I'm assuming their site is being hammered by HNers downloading the PDFs (myself included) since the download speed is only a few KB/s (unless they're smart and have implemented a rate limiter).
Some maps look terrible. Some look awesome. I'm interested in learning about what makes a _good_ map. Or a _perfect_ map. What book(s) would you recommend? I imagine Edward Tufte might have something to say on the subject too?
When I was in school, I liked "Designing better maps" by Cynthia Brewer. But this was years ago, and I'm not sure what is out there now.
But let me warn you; here be dragons. If you rally get into and learn about cartographic design, you'll never again look at a map without seeing its flaws. You'll see atrocious maps everyday, and it will pain you that such horrible maps were published. But you'll learn how difficult it is to design a truly beautiful map, and really appreciate the artistry.
The greatest map I can remember seeing was from my childhood, a National Geographic map of the Mongol Empire. I was mesmerized by that single image telling a story involving the lives of millions told over hundreds of years.
Here's a 2 second google examples of: I like this map, I hate this map. Now, maps have different purposes, and so it can be unfair to sometimes pick two different maps and critique them in comparison, but, we're going to do that anyway. Two maps of North Carolina.
The first has a crisp, clean design. Is elegant and imparts the information is is trying to relay. It's simple, but has high accuracy. It's easy to read, and the colors are well chosen.
The second is just... ugh... First of all, looking at it for just a few seconds I noticed they spelled at least one city incorrectly. It's just ugly. why is NC at an angle? There is little design intent. Now, to be fair, it does convey information (but I already know some of it is wrong), and so from that standpoint you can argue that it's a fine map. But we're talking about the art of cartography, and at the end of the day, I'd argue it's is an art form, and design is a key component. And in this map's case, it is just a horrid map that I don't want to even look at.
As a tip I learned in school: don't ever put a north arrow on a map, unless it absolutely needs it.
National Geographic almost always has great maps. They have some amazing cartographers working for them. I love their stuff.
To call Flattening the Earth a detailed history of map projections is akin to calling a dictionary a list of words.
Flattening the Earth is almost certainly the most exhaustive, detail packed, well written, and well illustrated compendium of information on the origin and use of map projections ever published.
If you’re interested in maps and the history of cartography, I highly recommend the book: The Mapmakers by John Noble Wilford. Longitude by Dava Sobel is a good follow up.
If you carefully review the other volumes, you'll find a series of clues that, when combined, yield a map that leads you to the lost volume 5. It just says "told you cartography was awesome" over and over for 400 pages.
See: https://geography.wisc.edu/histcart/
and: https://geography.wisc.edu/histcart/volume-5-cartography-in-...
Only volume 1 came out in 1987; volume 2 was published in three books from 1992 to 1998; volume 3 came out in 2007, 6 in 2015, 4 in 2019.
academic publishing allows for out-of-order execution.