Geography Blog

Month: August 2012

  • The Changing Geography of Olympic Medal Winners

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    mbjellan

    The New York Times has created a great information graphic showing the medal winners for each of the modern-era summer Olympics. It is a simple cartogram with proportional circles representing the number of medals each country earned. The color scheme and design are simple and effective. As you scroll across the timeline, you can see…

  • Drought Status as of July 2012

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    mbjellan

    The Palmer short term drought index shows a large swath of extreme drought conditions in the Central United States.

  • Geography, Class, and the Fate of Passengers on the Titanic

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    mbjellan

    GIS software maker ESRI has created a fabulous series of story maps showing how class and geography intersected to influence a person’s odds of surviving the sinking of the Titanic. First class passengers had a 38% survival rate and were largely from the United States, in particular, New York City. On the other hand, a…

  • Silver lining in the drought

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    averslui

    Macalester College Geography Professor William Moseley recently published an opinion piece in the New York Times on corn and drought in the Midwest. Read it here.

  • A Congress with an international commute?

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    by

    averslui

    To serve in a country’s Congress or Parliament, does one need to reside in that country? Increasingly, some countries are saying no and allowing those in the diaspora–those living abroad–to run for election. On August 16, when the new President of the Dominican Republic,  Danilo Medila, begins his term, there will also be seven new…