The Atlas of Early Printing. A visualization of fifteenth-century printing presses in Europe. Click around, look at the book-learnin' blossom!
posted by Greg Nog on Sep 19, 2008 - 15 comments

John Henry Wilbrandt Stuckenberg emigrated from Germany to the United States, where he was eventually a Chaplain in the American Civil War. He also really liked maps; in the course of traveling over his lifetime, he collected hundreds of maps, some dating back to the 16th century. [Most maps in Latin]
posted by Rykey on Jul 26, 2008 - 6 comments

If you like looking at maps of imaginary places, you should take a peek at the Fantasy Atlas, a German-language collection of maps of literary fantasy and sci-fi worlds. For a more obsessive (but just as interesting) take on maps of imaginary places, you can check out the work of Adrian Leskiw, who's been creating road maps of non-existent places since the age of 3. (Previously on Metafilter.)
posted by dersins on Aug 1, 2007 - 31 comments

Math Team Solves the Unsolvable E8
"If you thought writing calculations to describe 3-D objects in math class was hard, consider doing the same for one with 248 dimensions. Mathematicians call such an object E₈, a symmetrical structure whose mathematical calculation has long been considered an unsolvable problem. Yet an international team of math whizzes cracked E₈'s symmetrical code in a large-scale computing project, which produced about 60 gigabytes of data. If they were to show their handiwork on paper, the written equation would cover an area the size of Manhattan."
posted by ericb on Mar 19, 2007 - 67 comments

A fairly comprehensive tour of what's left of the historic Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
posted by loquacious on Jul 2, 2006 - 4 comments

The Euratlas Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe details the evolution of the history of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East with a collection of maps from 1 AD to 1000 AD and 1100 AD to 2000 AD. You might have a general idea about what the Mediterranean looked like in 1000 AD, but did you know of the existence of the principality of Tmutarakan or the medieval Emirate of Mosul? Also includes a section on classical Rome and detailed maps of the city of Rome in 100 AD.
posted by deanc on Jul 9, 2005 - 16 comments

Atlas reveals global devastation....... a new atlas just released by the UN showing before and after satellite imagery of the last 30 years (more or less) of human impact. NEATO!
posted by tarantula on Jun 4, 2005 - 22 comments

Matthew White's Historical Atlas of the 20th Century. One of those amazing internet reference sites created by some guy (okay, Matthew White). Lots of fascinating, incredibly researched stuff: complete lists of all manmade megadeaths in the 20th century, the 100 most important works of art of the 20th century, maps showing changes in the types of government by decade, comments on Wikipedia, and much more. Also, some fun stuff, like what the US would look like if every secessionist movement succeeded. Previously posted in 2001, but much updated and worth a second look
posted by blahblahblah on Jun 2, 2005 - 15 comments

Cartography is a skill pretty much taken for granted now, but it wasn't always so. Accurate maps were once prized state secrets, laborious efforts that cost a fortune and took years (or even decades) to complete.

How things have changed. (Yours now, $110) It took almost 500 years to map North America, but it's only taken one tenth of that to map just everything else. In the last 50 years, we've been able to create acurate atlases of two planets and one moon (with a second in the works). Actually, we've done a lot more than that. We're actually running out of things to map.

Maybe Not.
posted by absalom on Jan 27, 2005 - 17 comments

Mapping History: The Darkwing Atlas Project "The Project has been designed to provide interactive and animated representations of fundamental historical problems and/or illustrations of historical events, developments, and dynamics." All sorts of simple historical animated and static maps as well as photos and images from Greek and Phoenician expansions, to the spread of Slavery in the American South 1790-1860 and christian graffiti from the Roman catacombs.
posted by talos on Dec 4, 2003 - 6 comments

Chinese Pop Posters. More :- Guangzhou's racing track, patrolling despair, Cuba, under New York, Bombay bazaar, and Chinese rural architecture. All from the excellent Atlas magazine - more here.
posted by plep on Jul 21, 2003 - 10 comments

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World provides beautiful detailed topographical maps of the ancient world. A mammoth undertaking in production over 12 years with 160 scholars and cartographers (with help from MapQuest) and estimated to cost over $5 million it is the largest and most accurate Ancient World Atlas ever. Composed of 99 maps (examples) the Atlas is easily available to the layperson. "If you're gripped by Hannibal and want to sort out which way you think he went through the Alps, you'll have enough of a clear landscape to do it. If you want to follow St. Paul around the eastern Mediterranean, you can."
posted by stbalbach on Jul 16, 2003 - 15 comments

The Growth of the United States: a ten-minute, animated atlas (via The Noodle Incident).
posted by timeistight on Jan 22, 2003 - 18 comments

Celestial Atlases are perhaps some of the most beautiful scientific books ever published, capturing the mystery and the grandeur of the heavens, and rife with beautiful and often intimidating interpretations of the constellations. Out Of This World has been my favorite website since the dawning of time, and one I go back to over and over again even though it never changes. The period from 1603 to 1801 produced the most beautiful star maps, and you don't have to know a thing about astronomy to appreciate how heavenly these are.
posted by iconomy on Sep 10, 2002 - 9 comments

The UN Atlas of the Oceans provides information on a wide range of topics relating to the world's oceans, such as geography, economic uses and environmental issues (here's a BBC article about the atlas.) Another nice site about the oceans is the Blue Planet web companion to the gorgeous Discovery/BBC TV series of the same name. Sadly, the threat to coral reefs may soon rob the oceans of some of their more spectacular biological diversity.
posted by homunculus on Jun 25, 2002 - 1 comment

Have you ever noticed that the line between the NYT and MF is blurring?
Today I found a whole article about the strange and amazing fact that <a href="http://charlesatlas.com">The ninety-pound weakling company</a> is still in business, and on the Web! I can easily imagine a day when storeis are one paragraph long, and "Abuzz" comments let you know the rest of the details, y'know, like a Hamlet written by 1000 locusts on typewriters, or something...
posted by rschram on May 31, 2001 - 7 comments

Phonological Atlas of North America, interesting.
posted by sonofsamiam on May 31, 2000 - 2 comments