In my box of Random Old Maps is a smaller box of maps and brochures, mostly from the 1950s, from one person’s travels. I don’t know how or why I have them. A couple of my favorites are deck plans of ocean liners like the Queen Elizabeth, which in 1946 finally began passenger service after the war.

Discount bundles on allllll published 50 Maps books: 10% off if you buy one, 20% off if you buy two, 30% off if you buy three, 40% off if you buy four, and 50% off if you buy five. Stock up for the holidays!

Back in Ohio, there was a kid in my school who, for the 10 years I was there, was a whole package of smart, popular, and friendly. Class prez in high school, naturally. Also could do impressive juggling tricks in 6th grade. Anyway he crushed his re-election to Cincinnati mayor yesterday!

Such a blessing to be the parent of children in their precious, innocent first few years of life. You can eat a bunch of their Halloween candy after they go to bed and they’ll have no idea.

Got a nice package in the mail yesterday. You, too, could receive it! beltpublishing.com/products/cin...

To any Boston-area map people who might still be with me on this site: head down to our southern neighbor Thursday evening for Maptime! I guarantee this is the closest thing to Maptime Boston you’re going see in the foreseeable future. www.mapcenter.com/maptimeri

Well I still haven’t seen our book, but I guess the important thing is that my mom has.

Finally tried the Marmite sample that @kennethfield.bsky.social handed out at the @nacis.bsky.social conference. I like it more than most cartograms. #nacis2025

You'll hear me screaming much more about this book in a month or so, but for now I've made a little portfolio update to add a thing on the soon-to-be-published Cincinnati in 50 Maps, which you can and should pre-order now. andywoodruff.com/posts/2025/c...

My phone camera is too crummy for this, but Boston #NoKings could be spotted from a few miles away in the air yesterday.

When I lived in Oakland, I was part of this amazing group called MapTime that was a friendly, quirky, techie and kind group of cartographers and geography-enthusiasts. It was called MapTime and I've started a RI chapter. Come hang out and learn with us! www.mapcenter.com/maptimeri

If you're in the Boston area and you want to see some cool maps and learn about why we shouldn't always trust them, join me for my library talk "How Maps Lie" this friday! newtonfreelibrary.libcal.com/event/14866807

Me 363 days of the year: heck yeah, no dentist appointment today! Me 2 days of the year: ugh

Catch my next library talk on October 10 at the Newton Free Library in Newton MA newtonfreelibrary.libcal.com/event/14866807

New poster! Hachure illustrations of the highest Cascade Range volcanoes. This one took a lot of experimentation to get the layout right. If you or someone you know loves this area, check it out. www.etsy.com/listing/4373...

New author interview live! This one's with Nick Swartsell and Andy Woodruff, the editor and cartographer of Belt's forthcoming Cincinnati in 50 Maps. @awoodruff.bsky.social beltpublishing.com/pages/conver...

If you have a London person in your life, this looks very nice! (Unsurprisingly, coming from one of the best cartographers out there!)

Cincinnati in 50 Maps, by Nick Swartsell and me, is off to the printer, so you can get your pre-orders in now for the December launch! beltpublishing.com/products/cin... Get this, folks: I counted and there are 125 individual maps. That's 75 extra maps for free!

Since Boston is sounding the “don’t drive a truck on Storrow” sirens this week, time to post this map again, now with a timeline. As far as I can tell, either the messaging works or the idea of students smashing U-Hauls into overpasses is largely a myth. I couldn’t find any real spike in September.

Me at 7pm: wow, I made a vegan dinner that was actually pretty satisfying! Me at 11pm:

Making what might be my first real, work-for-hire grayscale maps after all these years. Monochrome is a fun challenge for a pet project, but when it’s “distinctly symbolize these 7 routes and 90 points that are all on top of each other if you want your money” it’s just kind of… hard?

The rail map of Columbus, OH, a city of nearly one million people:

XI. Thou shall not rest thy legs on the LORD’s landscaping

Another solid day in the 30+ years of progress in advancing this from Simpsons joke to actual GOP platform.

Build it! Everyone should learn the joy of changing trains at Park Street. This is what peak transit system design looks like. Seattle to San Francisco? Just go Inbound to Park St and change trains to go Outbound to San Francisco! Nothing could be simpler!

How a map is made: - 1640s: people write down property descriptions - early 20th century: amateur historians obsessively catalog them and derive maps - 20XX: someone (sorry, not sure who) georeferences those maps - 2025: I simply sit on a chair and trace said georeferenced maps

Not sure I'll ever see these maps in real life, but it's fun to know that someone will! Here's some work I did with the Community Geographics team to design new summer trail maps for the Appalachian Mountain Club's Maine Woods Initiative properties.

Sometime in the 1990s it seems I created a poster that my opponent can use, should I ever run for office.

Went to State of the Map US since it was here in town. Fun. Should attend more than once per decade. Anyway here’s this map we saw of Massachusetts (but missing the islands) labeled Cambridge, made of… hotel lobby bench cushion?

Typographic contour lines… 🧑‍🍳😚🤌

✋ who else?

While we are here, check out this brand new beaut…(spring ‘26 by @awoodruff.bsky.social; cover by @downpourdw.bsky.social)

I feel like I know a bunch of Twin Cities cartographers. Some of you must be on here and wanting to do a book!

summah

It's back now if anyone wants to trade me some dollars for a White Mountains map.

Do other US cities have similar markets to Boston’s Haymarket? (Super cheap overflow produce from the wholesale distribution center) I’d almost forgotten about it before wandering by recently, and as a parent of kids who eat nothing but fruit, am now considering rearranging my life to go every week.

1. Gross, obviously. 2. I was just working on a map of the combined sewer overflows into the Charles etc. around Boston! One internet dollar to anyone who can guess what the map's title is.

inscription=Potatoes Potato Potato Potatoes Potato Potato Potato Potatoes Potato Potato Potato Feels like my hard work of hitting "send" on a soon-to-be viral tweet about Boston's potato monument 8 years ago or whatever is finally making a difference. 💪 www.openstreetmap.org/node/1266317...

The other day I knew nothing about ship tracking data but wondered where the boats go in Boston Harbor. Turns out it's easy to get data for US waters! These maps represent the second half of 2023. marinecadastre.gov/accessais/

🚨 EXCITING NEWS KLAXON 🚨 My first book THE BOROUGHS OF LONDON, based on my London Borough maps series and co-written with the amazing @mattfromlondon.bsky.social, is published by @batsfordbooks.bsky.social in October! 🥳 🛒 UK customers can preorder from: www.batsfordbooks.com/book/the-bor... 1/5 🧵⬇️

I’ll be so angry if I learn that someone already digitized building footprints in Boston’s former West End, because even doing it fairly sloppily took me a lot longer than expected. A work in progress on the insane “urban renewal” that razed the entire neighborhood. (Yes, I will fix the typo.)

As someone racing to finish another book in the series, my current task is identifying which boxes I've left unchecked. Just finished my Climate Change Agenda map! Meanwhile, do throw some dollars at Pittsburgh in 50 Maps. There's even an LGBTQ+ map! www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/978...

~new map~ In a tribute to the springtime bloom, I painted a dataviz of where the blossoms are in DC! Full process from inspirations, to realizing you have to re-paint the whole thing at twice the size, to DIY photo sessions – all detailed in this blog post. moriartynaps.org/cherry/

LMEC also has made available the digitized data behind this map, for those (like me) who can use it in their own projects! data.leventhalmap.org#/catalog/dki...

I googled "Boston area pronunciations" in search of a good comprehensive list, and this troll job from 2001 was the top result. Amazing. web.mit.edu/kenta/www/th...

Okay I think I have to do another map of mean turkeys around Boston (have done it before thanks to @universalhub.com's tireless reporting: bostonography.com/2013/the-tur...) so I'm browsing 311 data and chuckling at how many are like "Case closed. Turkey flew away."

Take a long look at the watershed between the US and Canada, find all the lighthouses, track how the birds fly, spot monsters, and more from @alexbhill.bsky.social. Pre-order now and get your copy first (and tell your libraries and bookstores to order)

Maybe there’s a newer pearl-clutching NIMBY fear than the “Manhattanizaton of [already urban neighborhood]” since I haven’t heard in a while, but I think I’ll still include it in a forthcoming population density map.

Shockingly, nobody took me up on running the #BostonMarathon with this thing strapped to their wrist

Marathon Monday means it’s time to pull this map out of the bag for about the 10th time. If you didn’t qualify today, I’ve got some options for you.