Tag: geography

Locals and Tourists

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I’m a bit of both this week, and that’s my rather tenuous link to this project which compares the location of images shared on social media by… well… locals and tourists.

The blue dots represent local people’s images and the red dots are pictures taken by tourists.

Here – for example – is Oxford:

Down at half past six is Abingdon and up at 11o’clock is Blenheim Palace. Off to to west is Witney, but no-one really goes there. It’s no surprise (especially if you’re familiar with Oxford) that all the tourist stuff is happening up the High Street and down Broad Street:

Pretty University buildings, innit? That sidearm heading off to east is the road out to Headington, with a nice bit of red around Oxford Brookes.

Oxford is a good example of how divided a city can be, both in real life and on these maps. London is bright red around Westminster, the West End, the river and its bridges.

But perhaps unsurprisingly, no-one goes to Croydon.

It’s worth looking through any cities you know. It’s amazing how many bridges are key tourist spots: see London above, Budapest and San Francisco, for examples.

My only gripe with this project is that it only makes it into Africa as for as the Pyramids, while places like Minsk still get a map. And no-one’s being Belarus-hing there lately.

I would love to see Cape Town’s version.

One letter

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A while back, I did a post on the most popular town names in each country in Europe. During that post, we discovered that basically everywhere in Europe is named “New Village” (in their various native languages).

Well, here’s another European place name map from the same people – it’s called … ok, it’s actually got a title on the image:

A quick count makes that 8 in Norway, 6 in Sweden, and one each in Denmark and France.

And look, there’s a reason for this apparent laziness (most of the time, at least).

Å (pronounced Å), is the old Norse word for a small river. And that’s why you can see places named Å all over Scandinavia. Many small rivers, see?
Likewise, Ö (pronouced Ö) is ta Swedish world for “Island”. And as any fule kno, Sweden has the most islands of any country in the world (267,570 to be exact), which does make it a bit interesting that there is only one place called Ö. It has 90 inhabitants.

And, oh. It isn’t on an island.

Though, as beagle-eyed readers might have spotted, it is just up the road from Johannisberg.

Wow.

Finally, there’s Y (presumably pronounced EE) in France. And I know what you’re thinking…

Y did they call it that?

Is it because pourquoi was too long?

Well, they named it that because – apparently – it’s the shape that the roads make in the village.

Mmm. I suppose it depends on how strong your medication is.
Mine is clearly not strong enough.

Tomorrow, 2-letter places names! Yes, this is going to be a series* until we get all the way up to that place in New Zealand.

Auckland?

No: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

Bless you.

Eish.

* it’s not.

Day 303 – Goodbye productivity (part 2)

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I first tried Geoguessr back in 2013, but I’ve decided to give it another go now.

Here it is: Geoguessr

Yes, things have changed and you have to pay for it (due to Google charging Geoguessr for using their API, apparently), but it’s still good value with a free trial option and a month to month membership plan.

And in turn, they’ve added some extra games and options, including a Battle Royale, in which you compete against 9 other players from all over the world to see who can identify a country simply from a single Google StreetView shot.

It’s good, harmless, educational fun. And you get to see ice cream tricycles like this one, close to the border in Bangladesh*.

Yeah – you’re not going to miss his arrival, are you?

I now know much more about road markings, signage, internet suffixes, latitude-specific flora, international dialling codes and vehicle number-plates than I have have before (or ever will ever need to again).

And I still mix up Canada and Finland. Always.

 

 

* This is a bit of a bittersweet one for me, as I guessed that it was in India. 20 damn km out. Grr.

Map fact of the day

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Chaotic day in the lab today, so thank goodness that my first Brilliant Maps newsletter of 2018 dropped into my inbox this morning, filled with potential blog fodder.

And yes, in there amongst 14 other gems, was this fact:

Greenland is farther east, west, north, and south than Iceland.

Wait. You what? But… how?

Well, like this:

Wow. I’d have used thinner lines. But still: wow.

Pub quiz nerds [it me!] will automatically be thinking of the American states question now:

Which American states are furthest North, South, East and West?

Hawaii is clearly the furthest south, but I can never remember which the other ones are.
My wife has a great memory though, so maybe Alaska.

(And if you didn’t get that, go here.)

Of course, if you leave out the non-contiguous states, that question suddenly becomes a whole lot less interesting
(Minnesota, Florida, Maine, Washington).

Hits

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I’m not one of those bloggers who desperately chases hits. Of course, it’s nice to have people read my stuff and I have a daily number that I like to get to (and which is a very modest number, so I usually do), but should I fall short, it’s really not the end of the world.
If I was one of those bloggers who chased hits, I would have given up years ago. It’s simply not working.

I am one of those bloggers who like stats though, and so when I stumbled upon a plugin which offered me my all-time stats, I was never going to say no. So I said yes.

I’m not really sure what “all-time” entails. I know for a fact that it can’t include the early years of ballacorkish.net and 6000 miles… because I wasn’t even using that software back then (also, the numbers really don’t match up). So there’s no indication of how long this is over, which would be helpful. But let’s not get antsy over what is, after all, a free bit of software.

What was most interesting for me was the map. How cool is it that people all over the world have read my blog? Well, I say “all over the world”, but I haven’t reached everyone yet. Because, despite there being absolutely loads of visits to the blog, I am apparently yet to have a documented hit from any of these ten nations, listed in order of population:

North Korea – 25.537m (well, ok)
Niger – 20.671m (infamously mentioned here)
Chad – 14.450m (disappointing from my African brothers)
Turkmenistan – 5.662m (flag with a carpet on; amazing.)
Guinea Bissau – 1.821m (see Chad)
Solomon Islands –0.599m (hey! 600,000 readers can’t be wrong, guys)
Western Sahara – 0.513m (excuse: political upheaval/no internet)
Greenland – 0.056m (2.166 million km² of potential readership)
Falkland Islands – 0.003m (I’m actually surprised at this)
Svalbard – 0.003m (despite constant mentions of Norway on here)

The first visitor from each of these countries/territories will add their homeland to this list of places who have visited 6000 miles… just once:

Iran
Sierra Leone
French Polynesia
Martinique
American Samoa
Tajikistan
Djibouti
Togo
Bhutan
San Marino
Tonga
Benin
St. Martin
Cape Verde

Some impressive French overseas territory representation there. Bonsoir, Rodney. Bonsoir! 

I’m not really sure why I’m sharing this, save to ask that if you are going to any of these places in the near future (North Korea – lol), a quick visit to 6000.co.za would be much appreciated. I’ll also be doing my bit to lever few mentions of outstanding counties into my posts over the next few weeks in a shameless attempt to dominate the globe.