The Toronto Star Map of the Week Ends

Patrick Cain, the author of the Toronto Star's excellent Map of the Weekfeature, has now left the paper, so unfortunately the column has come to an end. The Map of the Week feature launched in mid-2008 and every week published a new Google Map mashup.

The maps ranged from reports of sexually transmitted disease or postal codes of drunk driving suspects, to maps looking at dog ownership in Toronto. Invariably the maps were on subjects important to the lives of those who live in Toronto.

Over the two years the column attracted around 1.4 million page-views. In Patrick's last column for the paper he picks out some of his highlights. Here are just three of my favourites:

Toronto in 1878

Two maps using the Google Maps interface to present detailed 1878 atlas sheets of the east and west ends of Toronto.

2010 Toronto Centre Byelection Maps

A series of Google Maps examining the poll results of each of the political parties in the Toronto Centre Byelection.

Drunk Driving and Subway Location Map

This map looks at license suspensions from drunk driving and at the locations of subway stations. The map shows a correlation between the home locations of drunk drivers and their distance from subway stations.


It has been hard picking just three maps. I've really enjoyed reading Patrick's column over the last two years and I wish him all the best in his new endeavours.

Banff Hotels on Google Maps

Banff Hotel Map

This Google Maps mashup provides a guide to hotels, inns and other accommodation in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

The location of the hotels is displayed on the map and also listed in the map sidebar. If you click on a map marker you can get details about the accommodation available, including a link to the hotel's website. You can also view the hotel using Google Maps Street View.

Global Marine Life on Google Maps

OBIS-Seamap

OBIS-Seamap uses Google Maps to show the distribution and the ecology of marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles across the globe.

It is possible to search and view data on the map for any of one of 324 different species. It is also possible to filter the data shown on the map by taxon group; 'sea bird', 'sea turtle' or 'marine mammal'.

OBIS-Seamap - Online Mapper
Whilst the OBIS-Seamap is hugely impressive enough on its own it is also accompanied by an Online Mapper. The Online Mapper lets you create your own map using multiple species/datasets as well as your own map elements.

Using the map you can map multiple datasets/species on a single map, upload your own ESRI shapefile(s) to filter the data by your region(s) of interest and overlay Google Earth KML. However an OBIS-Seamap account is required for some of the customisation features.

World Database on Marine Protected Areas

Did you know that only 0.7 of the world's oceans are protected? The WDPA-Marine wants to provide the most comprehensive set of marine protected areas (MPAs) data available. Part of this effort involves a very cool Google Maps mashup that provides information about the less that 1% of protected ocean.

The map uses shaded polygons to highlight protected ocean areas. For each protected area it is possible to select a number of layers showing coral, mangrove, seagrass and saltmarsh locations. The map also includes layers to display Wikipedia articles, photographs and videos of the selected protected area.