Posts Tagged ‘capital’

Updating Natural Earth Populated Places (Kelso)

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Dick Furno and I have been busy revising and expanding the populated places included with Natural Earth, released in December. We’re adding around 1,000 places to get to ~7,300 total towns and settlements around the world. We include more admin-1 capitals and make a first stab at linking to GeoNames via their unique IDs. Dick has gone over the towns and created a new 30m scale rank that helps cut the 20m clutter in half. We hope to have the update pushed out by the end of January.

Here’s a preview: Click images to see larger version

Added locations
(red = added general place, black = added admin-1 place at less than 10m scale rank, grey = existing places)

added_place_or_admin_1_capital

Scale rank changed
(red = change, grey = no change to existing or added at less than 10m scale rank)

scale_ranks

Changed the name, location, feature class, population, or other property
(blue = changes to existing features, grey = existing or added)

names_location_featureclass_population

Places with GeoName ID linkages
(green = with ID, grey = lacks ID for mostly small population settlements)

geonames_id

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Posted in Best practices, Data source, Geography, Mapping, Self promo | Comments Off on Updating Natural Earth Populated Places (Kelso)

Mental Map: View from Washington by Matt Wuerker (Politico)

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

politico_wuerker_view_fr_dc

[Editor’s note: This cover illustration from Matt Wuerker for Politico is a take on Steinberg’s classic illustrations for the New Yorker that show the mental map for politicians living in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The lead article looks at the top 50 politicos to watch. Thanks Laris!]

Republished from Politico.

Given the name of this publication, we sometimes get asked a good question: What exactly is a politico? There are a lot of definitions that fit, but here’s one that seems to work well: A politico is a participant in and/or an especially avid devotee of the theater of politics.

There is no grander stage than the capital for this particular drama. And what is the main thing you do at the theater? You watch it, of course. And then you laugh or cry or yawn or boo. At the end, you applaud — whether out of admiration for the performance or gratitude that it is over.

This issue (the third special glossy that POLITICO has published this year) is devoted to 50 Politicos to Watch. In some cases, the people are on the watch list because they are on the rise — the kind of list people in Washington relish being on. But be careful what you wish for. Some politicos are interesting to watch because they are in the middle of one sticky mess or another.

But in every case, the names we compiled here — and, let’s be honest, the list is somewhat random — were identified by our reporters and editors as being characters in motion, in the middle of interesting plots.

Continue reading at Politico . . .

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Posted in art, General, Geography, Maps in the Wild, Print, Promote | Comments Off on Mental Map: View from Washington by Matt Wuerker (Politico)