MetaFilter posts tagged with map and history

A Guide To Rivers, Plains, Planets, Stars

The Whelk — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:26:04 -0800

Peacay of BibliOdyessey highlights some stunning examples of Victorian Infographics from the Rumsey Map Collection(previously). (Direct Flickr link)

... I go out at night and paint the stars.

Mitheral — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:30:32 -0800

Preserved in the cave excavations of Mogao and listing 1,339 stars the Dunhuang Star Chart is the oldest graphical star atlas known to exist. Dated to between 649 and 684 AD, it features two sections. The first consists of 26 diagrams of asterisms (including a recognizable Big Dipper and Orion) and the second contains 12 star maps each showing a 30 degree east-west section of sky in cylindrical projection plus an azimuthal projection circumpolar map. Star positions are accurate to within 1.5 degrees and it includes some stars in the southern sky. Previously 1,2,3. Via APOD.

The Atlas of Early Printing

Greg Nog — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:25:31 -0800

The Atlas of Early Printing. A visualization of fifteenth-century printing presses in Europe. Click around, look at the book-learnin' blossom!

National Geographic Map of the Day

Mitheral — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:57:20 -0800

National Geographic Map of the Day. Previously featuring maps that run the gamut from automotive discovery and exploration; through literary, witchhunts and imaginary; to historical and Olympic.

I have a boot in my eye! And I am shaped like a boot! To boot!

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:39:04 -0800

Satirical maps of Europe from 1914-15.

Mapping Canada

St Urbain's Horseman — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:22:05 -0800

Canada at scale: Exploration, colonization and development. And a pop-up menu. Go, eh!

I think I can see my house from here...

oneirodynia — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:19:36 -0800

Trulia Hindsight merges real estate data showing the year properties were built with animated maps (US Only). Search for your town by name; here's mine.

The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography

carter — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 08:33:05 -0800

The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography Maps, mappers, and the history of mapping, with slide shows, online exhibitions (e.g. The French Empire in North America, popular cartography), and journal articles. Part of the Newberry Library, Chicago.

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

carter — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:25:55 -0800

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has some excellent online collections related to maritime history and technology, including telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, and a whole lot more. Some stuff I've been looking at: John Harrison's chronometers (described in Dava Sobel's book Longitude), polyhedral sundials, and pocket globes.

The Piri Reis maps

synecdoche — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 01:13:49 -0800

Piri Reis Map I am a sucker for those books that hypothesize that Earth was visited by extra-terrestrials in the distant pass. One artifact that is brought up in nearly all of them is The Piri Reis Map, a document that seems to be a map includes parts of the world (such as Antarctica's ice-covered mountains) that were thought to be very recent discoveries. But, are they a hoax?