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England is often known as the ‘home of football’ due to the its role formalising the first standardised rules of ‘association football’, and this game that was spread globally over the 19th and 20th century. In its early origins in England , the Football Association was formed in 1863, which formalised the rules of the game and started the FA Cup in 1871, but football remained an ad-hoc amateur game, run by those who could afford to play this as a pastime.  For example, the majority of founding FA clubs were private school teams, despite the large popularity of the game in the industrialised inner cities of Victorian Britain.Read More →

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Recently in the British news, in between snap elections and increased tensions in North Korea, there has been coverage of Prince Harry and William’s admirable openness about their mental health and drive to increase awareness about this important issue. It is totally understandable that given the sudden death of their mother in 1997, that this would have a profound impact on one’s mental health, especially given the exposure in the public eye too. Mental health problems aren’t rare; they affect 1 in 4 of UK population with no single cause. While there is variation by socioeconomic position and genetic predisposition, illnesses like depression and anxietyRead More →

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For those of us in the fortunate position to be in paid work, we are lucky if our travel to work is a simple one. The last century has been the increase in flexible working practices in many businesses, the geographic centralisation of economy and rise of private transport in most Western countries. This has led to it being common for many to not live in the same city/area, let alone the same part of town as your place of work. Therefore, commuting time has become of greater interest to companies and employees, as well as influencing property prices, climate change and transport infrastructure. This isRead More →

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Football is perhaps the true global game, but is it played on a level playing field, particularly economically? Most of you probably know the answer to this, but the relationship between performance and strength economically, and sporting ability and opportunity is still an interesting one. National team football is a better way to analyse this, given the great financial disparities in club football to buy the best talent and that national identity is a more static attribute. Now, I realise that some may love football/sport, some may loathe or have little interest for it. However, exploring the relationship between football and economics tells us something deeperRead More →

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I’m a self confessed Dutchophile. There’s something about the colour ‘Oranje’, the unique sound of the language (which I’m ‘trying’ to learn), the windmills, clogs, tulips, hagelslag, stroopwafels, Edam cheese and (until recently challenged) liberal attitudes. I feel there is much to admire about the resourcefulness of the people of the Netherlands, once a economic powerhouse in the 1600s, where making the most of limited land has been vital. This was particularly embodied by the philosophy of ‘Totaal’, where the ability of space to have multiple uses influenced (particularly architectural) philosophies within the general liberal Dutch culture of the 20th Century. Famously, this was reflectedRead More →

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It’s been a while since I’ve added to this feature for various reasons, but thanks to the ‘The Pudding‘, a superb infographics and ‘visual essay’ based site, there is a excellent and important entry for Map of the Day. The Shape of Slavery evidences historical and modern day racism, by providing geographical representations of the areas of United States of America where proportion of African-Americans have been over time, the numbers of slaves up until it was outlawed, and the number of (black) incarcerations per state. This is a well designed and thought out web map, which utlises topojson.js and other Javascript libraries, to tie inRead More →

Cartogram of Female Workforce

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Another day, and another ‘international [insert here] day’. However, unlike ‘International Toast Day’ (15th July for those interested), today, 8th March, was one that actually had great significance – International Women’s Day. Despite being a guy,  I recognise that while progress has been made, we are still some way of gender equality. Given that 50% of the world’s population is female, and there is no logical reason why income, job, social, educational opportunities and choices shouldn’t be the same as men – this situation isn’t good enough. However I don’t feel I should go on further, as I don’t think I can do the topic ofRead More →

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Mapping of the Arctic region has historically proved to be a challenge for cartographers and geo-scientists, though as referred to in a previous article (see here),  local knowledge is valuable in contributing to knowledge of the often perceived ‘wilderness’ by ‘Westerners’. In many ways, as alluded to in Alastair Bonnett’s brilliant book, Off the Map, despite living in an age of digital mapping, there is much geographic knowledge still to be discovered. This is perhaps most relevant and important, given global warming, in the Arctic region, and two recent articles associated to this piqued my interest in this area, and thought it would be aRead More →

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Happy St David’s Day/Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus to all those around the world with Welsh links or sympathies. For those unaware, St David’s Day on 1st March,  is the national day of Wales, celebrating the saint day of the patron saint of Wales, David, and is an excuse (if ever needed) to stock up on Welsh flags, sup some Brains Beer, tuck into Welsh rarebit and Welsh cakes, and sing Calon Lân while watching reruns of Wales beating England in rugby. With all stereotypes out the way, the nation building of Wales/Cymru is an interesting one. The history is uncertain, but Wales has it’s originsRead More →

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While this site lives a digital world of geographical information, there is nothing quite like going to visit a real life, physical ‘map den’, and for those who are able to, I’d highly recommend going to visit The British Library in Central London. Their map room has one of largest collections of geographical information, with approximately 4.5 million entities. This alone should be a pull factor to have a ‘map’ day in London. However, up until March 1st 2017, there is a further reason to venture down, and this is because of the fantastic “Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line” exhibition which isRead More →