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GeoBase - Canadian Topographic Data

The GeoBase is an online portal supported by the Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial governments, offering free and freely-usable topographic data covering the entire country.

URL: 
http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/index.html

Africa Map: Browse and Explore African Datasets

picture layer in Africa MapThe Africa Map project, currently in beta, is an online map and data viewer created by Harvard University.  The map combines data sets of numerous categories from a wide variety of sources, allowing thematic maps to be viewed and explored.  The purposes of the project, according to the project web site:

  1. Interact with the best available public data for Africa
  2. See the whole of Africa yet also zoom in to particular places
  3. Accumulate both contemporary and historical data supplied by researchers and make it permanently accessible online
  4. Work collaboratively across disciplines and organizations with spatial information about Africa in an online environment

URL: 
http://africamap.harvard.edu/

Interactive Map of US County Public Health Statistics

Submitted by jim on Sun, 2010-02-21 18:35

screenshot of County Health Rankings siteA new website called County Health Rankings analyzes public health statistics for each county in the US, creating state-by-state reports of the healthiest counties.  The website, a joint project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, analyzes healh factors (statistics about disease incidence, tobacco use, etc.) and health outcomes (such as life expectancy) to create county-by-county rankings of each state.  These rankings are then mapped for each state, using Flash-based Fusion Maps software (not free/open source) so that users can drill down to access county-level data.

EDF Map of "Dirty" Heating Oil Usage in NYC

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, heating systems cause 50% more pollution in New York City than cars and trucks.  EDF obtained data from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection in early 2009 showing which buildings in the city use the "dirty" No. 4 or No. 6 heating oil, as opposed to the relatively cleaner-burning No. 2 oil or natural gas.  This Flash-based map, created from that data, shows a building-by-building status of heating oil in use, as well as pending applications for fuel changes.  In addition, this map features an address search widget so that you can look for a specific building directly.

URL: 
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=49624

Incredible Interactive Map of Affordable Housing Statistics in NYC

Submitted by jim on Tue, 2009-12-08 09:00

"Envisioning Development: What is Affordable Housing?" is an interactive Flash-based map of housing and income statistics on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis throughout the New York City area.  Although I've seen similar statistical/analytical interactive maps with similar data plenty of times, the aesthetic design and information visualization "impact" of this map is almost breathtaking.  This map is part of an online resource toolkit for urban planning and land use education based around NYC, offered by the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

screenshot of envisioning-development map application

 

NYTimes.com Interactive Map of Food Stamp Usage

Submitted by jim on Tue, 2009-12-01 12:00

screenshot of NYTimes.com interactive map about food stamp usage in the USThe New York Times, known for some first-class infographics and data visualizations, released this thought-provoking map of food stamp usage in the United States, on a county-by-county basis.  In addition to the county-level statistics, there are a number of call-outs and a related article.

One feature I thought was interesting, in addition to the elegant interactive map, was the sortable data table view of the underlying dataset.  Even cooler, if you don't feel like using the sortable dataset, the designers of the infographic have helpfully provided a link to download the raw underlying data itself in CSV format, so that you can analyze it yourself in OpenOffice.org Calc or Microsoft Excel!  Three cheers for open journalism.