Worldmapper: Travel and Tourism (and more) Map

(this is a blog, not a podcast)

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

The WorldMapper site shows a wide range of social and demographic data, including a whole series of tourism and travel related maps.

The example below the relative number of international tourists that each country received in 2003. If you click on the title above, you will go to this map. Click on next and you will go to many more tourism-related maps.



The maps are really cool. And this one also shows a particular pet peeve of mine. It is obvious that the countries of Europe receive more international tourists than any of the others. Only the US and China outside of Europe have any significant size comparisons. However, are the borders within Europe really international borders? Personally, I do not think so. Passing from one country to another in Europe is no different from passing from one state to another in the US or Australia, or from one province to another in Canada or China. As such, the international arrival numbers are considerably over-inflated in Europe, in comparison to the rest of the world.

Anyway, these are the numbers that we have to live with today thanks to the World Tourism Organization (aka UNWTO) -- a bogus United Nations affiliated organization that charges for most of the data it collects and the services it provides to developing countries -- unlike other true UN bodies.

NEW: Another great source of Thematic Maps (as well as traditional political, street and physical maps) is National Geographic's Map Machine.

Tags: maps,map making,geography,cartography,tourism,travel,statistics,data,unwto,worldmapper

Quikmaps.com - maps for the masses

(this is a blog, not a podcast)

Quikmaps.com - Maps for the Masses

This may or may not be "Travel", but I did think it was something that geographers and budding geographers should know about, given our historic love affair with maps!

Quickmaps.com allows you to "Draw pictures and label things on a google map using simple clicks and drags." This is Fun! It is still in beta, and the "draw Lines" tool did not work for me in Firefox, but the "scribble" line drawing tool did work. This is a neat way to draw the maps that you want - to your house, to the party, and to the beach!

I have not tried these other options yet, but according to the website, once you have drawn your maps you can:

"Blog it! - Post the map on your blog or website. Quikmaps hosts your map, so you don't need to sign up for a 'google maps api key', or anything like that. All you need is a blog.

Send it! - Don't have a blog? Want to email a map? No problem -- just send a link to your quik map.

Change it! - Quikmaps hosts your maps, so you can come back and edit them whenever you want. After you save your changes, your maps will update themselves.

Google Earth it! - See your quikmap in 3D with Google Earth."

NEW: Use A Map.com is another online mapping tool that you might want to check out. They describe themselves as: "A free service that provides you with a map that has a short URL, for example useamap.com/ourplace which is easy to remember and share with others."

Tags: maps,map making,google maps,quickmaps,geography,cartography

G4T #5: Geography and Tourism

My podcast for August 29 (click on title above) is on the relationship between geography and tourism, and how I came to make the connection as a college student and made it the focus of my life's work. I thought I might add here in the blog that you can access the syllabus for the class I'm teaching this semester at:

http://www.geog.nau.edu/courses/alew/ggr376/

The class itself is taught in Blackboard-Vista, and is not available for anyone who is not fully registered as a student.

NEW: I have made a major edit of the original MP3 file, which was posted on 24 Sept 2006 and replaced the old file.