100 outstanding interactive maps of 2015 – part 1…

http://visualoop.com/blog/90498/100-outstanding-interactive-maps-of-2015-part-1

Welcome to the first part of this post with 100 interactive maps that stood out in 2015, among the hundreds we featured every week on our Digital Cartography column. So, this means that this should not be considered as a “best maps of the year″ post, since we are not taking in consideration the ones that we didn’t feature on Visualoop – although we’re sure that most of the ones gathered in this compilation definitively deserve that title.

This was a year in which maps continued to be among the favorite – or at least, among the most used – visualizations used by news portals and online publishers in general. Major events happening at a worldwide scale, from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the refugee crisis and terrorist attacks, to historical elections in several countries, and maps were a crucial part of the journalistic effort to clarify and inform what was really taking place.

The popularity of maps can also be viewed in the number of independent projects by companies and designers that we brought together in this selection. These projects take full advantage of the tools – new and improved ones – and techniques for storytelling with maps, to create impressive visualizations around topics such as the environment, politics, economics, transport, health and sports, just to name a few.

Overall, it was another exciting year for visualization, and interactive map-making in particular. Hope you’ll appreciate these first 50 picks as much as we did – specially because it was really hard to select them among so many great examples.

The Dawn Wall | The New York Times

(image: The New York Times)

Mapping America’s Future | Urban Institute

(image: Urban Institute)

Global View: Climate Change in Perspective | Bloomberg

(image: Bloomberg Visual Data)

Fortress Europe | Sverige Radio

(image: Sverige Radio)

Mapping the Most Common Races | Flowing Data

(image: Flowing Data)

Nazi death camps | CNN

(image: CNN)

World Sex Map | Quartz

(image: Quartz)

Why Measles May Just Be Getting Started | Bloomberg Visual Data

(image: Bloomberg Visual Data)

Religions of our representatives | The Washington Post

(image: The Washington Post)

Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Real Estate | The New York Times

(image: The New York Times)

A tale of many cities | MIT Senseable Lab

(image: MIT Senseable Lab)

Swiss Leaks Data Explorer | ICIJ

(image: ICIJ)

Map of Milky Way | NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab /Planck Institute

(image: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab /Planck Institute)

Baidu Migration map | Baidu

(image: Baidu)

Capital Bikeshare | Mapbox

(image: Mapbox)

The first ten years of OpenStreetMap | Mapbox

Read more about this project

SF Tweet Data | Nick Shelton

(image: Nick Shelton)

Airbnb activities around the world | Airbnb

(image: Airbnb)

GeoMood | Sebastian Gräf

(image: Sebastian Gräf)

Energy Explorer | Metro Vancouver

(image: Metro Vancouver)

Which Flight Will Get You There Fastest? | FiveThirtyEight

(image: FiveThirtyEight)

Carsharing in Berlin | Tagesspigel

(image: Tagesspigel)

The food capitals of Instagram | Cewe Photoworld

(image: Cewe Photoworld)

Fans on the Move | Ticketbiz

(image: Ticketbiz)

Socio-Economic Tectonics | Kenneth Field

(image: Kenneth Field)

The Agas Map of early modern London | University of Victoria

(image: University of Victoria)

Game of Thrones: The Kingsroadmap – An interactive journey through seasons 1-5 | Direct TV

(image: Direct TV)

The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares | The Upshot

(image: The Upshot)

Living Wage Map | Esri

(image: Esri)

Mars explorer | MapBox

(image: MapBox)

NYC Street Trees | Jill Hubley

(image: Jill Hubley)

(Read more about this project)

Divvy Trips | Divvy

(image: Divvy)

Colombia Refugiada | El Tiempo

(image: El Tiempo)

Taking Back Detroit | National Geographic

(image: National Geographic)

Rising Rents in Boston | Ungentry

(image: Ungentry)

American Odeyssey Google Map | NBC

(image: NBC)

Lucky Lunch Map | Lucky Lunch

(image:Lucky Lunch)

Election 2015: Where to vote tactically to get the prime minister you want | The Guardian

(image: The Guardian)

Well Storied | Land Rover

(image: Land Rover)

Amsterdam Growing Over Time | City of Amsterdam

(image: City of Amsterdam)

UK 2015 general election results in full | The Guardian

(image: The Guardian)

Native-land.ca | Victor Gerard Temprano

(image: Victor Gerard Temprano)

Homicide Monitor | Igarape Institute

(image: Igarape Institute)

Mobility: engine of our regional economy | CMAP

(image: CMAP)

Spain in numbers | El Español

(image: El Español)

LA Building Age | cityHUB Los Angeles

(image: cityHUB Los Angeles)

Chasing the Matterhorn | Neue Zurcher Zeitung

(image: Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

Killing the Colorado (maps) | Propublica

(image: Propublica)

The San Francisco 1906 Earthquake & Fire | Chris Ingram

(image: Chris Ingram)

Visualizing The Racial Divide | Jim Vallandingham

(image: Jim Vallandingham)

 

That’s it for the first part of our selection of outstanding interactive maps of 2015. Don’t miss next week’s follow-up, as well as the other similar round ups we’ll be publishing in the next few days. And if that isn’t enough, feel free to browse through thousands of interactive maps on Pinterest.