New Maps of American English Dialects—But Are They Novel?

Certain kinds of maps seem to have a perennial interest with the educated American reader. Maps pertaining to regional dialectal divisions are a prime example, as is evident from our earlier discussion of Rick Aschmann’s map of North American English dialects. A new set of maps of American English dialects produced by Joshua Katz, a Ph.D. student in statistics at North Carolina State University, have recently received widespread media attention. Originally published in Abstract, a North Carolina State research blog, these maps serve to visualize the data collected by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder in the early 2000s.

The Geography of ‘Book’

The spatial distribution of words for a given meaning can reveal interesting patterns of both language spread and language contact. While both factors are always at play, language contact is more evident in regard to words for cultural innovations, such as ‘tea’ or ‘computer’. Another interesting case is the geography of words for ‘book’, which many languages borrowed along with the general concept of ‘book’ and more often than not with one particularly important religious text.

The Geography of “Cucumber”

Several earlier GeoCurrents posts examined the history and geography of culinary vocabulary, particularly words for ‘cheese’, ‘onion’, and ‘tea’. It has become clear that the distribution of such words in European languages tells a story of both common descent and borrowing. But a completely different picture emerges if we examine words for ‘cucumber’ (see map on the left). Here, areal patterns are more conspicuous than those of language-family relationships.

Xinjiang, China: Ethnicity and Economic Development

An impressive map of China’s per capita GDP by prefecture, reposted here, appeared in late 2012 on the website Skyscraper City, posted by user “Chrissib” Cicerone.  According to the map, the two poorest parts of China are in southern Gansu province, an area demographically dominated by Han Chinese, and in southwestern Xinjiang, an area demographically dominated by Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking, …

Regional Trends in Chinese Economic Development

A widely distributed China Briefing map shows per capita GDP gains by province* for 2011. As can be seen, all parts of China experienced rapid economic expansion in that year, but the more prosperous and productive coastal zone did not fare as well as many interior areas. The mineral-driven boom in Inner Mongolia is well known, but the rapid recent …

Mappery and the Problems with “True” and “Real” Maps

The useful website Mappery “was created for map enthusiasts to find, explore, and discuss great maps. Anyone can contribute maps, comments, and ratings to the site.” The site contains numerous maps, and is certainly worth exploring. Thankfully, users seldom exploit the site for propagandistic purposes. Mappery does contain, however, a few problematic political maps, such as the “Real Map of …

Remapping Poverty in India

Data Stories (“… on India, One Chart at a Time”) recently published some intriguing maps and other visualizations of poverty and wealth in India. Its poverty map, posted here, shows households that “don’t own any of the assets listed on the census forms – that means no phone, no TV or radio, and no vehicle of any kind…,” a category …

Female Mortality on the Rise in Many U.S. Counties

A recent article in Health Affairs by David Kindig and Erika Cheng examined trends in male and female mortality rates from 1992–1996 to 2002–2006 in 3,140 US counties. What they found is a worrisome trend of female mortality on the rise in 42.8% of counties. The situation with male mortality rates is much better, increasing in only 3.4% of counties.

The New York Times’ Flubbed China Cartograms

An interesting story in today’s (April 9) New York Times—“Hello, Cambodia: Wary of Events in China, Foreign Investors Head to the South”—is illustrated in the print edition with two striking cartograms of eastern Asia, one of which shows population and the other economic output. The cartogram legends claims that “countries and Chinese provinces are sized according to population” and, respectively …

A Striking New Map of Endangered Languages

A striking map depicting endangered languages around the world can be found at the website of the Endangered Languages Project (ELP), the public portal of the Endangered Languages Catalogue (ELCat) helping raise awareness of and gathering data on endangered languages. This data has been compiled by linguistic research teams at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and Eastern Michigan University in a project supported by a National Science Foundation grant.

Egypt and the World Diesel Price Map

The price of fuel in Egypt, and especially that of diesel, has been featured in many recent news stories, owing to the perilous state of the Egyptian economy. As an April 1 article in Financial Times notes:
Egypt imports up to 70 per cent of its diesel, which it uses to fuel cars, farm equipment and power plants. In addition, it …

Mapping the Cell Phone Revolution

It is often noted that inexpensive cellular telephones have revolutionized communications across much of the world, especially in poor countries that lack landlines. Confirmation of this development is found in the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, which features detailed data tables for 140 countries. According to the report, 80 countries have more mobile telephone subscriptions than …

A Surprising Map of The Countries That Are Most and Least Welcoming to Foreigners

A map has recently been published depicting how welcoming different countries are to foreigners. It is based on data for 140 countries, compiled in a new World Economic Forum report on global travel and tourism competitiveness, to estimate the attitude of each country toward foreign visitors.

Some Strange Fantasy Maps

The world of science fiction and fantasy is an excellent place to find strange maps, and few are stranger than the Drenai map posted here. David Gemmell’s Drenai series has prompted a number of fans to map the world depicted in the novels. Most are rather straightforward pictures of the author’s fantasy realm. One amateur cartographer, however, decided to map …

Mapping the 2013 Swiss Referendum: Executive Compensation

In the Swiss referendum of 2013, voters overwhelming approved a measure to limit executive compensation. Despite the fact that opponents outspent proponents 40 fold, and despite warning that the move would “undermine the country’s investor-friendly image,” 68 percent of voters approved the initiative.
As specified by the Wikipedia, the measure will:

require an annual vote by shareholders for the president and other …