Human Interest

"The vast majority of fishing vessels follow the rules governing fishing – but many are not, and these bad actors can cause a lot of damage. Vessels may take too many fish ­– overfishing – which is causing our fisheries to collapse. Then there is the problem of illegal fishing, which can occur in protected areas, in another country’s waters or on the high seas. This threatens jobs and food security for millions of people, all around the world.

Over the years we've shared with you hundreds of amazing maps featuring them on the website and as #GeoawesomeMapOfTheDay on our social media channels. We've decided to select 20 most stunning maps we've ever shared or wrote about. It was a difficult choice  and we would like to add to the list maps that we've missed,…

Plan your next big hike with this map of America's most-loved long trails.

"Repurposed NASA maps show the racial diversity (and segregation) of the United States in more detail than ever before."

This map shows the estimated net immigration (inflows minus outflows) by origin and destination country between 2010 and 2015. Blue circles = positive net migration (more inflows). Red circles = negative net migration (more outflows). Each yellow dot represents 1,000 people. Hover over a circle to see that country’s total net migration between 2010 and 2015. […]

Smarty Pins is a Google Maps based geography and trivia game.

"The ESRI storymap on climate refugees does a phenomenal job sampling locations in the world that experience migration effects as a result of climate change. Attached is a guided worksheet that accompanies the ESRI Climate Migrant Storymap."

New maps use math to define the amorphous term.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create an interactive map with Visme, a free online infographic and presentation tool.

"To design a map of the world is no easy task. Because maps represent the spherical Earth in 2D form, they cannot help but be distorted, which is why Greenland and Antarctica usually look far more gigantic than they really are, while Africa appears vastly smaller than its true size. The AuthaGraph World Map tries to correct these issues, showing the world closer to how it actually is in all its spherical glory."

A stunning new map from Imgur user Fejetlenfej shows the complex network of rivers and streams in the contiguous United States, highlighting the massive expanse of basins across the country.

"Google rolled out its new Maps design...from a navigational tool to a commercial interface and offers the clearest proof yet that the geographic web—despite its aspirations to universality—is a deeply subjective entity."

Visualizing the flow of the world's migrants from country to country.

Based on data from the U.N. Population Division, this map shows the estimated net migration (inflows minus outflows) by origin and destination country between 2010 and 2015.

Blue circles = positive net migration (more inflows). Red circles = negative net migration (more outflows). Each yellow dot represents 1,000 people.

Hover over a circle to see that country’s total net migration between 2010 and 2015. Click a circle to view only the migration flows in and out of that country.

For more info about this map, read the article, All the World’s Immigration Visualized in 1 Map.

Tags: migration, USA, mapping, population, unit 2 population.

The whole world is now in your browser. Fly through landmarks and cities like London, Tokyo and Rome in stunning 3D, then dive in to experience them firs

"Simulating climate conditions over the last 125,000 years and predicting how those changes would have allowed humans to spread around the globe, this video models human migration patterns." Read more: http://ow.ly/lWIp304qZEo

The Last Week Tonight host discussed the problems with politically motivated redrawing of state lines and how it negatively affects democracy

We could take human error out of the redistricting process entirely. Why don't we?

Today, to the southeast of Block Island, there are five new structures rising from the ocean. These are the towers of the Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), the first offshore wind energy installation in the United States. The turbines will generate 30 megawatts of energy; providing electricity to 17,000 households on Block Island and coastal Rhode Island (McCann, 2016), and replacing the diesel generators that previously powered New Shoreham. The turbines are on schedule to begin turning in November 2016 once commissioning is complete.

Parag Khanna argues that these five maps are critical to understand the world we live in.

One specialized unit gathered data that could guide a missile to a target thousands of miles away.

The work of the 1370th bridged a crucial gap in the history of military technology. By the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles, but satellite navigation systems like GPS weren’t yet up and running. That left military planners with a huge challenge: how to program a missile to hit a target on the other side of the world. Even a tiny mistake could be disastrous.

Tags: mapping, cartography, technology, historical.

"How do you get Google to visit your small, remote island group with its Street View vehicles, and digitize your roads for the benefit of locals and tourists alike? If you are the Faroe Islands, then you exploit your local resources to roll your own Street View, in the hopes of attracting Google's attention. Behold: Sheep View 360, a solar-powered 360-degree camera, mounted on a sheep's back. Sheep View takes advantage of one great Street View feature: You can upload your own images to Google's service. So Durita Dahl Andreassen, working for the tourist site Visit Faroe Islands, decided to kick-start the Faroe Islands' entry by putting the camera on a sheep and letting it wander free, then uploading the photos."

Can you tell what’s wrong with this map of the United States? I’ll give you a hint: Look near the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Spot the problem yet? A further hint: Look at the border of Wisconsin and Illinois as well as the Florida Panhandle. See it now? The Wisconsin-Illinois border is slightly more southern and the Florida Panhandle is slightly shorter.

"The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, or the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, respectively. There is significantly more red on a traditional election maps than there is blue, but that is in some ways misleading: the election was much closer than you might think from the balance of colors, and in fact Clinton won slightly more votes than Trump overall. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones.

History, race, religion, identity, geography: The 2012 election county-level map has many stories to tell, including about the 2016 race.