Urban Area Map Showcase

[softee]

Looking forward to your Golden Horseshoe map!

[SteveD]

Just saw this thread. Very cool. Would you put Atlanta on your list?

[Spotila]

Originally Posted by SteveD

Just saw this thread. Very cool. Would you put Atlanta on your list?

Consider it done

[babybackribs2314]

Originally Posted by Spotila

Consider it done

DC as well? Pretty please?

[R@ptor]

If you look for a real challenge, try the Pearl River Delta - the world's largest urban agglomeration (Hong Kong – Shenzhen – Guangzhou – Dongguan – Huizhou - Foshan – Jiangmen – Zhongshan - Zhuhai - Macau) with a population of approx. 120 million.

[Spotila]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

DC as well? Pretty please?

Baltimore/DC is done - you should see it very soon.

Originally Posted by R@ptor

If you look for a real challenge, try the Pearl River Delta - the world's largest urban agglomeration (Hong Kong – Shenzhen – Guangzhou – Dongguan – Huizhou - Foshan – Jiangmen – Zhongshan - Zhuhai - Macau) with a population of approx. 120 million.

You're certainly right - it will be a real challenge. That said, I have actually begun on it, will take quite a while though.

[Spotila]

Ok, up next we have the city with the world's highest quality of life (also the first submission for this thread not made by me), and the fourth largest CSA in the United States.

Zurich, Switzerland - created by earthJoker @ SSC
City Population: 372,047
Metro Population: 1,615,000 (Based on various sources)


Baltimore–Washington CSA, DC-MD-VA
Baltimore City Population: 620,961
Washington D.C. Population: 601,723
CSA Population: 8,924,087

[LMich]

Try about half of that for the Zurich metropolitan area. I'll say it again, but what your maps show is urbanized areas (built-up areas), which aren't necessarily (in fact, aren't much of the time) the same thing as metropolitan areas, at least for the American cities.

[SlidellWx]

Would be interested to see the New Orleans and Baton Rouge CSA's...when you get the time. This is one of the best threads I've seen in a while. Thanks for the hard work.

[Spotila]

Originally Posted by LMich

Try about half of that for the Zurich metropolitan area. I'll say it again, but what your maps show is urbanized areas (built-up areas), which aren't necessarily (in fact, aren't much of the time) the same thing as metropolitan areas, at least for the American cities.

I guess what I would say is - this was never going to be an exact science of numbers, some maps it is advantageous to show a larger or more surrounding area (Zurich), some maps not (Auckland). It's hard to please everyone - if things are left off a map people take offence, if more than just a metro is on a map, others say it's an innacurate representaion of the city. Take the boundries you see with a grain of salt, we are all smart enough to know what is a city and what isn't.

Originally Posted by SlidellWx

Would be interested to see the New Orleans and Baton Rouge CSA's...when you get the time. This is one of the best threads I've seen in a while. Thanks for the hard work.

It shall be done.

[Cro Burnham]

Love this stuff, thanks - but are you sure LA is the right scale? Looks way too small to me in comparison to the other metros (eg. Houston, Chicago).

LA is like its own country.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

Love this stuff, thanks - but are you sure LA is the right scale? Looks way too small to me in comparison to the other metros (eg. Houston, Chicago).

LA is like its own country.

Houston does seem a little too big imo but I spotila already said he triple checks so it is what it is.

The yellow box in the pic below is spotila's map which appears to be spot on and outside the yellow box are other populated areas of the LA CSA not included.
http://imageshack.us/f/18/lacsa2.jpg/

As far as your assertion that LA seems too small compared to Houston and Chicago, I think you are right in the sense that LAs primary cluster or major population density is exceedingly larger than Houston and Chicago, maybe even larger than both of those cities combined, as evidenced by this map below, which shows the extent of their land masses of 5,000+persons per square mile:
http://imageshack.us/f/685/houstonchicagolosangele.png/

[mcfinley]

I compared the map scales for Quito, Houston, LA, Chicago, and Paris--increasing latitudes. All the city maps were within a reasonable margin of error except for Los Angeles. Los Angeles was about 20 pixels per mile, while the other maps were around 28 pixels per mile. Also, Paris is tilted by about 30 degrees. I don't know if anyone else noticed that.

[Cro Burnham]

That means LA would be about 40% larger if blown up to scale?

[Spotila]

Originally Posted by mcfinley

Paris is tilted by about 30 degrees. I don't know if anyone else noticed that.

Yea Paris is angled slightly off north (not tilted toward the horizon), the reason being I made the map before I decided on north for everything - I will be posting an updated map shortly.


I've taken note of a few suggestions that LA in particular may be out of scale. I will do a few more tests on the scales later on, and provide some data that hopefully will quell, or indeed confirm any suspicions (in which case I will need to revise my method slightly). Stay tuned.

Edit: Good news - my initial findings are consistent with my current scales. I will post some information on them later tonight, but at this stage it's reasonably safe to assume the maps are indeed accurate.

[mrskyline]

I would love to see Richmond, Charlotte and Nashville.

[Spotila]

edit: mcfinlay has suggested below that there may be some sort of automatic resizing going on due to the width of the Los Angeles map. I have removed it for now until I can verify why this is happening

Ok - I will use this post and only this post to discuss any scale issues. Below is what I feel should remove any doubt that the maps, in particular LA are out of scale. Please let me know if you disagree.

Before you look at the below images, we should agree on one thing. If, say, 10 miles is a certain distance on 1 map, and exactly the same distance on another, then those two maps are of equal scale. That being the case, the image I have here is designed to demonstrate that (using the two maps that have been contemplated above, LA and Houston).

At the top of the image, you'll see two 10 mile long measurements, copied directly from the two images below them. Clearly the two lines are of equal length.
The two larger images are basically carbon copies of the main maps you've seen earlier in the thread, I've added the altitude at the bottom of each so you can clearly see they are consistant with my zoom level. I have done the same with multiple other cites (Paris, Quito, Auckland), all with the same result.


Hopefully this answers the questions regarding scales.

[Spotila]

Back to business, the city that is birthplace of Xerox and Kodak, and Argentina's beautiful capital city

Rochester, NY
City Population: 210,565
Metro Population: 1,098,201


Buenos Aires, Argentina
City Population: 2,891,082
Metro Population (includes La Plata): 13,495,617

[mcfinley]

Spotila, I don't mean to harp on this. Everyone on this thread appreciates the work you've put into it, but something hinky is going on with the Los Angeles map. Maybe because of its sheer size horizontally, the image is being shrunk by your host site or SSP. Downloading the image, I get dimension of 2896x1299.

Below I drew a line between the same point on the Houston and LA map that you did--each measured 10 miles. Then I overlayed the maps. The 10 mile line for LA is about a quarter shorter than the 10 mile line for Houston.

[Spotila]

Originally Posted by mcfinley

Spotila, I don't mean to harp on this. Everyone on this thread appreciates the work you've put into it, but something hinky is going on with the Los Angeles map. Maybe because of its sheer size horizontally, the image is being shrunk by your host site or SSP. Downloading the image, I get dimension of 2896x1299.

Below I drew a line between the same point on the Houston and LA map that you did--each measured 10 miles. Then I overlayed the maps. The 10 mile line for LA is about a quarter shorter than the 10 mile line for Houston.

You make an interesting point, I appreciate you taking time to ensure this is correct. I've compared my original Los Angeles map with the small section I posted above, and the two do not match. This supports the theory that the original map has been resized in some way.

In any case, I am going to temporarily remove the Los Angeles map until I can verify it's accuracy, as every other map seems to be fine.