3 unusual online services for avid cartographers
Nowadays, services such as GoogleMaps, 2GIS, Yandex.Maps, etc. dominate. It is difficult to surprise the average user with online maps. However, there are projects that are still capable of attracting interest. In this collection I have collected the most unusual geoinformation services – get ready to immerse yourself in history, a water apocalypse and the kingdom of flowers!
Historical: how-old-is-this.house project
Special online project cartographic publishing house “Kon-Tiki” is dedicated to the age of houses in Russian cities and will appeal to all lovers of the history of architecture. Using the chronology slider, you can roll back the state of the city to a certain period of its development and see which of the surviving buildings were built at the time of interest. It becomes possible to trace the history of the development of your hometown in a few seconds.
As an advantage of the project, it is worth highlighting not only its historicity, but also its stylish color design, which makes immersion in urban architecture pleasant to perceive. A separate window provides a legend for the color scheme, which briefly describes a specific time period.
Alarming: FloodMap
Global warming is no longer news, but a real threat that people are trying to combat. Every news about melting glaciers and the risk of rising sea levels evokes a strong desire to look at the real consequences for specific regions on a map and see the Water World of the future.
Fortunately, this opportunity gives FloodMap: it is enough to set the desired value of the ocean level and see under what circumstances a conditional St. Petersburg or Tokyo will sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Sweet: Florida's Turnpike Wildflower Sites
The state of Florida lives up to its name – only here an online map of where wild flowers grow near highways has been created Florida's Turnpike Wildflower Sites. That’s right: the map contains places and photographs of flowers growing exclusively near highways. A laconic and sweet declaration of love for the nature of the autobahn.
