous. It is one of the first maps drawn of the "New World," sketched by German cartographer and cosmographer Sebastian Munster in 1540. Obviously, the map was drafted only fifty or so years after the first European discovery of the Americas, so it's almost funny to see what people imagined the Americas to look like. I suppose I shouldn't make fun of it too much, since navigation technology and scope were really limited back then. I find it interesting, though, that mapmaking back then was not based on facts, but only on that particular cartographer's guess or imagination of what he thought the world might look like. It's almost alarming that people were allowed to publish and market these maps as accurate when they were only wild guesses. But then again, that was the best they could do at the time.
Source: http://www.wtv-zone.com/civilwar/map.html
This is a map comparing the amount of area in the northern and southern states just before the Civil War broke out. It was published by the New York-based political magazine Harpers Weekly on February 21, 1861. I think the map is interesting because it shows how the southern states had more land than the northern states, and yet the south still lost the Civil War. I think the map is also interesting since it already has portrayed the Union as a divided country, as merely two halves, even before the war actually started. The divide between the north and the south was obvious enough for this political magazine to draw a map depicting the two regions as separate entities. It shows how the two regions had developed pretty independently of each other, and makes the reader think of the fundamental economic and ideological differences between the two halves of the country. The map also hints at the generally held ideas at the time that the Union had to go either two ways: split or go to war.
Source: http://portal.policysupport.org/portal/terra-i/gmaps/terra-i.html
Source: http://www.wtv-zone.com/civilwar/map.html
This is a map comparing the amount of area in the northern and southern states just before the Civil War broke out. It was published by the New York-based political magazine Harpers Weekly on February 21, 1861. I think the map is interesting because it shows how the southern states had more land than the northern states, and yet the south still lost the Civil War. I think the map is also interesting since it already has portrayed the Union as a divided country, as merely two halves, even before the war actually started. The divide between the north and the south was obvious enough for this political magazine to draw a map depicting the two regions as separate entities. It shows how the two regions had developed pretty independently of each other, and makes the reader think of the fundamental economic and ideological differences between the two halves of the country. The map also hints at the generally held ideas at the time that the Union had to go either two ways: split or go to war.
This is a real-time satellite map of deforestation in South America. It shows the amount of deforestation by year: the pinker colors are more recent (specifically, from 2012), while the yellow and orange dots are from earlier years. I think it's interesting because it shows how the rate and distribution of deforestation is rapidly increasing: the vast majority of dots on the map are dark pink, meaning those areas were deforested just last year. The map shows a strengthening trend of deforestation that seems to be gradually eating up the edges of the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest. This map corroborates the fears of scientists and environmentalists that the Amazon's biodiversity and role as one of the world's major carbon sinks are in danger of being destroyed. |
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