Tag Archives: Maps
Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa by 1800: a map and a gazetteer.
A map of agricultural systems in Africa by 1800 Mats Widgren has announced on H-Africa the forthcoming publication of a new map of agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa to 1800 in: Widgren, Mats. (in press) “Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa by 1800: a map and a gazetteer.” In Mercuri, A.M., D’Andrea, A.C., Fornaciari, R., Höhn, A. (eds.). Plants and […]
East African history resources from British Library
Exciting news of British cartographic materials for historical research available online. The British Library has catalogued, conserved and digitised over 550 military intelligence maps and associated documents from the War Office Archive relating to the former British East Africa (modern-day Kenya, Uganda and adjacent parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, DR Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia and […]
Map shows smuggling route for poached ivory
An interactive map illustrates how ivory poaching and smuggling (in this case) from the Central African Republic to Sudan supports the violent campaigns of terror groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army. “National Geographic commissioned the creation of artificial tusks with hidden GPS trackers that were planted in the smuggling supply chain.” Read more in the article […]
Deciphering the map that led Columbus to America
From a story in Yale News: A team of researchers and imaging specialists at Yale University is recovering faded and hidden (invisible to the eye) information from a 1491 map using multispectral imaging technology. Their work is yielding new discoveries about how the world was viewed over 500 years ago, and supports the view that African sources were important in […]
Tracking matatu minibus transit in Kampala
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy posted a newsletter update last month on this interesting matatu (informal private transportation network) mapping project in Uganda: The Kampala Mobility Map will improve way-finding around the city, allowing visitors, new residents and frequent matatu riders to better understand Kampala’s public transport network and plan their trips. With the […]
No such thing as an objective map
From Think Africa Press, “Terrabyte Incognita: Africa Might Not Look Like You Think It Does.” By James Wan, 28 March 2014. Much of this article reviews some well-known criticisms of 2 dimensional mapping of the 3 dimensional globe and the history of African map-making. However, the last section is fresh and I particularly like the way […]
Virtual Kenya offers over a hundred free maps
The Virtual Kenya site offers a variety of spatial data displayed in Google Earth intended for the benefit of Kenyan citizens and educators. As the Google Earth blog notes: “Along with a variety of tutorials and their blog, they feature over 100 informational maps to give you easy access to their data.” Several Google Earth tours are also provided, […]
World interactive forest map
Enjoy exploring using this Google Earth based interactive map of world forest losses (and gains) from the Global Forest Watch. The website (currently in beta mode) includes tutorials, details on how the data are collected, and a gallery of stories (and photos) to illustrate many situations across the globe. There is also a country based arrangement, though […]
Matatu urban transit map of Nairobi
Beautiful map, important research. Researchers and students at the University of Nairobi, the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia University, and the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT produced [an informal “matatu” urban transit] map – and the underlying data behind it – after carrying cell phones and GPS devices along every route in the […]
Map: What if Africa had not been colonized?
With thanks to Rachel Strohm and Savage Minds for bringing our attention to this (speculative, historical thought experiment) “map of African politico-tribal units circa 1844″ by Swedish artist Nikolaj Cyon. From the artist’s blog: the project is…about…historical precolonial African nations, and I have tried to form a map of the most prominent of those that existed between the 15th and […]
African Studies library 