A new online mapping project called American Panorama earned rave reviews this week from CityLab and Gizmodo.
Writing for CityLab, Laura Bliss describes the ambition of the American Panorama project, as conceived by a collaboration between the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab and the cartography firm Stamen. Though the maps are specifically designed to look contemporary, according to Bliss, " these are not the simple animated maps or hover-over statistical visualizations to which Internet trawlers are by now so accustomed. The Panorama’s plates are dense, like entire textbook chapters turned interactive tools."
Bliss goes on to focus on two of the project's maps (the project's website promises more in the future): "Foreign-Born Population: A Nation of Overlapping Diasporas" and "Forced Migration of Enslaved People."
Writing for Gizmodo, Alissa Walker also focused on the former of those two maps in addition to a map of overland trails showing how pioneers settled the American West. Walker also provides this effusive review: "This is data storytelling at its very finest and I’m really looking forward to seeing what other topics American Panorama covers."
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