The Best Map Porn of 2013

This was a good year for map lovers. The Internet is increasingly awash in awesome visualizations, charts, old maps newly digitized, animated histories, geographics of patterns and trends, and so on, as web developers play around with new and creative (and viral!) ways to organize and present information. And we eat it all up.

In the latest and particularly impressive example of online map porn, the New York Times reported yesterday that the University of Richmond has released a digitized, animated version of the renowned Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, originally made in 1932.

The 1932 atlas was an impressive feat, not only because of its unprecedented size and scope (the compilation of 700 maps took 20 years to make), but also for cartographers Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's innovative idea for how to use movement to illustrate the country's cultural, economic, and social development. They took existing of maps from the 16th century up until the then-present and drew connections between them to chart change over time.

The virtual edition, created by the university's Digital Scholarship Lab, makes this macro look at history even more digestible. For example, you can watch transportation evolve through a series of maps detailing travel time from New York City to locations around the country. In year 1800 the trip from NYC to New Orleans would take you five weeks. By 1830 it was two weeks; by 1857, it was down to six days; and by 1930 just two days by railroad or one day by air.

It similarly maps immigration, the women's suffrage movement, prohibition, cotton production, the dwindling Native American population, and so on. A history buff could easily lose an afternoon to this thing. And for everyone else, the university will spend the next 10 years working on expanding the atlas to present day.

It's a nice way to close out a year that was filled with information-rich, interactive maps that give some insight into the world and the humans living in it. So in the spirit of end-of-year nostalgia and inevitable recaps, here’s a look back at some of the sweetest maps published on Motherboard this year.

A Live Map of Ongoing DDoS Attacks

Curious where hackers are choking and shutting down websites 'round the globe at this very minute? The Digital Attack Map shows the hell-raising hacks in real-time. It was created by Google Ideas and Arbor Networks to raise awareness about distributed denial of service attacks. Shocker: the US is getting targeted the most.

How Americans Die

Yep, there’s a death map. The mortality rate geographic shows what’s killing Americans and where—suicide is more lethal than gun-related deaths, drugs more than alcohol. A software developer pulled together the morbid visual from the CDC's 2013 National Vital Statistics Report.

This Is the Most Detailed Picture of the Internet Ever (and Making it Was Very Illegal)

For a "place" where so many people spend so much time, the Internet is frustratingly abstract. It became slightly less so this year when an anonymous researcher hacked into a nearly half a million computers to draw the most detailed map of the internet ever made. The map’s movement shows web traffic over a 24 hour period for the network of 420,000 computers around the globe. It's pretty fantastic.

The Happiest and Saddest Places in New York City, According to Twitter

Ah, the Twitter-inspired geographic visualization—a staple of 2013 map porn. This particular version analyzed New Yorkers' geolocated tweets to determine their location and emotional mood, culminating in a real-time map of the elation and misery across the divided city.

Track the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights with This Interactive Map

One cool thing about the Internet is it makes it extra hard to keep things secret, which has got to be a special kind of pain in the neck if you're, say, the CIA trying to covertly fly terrorist detainees across borders for extra-legal interrogation. To raise awareness about the agency's shady rendition program, the UK-based Rendition Project put together an interactive map that lets viewers track suspicious, suspected rendition flights. The ones we know of, at least.

This Beautiful Map Shows Where Earth's Forests Have Disappeared

In a total bummer of a map, you can watch the world's forests dwindling over the last 10 years— 2.3 million square kilometers of lost trees, to be exact. The animation was created with good intentions, though. The University of Maryland, Google, and the US Geological Survey to record exactly where forests are disappearing and the cause, in the hopes of finding a way to stop the trend for the future.

Introducing Hate, the Map

For totally unnecessary proof that some people suck, the Geography of Hate visualization analyzed 150,000 geocoded tweets for racial slurs and other bigoted terms and mapped out specifically where Americans were haters—and vocal about it on social media at that. Unfortunately, it was basically everywhere.

Is This How We Equalize the United States?

In the wake of the uber-partisan 2012 elections, artist Neil Freeman created a map of what the US would look like if it was divided into 50 equally populous states—to demonstrate the need for electoral college reform. Specifically, the graphic combats the idea of gerrymandering, the process of manipulating geographical boundaries for political gain.

@meghanneal