Printable United States map
This is a general-purpose map of the United States, designed from the bottom up to be printable by everyone, and to look great on the humble 8.5 x 11 paper. When making maps, or just looking at data, I do a lot of sketching. I usually Google Image search some kind of basemap, and scribble […]
Will Moscow ever stop growing?
Русская версия карты Even as Russia struggles to grow its population, Moscow’s incredible growth seems unstoppable. Excluding St. Petersburg, Russia’s next 15 largest cities combined could comfortably fit inside Moscow and its suburbs. In a recent map, I looked at the growth and decline of post-Soviet cities. Across the entire post-Soviet space, there is one overwhelming winner – […]
Biggest Soviet cities
Русские версии первой и второй карты. When I was looking for the Soviet Union’s largest cities, I couldn’t find any good list, let alone a map. Strange, I thought, considering that Russian Wikipedia seems to have incredibly detailed records of every Soviet city’s population. And yet, nobody had collected them in one place. I managed to […]
Mexico’s urban pileups
If you think this would make a cool poster, you can get a high-res, print-worthy PDF for $9! The US-Mexico border is the most frequently crossed, and one of the longest, in the world. The difference in development between the Mexican and US side is perhaps the greatest of any international border. This results […]
US cities: cheap and open-minded
Context: on Quora, I was asked, “What is the cheapest and most open-minded city in the United States?“ Tl;dr: Louisville, Kentucky – aka “Where sobriety goes to die” or “The Southernmost Northern City”. Wow, cheapest AND most open-minded… this is not easy to measure. For “cheapest” I assume you mean cost of living, which I […]
Standalone US Cities
Recently I had a random thought: why is it that some city articles on Wikipedia are called, for example, Nashville, Tennessee – while others are simply, Seattle or Dallas? Is Nashville simply not culturally significant enough to stand on its own, without the cumbersome state identifier? Wikipedia has extensive policy about the article names for geographical locations, […]
Valuable Squares revisited
Here is a version with labels. Previously I published a map that divided the world into around 18,000 squares, and highlighted which squares had a GDP of $100 billion or more. I decided to revisit this concept with the help of GIS software and slightly better data. Data and method The data come courtesy of Dr. […]
Why is San Jose’s airport so close to downtown?
This is Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. In the background is downtown Washington, D.C. Reagan National is approximately a 1–1.5 hr walk from the White House, depending on which part of the airport you start in. This happens to be roughly the same as the walking time between San Jose International and the center of […]
Response: “Why are ghettos mostly populated by blacks?”
I’ll start by saying that not all ghettos are populated by blacks. The word ghetto itself comes from an Italian term for the area of the town to which Jews are restricted (ethnic Jews are not black). In the United States, the term ghetto has come to mean an urban or suburban area that is […]
What is the northernmost city in the world?
Here is a list of northernmost inhabited places by increasing population: 82º N: Alert, Canada – population 0-5. Northernmost inhabited place. 79º N: Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway – population 35. Northernmost year-round inhabited place. 78º N: Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway – population 2,075. Northernmost town of over a thousand. 71º N: Tiksi, Russia – population 5,063. Northernmost […]
