Category: mapping

It used to be that you had no control over how your map looked. Sure, you could add some markers, but the underlying look of the map was one-size-fits-all. Now you can have a choice of how your map looks, both in the shape and color of a marker, and the colors within the base map. In this post, we’ll share three different ways to style your map. The complexity varies, from the point-and-click simplicity of our custom map creator to alternatives that require code.

Google Maps

Let’s start with the obvious one. Google Maps is the de facto standard way to create a map for the web. The Google Maps API, used by programmers to tap into the functionality of the search giant’s geographic data, is over ten years old. Those with familiarity coding find the features robust, but it’s making a Google Map is complicated to the novice.

That said, the process of creating a stylesheet for a Google Map is easy. There’s even a wizard that you can use to preview changes. You can browse the selectors available for styling, use a color picker to find just the right hue, and adjust visibility. Google makes plenty of decisions for you, so you aren’t able to do everything you might want. You can’t change visibility of features by zoom level—you get the defaults that Google sets up. You also cannot add any layers that are not always on the map.

Still, Google remains popular. Indeed, it’s what the BatchGeo platform runs upon.

MapBox

If you’re an advanced user who likes lots of options, you’ll love MapBox. This geo startup is flexible enough to allow any data you want to be incorporated into to your map. If you’re a GIS expert (and that might help), you can import your Shapefiles and style them to your heart’s content.

Due to its complexity, the full MapBox editor is only available as a downloadable application. By default MapBox uses OpenStreetMap data, so you have a starting place. You can style those base layers, add and style your own, and adjust much more than with Google Maps—including fonts and textures.

The end result is your own map tiles that MapBox serves to its own JavaScript library, Leaflet, or other map delivery product. You still need to write the code to interact with the map (as you do with Google Maps), but the customization is unrivaled.

BatchGeo

We love maps and enjoy seeing all the different types that people can make. But we also believe maps should be simple to make—like copy and paste from your Excel spreadsheet simple. To balance customization and simplicity, BatchGeo pre-populates six map styles. Add to that three different marker styles in seven colors (10 colors for Pro accounts) and there are many ways to to have your map stand out from all the rest without a lot of effort on your part.

We used the Google Maps styler to create the six styles, one of which is shown in the above map. Our grouping feature automatically creates marker colors based on your data, and the clustering feature summarizes data below high density markers. In many cases, BatchGeo is all you need, and will save you hours of coding (or even having to learn).

Not every project fits into the presets we’ve selected. You may have an idea that requires advanced coding, your own GIS data, and fine-grained control over how elements of the map are displayed. But if you’re looking to display a list of locations on a map without learning to code, we invite you to try BatchGeo now.

We recently looked at our baseball hall of fame map of birthplaces, so it’s only fair that we give equal treatment to football, which holds its annual enshrinement this weekend. This year’s eight inductees bring the pigskin sport’s count of hall of famers to nearly 300. There are 37 states and eight countries represented amongst those 295 golden jacket wearers. Check out the map below to see them all plotted by their place of birth, proving geographically that they’re not all born in Texas.

View Football Hall of Famers by Birthplace in a full screen map

Texas may be the state known for its Friday Night Lights, but it’s been edged out by Pennsylvania as the top birthplace of Hall of Famers. Including this year’s representatives from each state, Pennsylvania has 31, with 30 from the Lone Star State. Rounding out the top five are Ohio (24), California (19), and Illinois (17).

In addition to being home of 24 of the football hall of famers, Ohio is also home to the Football Hall of Fame. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame history, Canton was chosen in part because it was where the National Football League was founded. Coincidentally, two Hall of Famers were born in Canton, though Dan Dierdorf and Alan Page didn’t start playing professionally until after the Hall was opened.

While football is a popular high school sport in the United States, the top birthplaces don’t entirely match up with the top recruitment states. MaxPreps lists Texas as second to Florida for top players being courted by colleges. Pennsylvania is 15th on that list. Still, nine of the top 10 recruitment states have produced eight or more hall of famers. Alabama has produced six hall of fame football players, whereas only a few states have more top recruits.

Most of the 13 states do not have a native son representing in Canton are unsurprising. Alaska and Hawaii are distant. Delaware and Maine have small populations. That Iowa has not produced a hall of famed is baffling. The midwest is known for its love of football, after all. There’s a good chance that will be rectified soon—Kurt Warner was born in Burlington, right across the river from Illinois. Warner barely missed in 2015, his first year of eligibility.

Very likely the size of the football Hall of Fame, which opened in 1963, will soon surpass the membership of the baseball hall of fame, which first inducted players in 1936. Canton’s 295 is edging Cooperstown’s 310. Football adds more then five players per year, while baseball’s average is less than four.

One thing baseball and football’s hall of fames do have in common is Chicago. What is it about Chicago? Sure, it’s America’s third most populous city, but it’s by far the most common birthplace for baseball (9) and football (12) hall of famers, more-so than Los Angeles (five each) and New York (eight each).

How about foreign born players? There are twice as many in the baseball hall (17), but they represent almost the same number of countries (nine for baseball, seven for football). The countries represented between the two sports have very little overlap. Only three countries can boast a member of each hall born within their borders: Germany, Canada, and, of course, the United States.

It’s Hall of Fame weekend in Cooperstown, New York. Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz will join an exclusive club of just over 300 former baseball players, managers, umpires, and executives elected by baseball writers over the last 79 years. With the help of Baseball Reference, we’ve compiled the birthplaces of every Hall of Famer, from Aaron (Hank) to Yount (Robin). Explore the map below and use BatchGeo’s group selection feature to narrow by election year, type, and role.

View Baseball Hall of Famers by Birthplace in a full screen map

The Hall of Fame originated in 1936. The first inductees were mostly from the northeast. The exceptions were Walter Johnson (1936, Kansas), Ty Cobb (1936, Georgia), and Tris Speaker (1937, Texas). The next 30 years saw a midwestern and southern expansion, with a handful of Californians thrown in here and there.

There are only 17 people elected from outside the US, including only one player from the eastern hemisphere (Bert Blyleven, born in The Netherlands). The first foreign induction overall was in just the third year of the Hall. Henry Chadwick, famous for cultivating America’s interest in baseball, was born in England and voted in posthumously. It would take until 1973 for a foreign-born player to be elected to the hall. Roberto Clemente was born in Puerto Rico in 1934, and elected in special circumstances after he died in an off season airplane crash.

The only other player who entered the hall with a special election is Lou Gehrig. The Iron Horse abruptly retired early in the 1939 season due to weakened muscles from ALS, now commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The typical five year waiting period was waived, and Gehrig was elected during December meetings of baseball writers that year.

Gehrig was born in New York City, along with seven other Hall of Famers. That city is second only to Chicago, which produced nine members of the Hall. If you consider the boroughs of Brooklyn (six) and Bronx (Frankie Frisch), the Big Apple is the leader. As a whole, The Empire State is tops with 31 Hall of Famers. Predictably, another populous state, California, comes in second at 24, followed by Illinois and Pennsylvania, both with 22.

Ten states have no natives in the Hall: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, you have some work to do.