Humourous Thematic Maps of Canada

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Humourous Thematic Maps of Canada

Published Thursday, February 09, 2006 by CCAer | E-mail this post

Geist, a Canadian magazine of ideas and culture, has been running a feature entitled Caught Mapping for quite some time. Until recently I hadn’t realized that the feature was also available online. Caught Mapping takes a map of Canada and labels locations related to odd-ball themes such as hockey, doughnuts, beer, philosophers and even menstruation. Some of the maps focus on a uniquely Canadian theme (e.g. the Stan Rogers map, the CBC map). all the maps are available in pdf format.

There are also links on the site to a couple of radio interviews with Melissa Edwards, the creator of the maps, that are worth a listen to. In the CBC interview (wma file) in particular, she speaks of the process she goes through when she creates the maps.

Canadian Geographic, another Canadian magazine, has done similar maps on similar themes but only the latest - one on the theme of music - seems to be available online.

By way of CartoTalk.

2 Responses to “Humourous Thematic Maps of Canada”

Anonymous on 9:59 AM

Saturday Night Magazine (out of the National Post newspaper) also did a bunch of maps like this.

Don't know if they still do or not. I'll see if I can dig some up.
Anonymous on 8:40 PM

Geographx in New Zealand published a map of "Dubious, Dodgy, and Dangerous" placenames in the South Island, New Zealand, and featured places like Dead Horse Pinch, Murdering Beach, Devils Gorge, Stinking Creek, The Black Stump, Kidnap Pount, and I could go on and on.

Place names referred to on the map are all listed in the NZ Geographic Placenames Index. The poster is a light hearted take on some of NZ's more colourful and evocative placenames.