Everyday life
What are the odds of a white Christmas?
Christmas Day snow at 116 UK towns since 1940: snow lay in about 1 Christmas in 11, from never in Bournemouth to most years in the Highlands.
UKSun and Rain: the UK5.6%sunnier and 7.2% wetter since 1961 to 1990
WorldEvery Storm Since 1851Since 1980the rising share reaching Category 4 or 5
UKCan you see the sea?26%of the land has a sea view from the ground
WorldPtolemy's World, Measured2,358of Ptolemy's places set against where they really areEvery study
Everyday life
Bus deserts
41% of English villages have no usable weekday bus within 800 m, and 68% no Sunday bus nearby.
Everyday life
UFOs, big cats and Nessie
What explains where people see them? UFO reports, police big cat records and the Loch Ness sightings register, tested.
Early modern and modern
Booth's poverty map today
Are London's poorest streets of the 1890s still the poorest? Booth's colours read street by street against today's deprivation.
Everyday life
Who owns your street?
Property in England and Wales held by overseas companies, by small area: 90,949 titles, 76% via Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.
Romans to Tudors
Lost money
Roman coins found in England, reign by reign: 275,206 Portable Antiquities Scheme records by district.
Early modern and modern
Crime in London, 1674 to 1913
The Old Bailey Proceedings mapped: from the gallows and transportation to prison, and where London's crimes happened.
Romans to Tudors
Where Romans wrote
200,000 Latin inscriptions mapped across the Roman Empire: the epigraphic habit, ages on tombstones and soldiers far from home.
Everyday life
How old is your neighbourhood?
The age of the homes in every small area of England and Wales: 21% predate 1919, and cities grow in rings.
Early modern and modern
Where slavery money came home
3,187 British addresses of slave-owners and claimants compensated in the 1830s: 36% in London.
People and politics
Where party money lives
Organisational donations to UK parties since 2001 by donor address: 59% from London, and a quarter from one constituency.
Everyday life
Does anyone play your town?
Every UK concert documented in MusicBrainz, 1960 to 2025, by council area: arena towns hold 10% of people but 53% of documented tour dates.
Everyday life
Do the clocks kill?
Road collisions in the week after the clocks change, Great Britain 1979 to 2025: no jump in spring or autumn across 9.1 million collisions.
Land, sea and sky
Can you see the sea?
Sight lines from every 1 km square of the UK: 26% of the land has a sea view from the ground.
People and politics
Two faces of the constituency
How often MPs name the places they represent: 42 times per 100 Facebook posts, 9 per 100 Commons speeches.
Early modern and modern
A day from London
How far a traveller leaving London at dawn could get in a day in 1750, the 1830s, 1850, 1910 and today: from about 5% of Great Britain's land to almost all of it.
Names on the map
Does the 1974 border still show?
Lancashire and Yorkshire in business names: where the old line did not move, it is still sharp, and the Lancashire name thins out in Greater Manchester and Merseyside.
Land, sea and sky
The trig pillar network
How Britain was measured: 6,573 OS trig pillars, and 95% of the lines between neighbouring primary stations still clear on a terrain model.
Land, sea and sky
Where the lifeboats go
Five years of RNLI launches mapped: half go less than 4.5 km from the station, and all-weather boats go about two and a half times further than inshore boats.
People and politics
What each constituency signs
Signatures by constituency for 734 UK Parliament petitions: every petition's map is clustered, and two broad signing profiles run through the seats.
People and politics
Roundhead or Cavalier, Leave or Remain?
Did the Danelaw or the Civil War leave a trace in the 2016 vote? Once demography is held equal, Danelaw seats voted much like the rest of England.
Romans to Tudors
How accurate were old maps?
Eight maps from Ptolemy to Ino Tadataka, re-fitted one way: median error from 26% of the mapped area on the Peutinger Table to under 2% on Ino's survey of Japan.
Names on the map
Lost kingdoms on the high street
Businesses named after Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria still cluster inside the old kingdoms: 75 of 95 Wessex names are in Wessex.
People and politics
Which places get Parliament's attention?
A century of Commons mentions of 1,596 UK towns: London's share fell from 49% in the 1910s to 18% in the 2010s, and towns named in a seat's title get about twice the mentions.
People and politics
The Half-Life of Fame
16,397 notable deaths on English Wikipedia: attention jumps about 15-fold in the month of a death and is back near its old level within two years.
People and politics
Does Rain Keep Britain at Home?
Rain while the polls were open at 22 UK general elections since 1945: turnout about a tenth of a point lower per millimetre, but not established.
People and politics
Does Parliament Notice Disasters, and Whose?
64 UK disasters, 1910 to 2020: the Commons names the place about 10 times as often in the month of a disaster, and most of that fades within the year.
People and politics
Twinned with Europe, Voted Remain?
1,445 British town twinnings against the 2016 vote: places twinned with Europe voted about the same as similar places.
People and politics
Do By-elections Make Parliament Listen?
366 UK by-elections and a century of Hansard: the town gets about four times the Commons mentions around polling day, and more for two years.
People and politics
Gladstone Road or Disraeli Street?
Every Victorian statesman's street in Britain, set against how 160 towns voted, 1868 to 1900: Liberal names everywhere, a little more in Liberal towns.
People and politics
Who gets talked about?
Wikipedia reading against Commons debate for 1,425 UK towns: a seat named after a place goes with 2.2 times the mentions.
People and politics
Does a Local MP Get a Local Bonus?
31,737 MP returns since 1832: MPs born within 25 km of their seat win about 1.3 points more of the vote, but are defeated just as often.
People and politics
The War Dead and the Rise of Labour
First World War memorial names against every election from 1906 to 1924: places that lost more men swung less to Labour in 1918, not more. A suggestive, pre-planned test.
Early modern and modern
Did Enclosure Cause the Swing Riots?
Every enclosure Act linked to 9,674 parishes in a pre-planned test: enclosed parishes rioted 2.7 points more in 1830, but no more than other parishes of the same size.
People and politics
Did Beeching's Cuts Make Places Vote Leave?
3,206 stations closed from 1955 to 1975. Seats that lost more voted Leave more, but compared with similar seats the link vanishes: a well-powered null.
Land, sea and sky
Where the Sun Sets into the Sea
1,717 beaches in Britain and Ireland, day by day: 47% see a sunset into open sea on some day of the year, only 52 every day, and Arran hides 134 sunsets a year from Troon.
Early modern and modern
Fighting by Moonlight
The Moon over 9,877 dated battles, with calendars corrected: they fall on every phase almost equally, and D-Day's bright Moon was the exception, not the rule.
Everyday life
Could Your Town Fit in Its Stadium?
190 sports grounds hold more people than their town: GCS Ballpark seats Sauget 42.5 times over, St Tiernach's Park seats Clones 15.4 times, and Turf Moor holds 27% of Burnley.
Everyday life
Not Where It Says on the Ticket
4,448 airports and 2,888 UK stations measured against the place in their name: Paris Vatry is 136 km from Paris, Frankfurt-Hahn 103 km, and Tiverton Parkway 9 km from Tiverton.
Early modern and modern
Waterloo Road and the Clock in the Streets
1,690 UK streets named after battles from 1793 to 1944: 367 Waterloos and 340 Almas, and in 53 of 75 towns the later battles lie farther from the centre.
Names on the map
Ginnel, Snicket or Twitten?
3,382 named alleys on UK street signs by their word: 88% of twittens are in Sussex, every chare is in the North East, and London's 375 named alleys use a regional word just twice.
Names on the map
Who Named Antarctica?
20,151 Antarctic place names by who named them, when and after whom: the US named 26% and the UK 20%, and only 3.4% of the people honoured are women.
Names on the map
Who's on the Mountains?
2,228 mountains named after people, linked to where those people were born: 84% of the person-named peaks of Australia and New Zealand honour someone born on another continent.
Everyday life
Shadows of the Giants
Winter sun at street level in eight UK city centres: on the shortest day the Shard's noon shadow is about 1.1 km long, and Canary Wharf's towers take 0.76 hours of sun from every square metre.
People and politics
The Renamed World
6,842 official renamings of places in Wikidata, by decade and by why: revolution, its undoing, war and nation-building. The busiest year was Romania's 1964.
Land, sea and sky
Manhattanhenge for Every British Town
The days the sun rises or sets straight down 37,224 streets in 377 UK towns: 1,072 line up with a solstice, about as many as chance, and Midsummer Boulevard misses midsummer.
Everyday life
Which Way Do Cricket Pitches Face?
Cricket strips in OpenStreetMap: 55% of the world's 1,394 run within 20 degrees of north to south, out of the low sun. Tennis follows the rule; football points anywhere.
Names on the map
Where the Wolves Were
662 places in Britain and Ireland named after animals, checked by hand: wolf names sit high in the hills, at a median 256 m against 103 m for similar names.
Names on the map
Avon Means River
32,068 named UK rivers and streams: 37 of England's 60 biggest rivers kept names older than English, and the Norse beck still marks where Vikings settled.
Names on the map
Named for a Place, Living Somewhere Else?
2,901 species named after places, tested against GBIF records: 98% are recorded in their namesake's country, but the coco de mer, named for the Maldives, grows in the Seychelles.
Romans to Tudors
Which Way Do the UK's Churches Face?
32,007 church axes from OpenStreetMap: old churches face east, later ones follow the street, and the patron saint's sunrise makes no difference.
Early modern and modern
HMS Your Town
394 Royal Navy warships named after 135 British towns: Gloucester and Newcastle have had nine each, and the habit has come and gone for 350 years.
Early modern and modern
How Fast Did News Travel?
Lincoln, Custer, the Titanic and Pearl Harbor in 936 American newspapers: dailies printed all but Custer the next day; the weekly press day was the real delay.
Names on the map
Towns with an Asteroid
2,193 asteroids named after places on Earth, each linked to the observatory that found it: Japan has the most, Finland the most per head.
Early modern and modern
Saxton's Atlas, Measured
857 towns read on Saxton's maps of 1574 to 1579: a typical town is 1.4 km out, and north leans west by about 8 degrees, like a compass.
Names on the map
Who's on the Moon?
The Earth birthplaces of the 2,718 people with features on the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars: 75% of the Moon's were born in Europe.
Land, sea and sky
Britain's Sunless Valleys
Skylines for 36,692 UK settlements: 64 get no direct sun on the winter solstice, and Camas-luinie goes 123 days without it.
Romans to Tudors
England in 1086, Drawn
Every vill in Domesday Book on a hand-inked map: one house per household, a water wheel for every mill on its stream, 71,419 plough teams, and walled York, London and Winchester.
Romans to Tudors
How Accurate Were Portolan Charts?
349 places read on the Carta Pisana and the Catalan Atlas: both turned about 11 degrees off north, the Mediterranean within a few dozen kilometres, the Atlantic shrunk and misplaced.
Names on the map
The Colours of the World's Place Names
138,453 places named black, white, red, green, blue or yellow in 20 languages: rivers run black, springs run white, and Cerro Colorado is the commonest colour name on Earth.
Early modern and modern
The Star Fort Belt
1,307 bastioned forts drawn by their real outlines: the star fort did not creep out of Italy, it sailed, reaching India, Morocco and the Caribbean as early as Germany and England.
Romans to Tudors
Britain's Oldest Road Map, Measured
157 towns found on a map of Britain drawn about 1360: a typical town is 18 km out of place and Wales is blown up, yet 72% of the miles written on its roads are within 25% of the real road.
Land, sea and sky
Where the Storks Go
228 tagged birds across three continents: young storks fly 0.6% of their distance over the sea and squeeze through Gibraltar and the Bosporus, while ospreys and cuckoos cross open water.
Romans to Tudors
Caravanserais of the Silk Roads
960 caravanserais, khans and ribats on a hand-inked map: all together they crowd closer than a day's march, but the Safavid inns of Iran stand a median 34 km apart.
Early modern and modern
The Wealth of Nations, Mapped
The world economy on one playable map from 10,000 BC to 2024: China and India made 45% of world output in 1820, 9% in 1950 and 30% today.
People and politics
Every Embassy in the World
15,584 embassies, consulates and missions from open data: Washington hosts 181 embassies, the Holy See runs 88 nunciatures, and the diplomatic web traced from the Amarna letters to today.
Early modern and modern
The Known World
681 journeys from the Bronze Age to 1960 light up a dark world: Europe had recorded 20% of the land in 1492 and 67% by 1900, and much of the dark was known first to China, the Islamic world or Polynesian voyagers.
Early modern and modern
How Close Did Ino Get?
Ino Tadataka's 1821 survey of Japan's far north laid on today's coast: the drawn coastline sits a median 280 m from the modern line.
Romans to Tudors
Al-Idrisi's World
The map made for Roger II of Sicily in 1154, south at the top, measured on 431 towns: directions right to a median 10 degrees, and Sicily drawn best.
Romans to Tudors
The Peutinger Table
A Roman road map 6.75 m long beside a modern one: it squashes the world 11 times north to south, yet most of its road distances are close to the real road.
Romans to Tudors
Ptolemy's World, Measured
2,358 of Ptolemy's places set against where they really are: shrink his longitudes by 0.72 and the map falls into place, but Scotland is turned on its side.
Everyday life
Pilgrim Roads
77,804 km of waymarked pilgrim routes: more than half lead to Santiago, and there is more of the Way of St James in Germany than in Spain.
Land, sea and sky
When the Ice Came South
The Northern Hemisphere's ice sheets at 18 moments of the last 3.6 million years. The last ice age was only the fourth largest.
Romans to Tudors
The Hereford Mappa Mundi
The largest surviving medieval world map set beside a modern one: its directions from Jerusalem are mostly right, but the Holy Land is drawn 4.5 times too big.
Names on the map
Named After Somewhere Else
3,981 places named after another place: most names come from a river or the town next door, 14% crossed an ocean, and Britain gave away the most.
Everyday life
After the Games
All 1,153 Olympic venues from Athens 1896 to Brisbane 2032: 88 served more than one Games, and where the sources say, 70% are still in use.
Everyday life
The First Websites
From one server at CERN to 83 countries by 2000: 2,327 early websites mapped. The web began with physicists and was soon overwhelmingly American.
Early modern and modern
Transported
Every convict ship voyage to Australia, 1788 to 1868: the busiest port was Cork and the Second Fleet lost a quarter at sea.
Land, sea and sky
London's Buried Rivers
What still flows in the open and what runs in the dark: the Tyburn, Westbourne and Fleet are almost wholly underground.
Early modern and modern
Drowned Valleys
The villages and valleys flooded for reservoirs, from Capel Celyn to Mologa, set against the great dam-building boom.
Land, sea and sky
Every Tsunami on Record
Every recorded tsunami since 1610 BC and the places its water reached: most start with an earthquake, the highest ran 524 m uphill.
Land, sea and sky
The Middle of Nowhere
How far every point on land is from the nearest town: a quarter of the land outside Antarctica is more than 100 km from one.
Everyday life
Every Tour de France, Mapped
Every stage since 1903: from one unbroken lap of France's edges to a race that hops, shorter and faster than ever.
Names on the map
The World's Strangest Borders
Every enclave, exclave and tripoint: 42 true enclaves in 85 pieces, and a front door split between two countries.
People and politics
When Did Your Country Lose 11 Days?
The Gregorian calendar, driving side, metric units and votes for women, switched country by country.
Everyday life
Painted Places
Where landscape painters painted: the most painted place on Earth is a river, the Seine, and how far painters went from home.
Early modern and modern
Fencing the Commons
Every parliamentary enclosure Act in England and Wales mapped place by place: two waves, and half passed in the wars with France.
People and politics
The Largest City on Earth
Six thousand years of the world's biggest city, from Uruk to Jakarta, and how the centre of the urban world wandered.
Early modern and modern
Where the Asylums Were
Britain's asylums mapped: most built between 1845 and 1914, almost none closed until the 1980s, and most closed sites are now homes.
Everyday life
Where Novels Are Set
The real settings of 7,300 novels: London, New York and Paris dominate, and most authors stay close to where they were born.
Land, sea and sky
Junk on the Moon and Mars
Every human-made object on two worlds: 133 on the Moon and 27 on Mars, from landers and rovers to golf balls.
Prehistory and monuments
Ancient DNA on the Map
16,496 ancient genomes placed where and when they lived: the first farmers spread out of Anatolia at about a kilometre a year.
Land, sea and sky
A Lidar Map of the World
Fifteen national lidar surveys in one zoomable map: the ground with the trees and buildings taken away. Hillforts in forests, the craters of Verdun and Messines, Roman gold mines and Japan's largest burial mound.
Everyday life
The AI Tapestry
The history of artificial intelligence stitched like the Bayeux Tapestry: from Ada Lovelace's engine to AI agents, with Latin captions, two winters, a comet called attention and a sourced note behind every scene.
Land, sea and sky
A Tolkien-Style Map of the Whole World
The whole Earth drawn like a hand-inked fantasy map: peaks only on real high ground, dunes for deserts, castles, town walls and great landmarks in pictures, rivers and beaches named in blue, and towns of tiny red and blue roofed houses packed tightest at the centre.
People and politics
How the World Is Governed
197 systems of government compared on eight features: 12 families, 112 exact systems, and 80 countries with a system no one else shares.
Romans to Tudors
By Road and by Sea
Fastest travel from Rome with ships as well as roads: Carthage was 210 days' walk by road and 6 with a ship, from Casson's ancient voyage speeds.
Land, sea and sky
Every Storm Since 1851
Every hurricane, typhoon and cyclone in the global best-track archive: where storms form and hit, and the rising share reaching Category 4 or 5 since 1980.
Land, sea and sky
The Earth at Night
Satellite night lights 2012 to 2024: 57% more light, Nepal up ninefold, Ukraine and Yemen half dark, and why LEDs fool the satellite.
People and politics
Every Battle in History
13,712 battles from 3001 BCE to 2026: the most fought-over places, how war moved across the world, and the bias in the record.
Romans to Tudors
Roads of the Roman Empire
299,171 km of Roman road and a travel model: London was 81 days on foot from Rome, Constantinople 75 and Alexandria 180.
Everyday life
Ghost Towns of the World
5,448 abandoned settlements coloured by why they were left, and what open data does not record.
Land, sea and sky
Lighthouses of the World
9,770 lighthouses on one glowing map: lights per km of coast, when they were built, the oldest still standing and the tallest.
Land, sea and sky
Every Rocket Launch Since Sputnik
7,416 orbital launches since 1957: the space race, the record 329 of 2025, the busiest spaceports and the Point Nemo spacecraft cemetery.
Early modern and modern
Ships Before Steam
Real ships' logbooks from 1750 to 1850 drawn as voyage lines: the trade winds, the volta do mar, the Brouwer route and how long voyages took.
Everyday life
The World's Tallest Building
Every record holder from the Great Pyramid to Jeddah Tower: Lincoln Cathedral held the title for 238 years, New York for 65.
People and politics
Every Nuclear Test, Mapped
2,055 nuclear tests by eight countries since 1945: the 1962 peak, the move underground, and whose land they were on.
People and politics
The Nobel Brain Drain
Nobel laureates from birthplace to prize: the US as the great importer, Germany after 1933, Japan's rise and the top universities.
Prehistory and monuments
Life on the Moving Map
540 million years of drifting continents, from Pangaea onwards, with fossil animals from trilobites to dinosaurs where they lived.
Land, sea and sky
Lost at Sea
472 famous disappearances at sea tested against shipping traffic: the Bermuda Triangle is no worse than its neighbours.
Everyday life
Where Inventions Came From
Where inventions came from over 3.3 million years: independent origins, the moving centre of invention, inventive cities and who gets the credit.
Land, sea and sky
The Internet's Seabed
Every submarine internet cable: when each was laid, who owns them, and the straits and hubs where they crowd together.
Early modern and modern
Pirate Hotspots, Then and Now
7,511 pirate attacks from 1993 to 2020, with IMB counts to 2026: piracy moved from the Strait of Malacca to Somalia, the Gulf of Guinea and now the Singapore Strait.
Land, sea and sky
How Deep Is the Sea?
The whole ocean floor in depth: the average sea floor lies 3,675 m down, 74% of it is abyssal, and only 28.7% is mapped to modern standards.
Land, sea and sky
Shipwrecks of the World, and How Many over Time
243,071 wrecks listed on Wikipedia since 1700, year by year: three of the five worst years are war years, with 1944 the worst of all.
Everyday life
Where the World's Music Comes From
Birthplaces of 283,424 musicians and home towns of 29,489 bands: New York, London, Paris and Vienna lead, and Finland has the most metal bands per head.
Land, sea and sky
How High Is the World?
The height of the whole planet on one map: the land averages 807 m, only 11% of it is above 2,000 m, and only 1.9% of city dwellers live that high.
Land, sea and sky
Where the World's Islands Are
181,588 islands in a detailed open shoreline map, 23,150 over a square kilometre. Canada has the most, and 10.3% of the world's people live on one.
People and politics
Where the Borders Are Straight
19% of the world's land borders are ruler-straight and Africa holds over half of that length, but North America is straighter by share. With the treaties behind the 40 longest lines.
Land, sea and sky
Who Shares the World's Rivers?
313 river basins cross a border, draining 47% of the land outside Antarctica and holding 45% of the world's people. Plus the great rivers measured on one map.
Everyday life
Where Every Film Was Shot
Filming locations of 23,468 films in Wikidata: Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris lead, Canada hosts the most foreign productions, and the Bond films reached 36 countries and territories.
Everyday life
Where Every Film Director Is From
Birthplaces of 43,619 film directors: New York and Paris lead, Prague and Copenhagen lead per head, and women rose from 3% of new directors in the 1920s to 32% in the 2020s.
People and politics
Capitals That Moved
184 capital moves since 1500, checked by hand. The longest was the Portuguese court's flight from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1808: 7,716 km.
Land, sea and sky
In the Shadow of the Volcano
All 1,215 Holocene volcanoes and their neighbours: at least 147 million people live within 30 km of one, and 76 volcanoes have a million or more.
Land, sea and sky
Where Space Rocks Land
45,715 meteorites: 65% found on Antarctic ice and 24% in hot deserts, while the 1,107 seen to fall follow people, not the sky.
Land, sea and sky
Desert, Forest, Ice
The world's land in 1900 and now: farms covered 19% of the ice-free land in 1900 and cover 37% today. Where the new fields came from, and where trees came back.
People and politics
Who Held the Map?
Twelve centuries of the world map, 800 to 2010, each piece of land filled with the flag of whoever held it. In 1000 no land can honestly be shown with a flag; by 2010, 97% can.
Early modern and modern
What's Left of the Workhouse?
356 traces of Britain and Ireland's workhouses in open data: surviving buildings, Workhouse Lanes and famine graves. 74% of survivors with a known later use became hospitals or homes.
Romans to Tudors
Holy Islands
20,228 European monasteries and hermitages checked against the shoreline: before 800, 4.3% stood on islands, from Skellig Michael to Iona; after 1100, about one in a hundred.
Romans to Tudors
The Plague Years
6,848 recorded plague years in 1,172 towns, 1347 to 1900: the Black Death's first wave, a return every 13 years or so, and the last outbreaks a century later in the Ottoman Mediterranean.
Land, sea and sky
Where the Wind Blows
The world's winds month by month, from the trade winds to the Roaring Forties, and 5,344 wind farms: 82% of onshore capacity stands on ground windier than its country's median.
People and politics
Where Languages Come From
Every one of 7,674 spoken languages with its family tree, endangerment and speakers, plus the proposed homelands of the great families: 421 separate lineages, and 52.1% of languages endangered.
Everyday life
Who Was Big When?
126 seasons of English league football on one map: crowds peaked at 41.2 million in 1948-49, the game moved south, and 39 towns have lost their league club.
Everyday life
Where Football Clubs Come From
45,931 clubs on an animated map from Sheffield FC in 1857: football spread by sea to Peru and Argentina before Hungary or Russia, and 1919 was the busiest founding year.
Everyday life
Dinner, Tea or Supper?
12,522 dialect survey answers on what Britain calls its evening meal: tea in the north, dinner in the south, a tea line through the Midlands, and no sign of dinner moving north.
Land, sea and sky
Where the Animals Are
35.3 billion farm animals mapped every 10 km and counted since 1961: chickens have multiplied 7.1 times, and farm mammals outnumber people in 40 countries.
Land, sea and sky
What the World Grows
The leading crop on every 10 km square of the world's farmland, and sixty years of change: half the harvest of 34 crops grows on 6.4% of the world's land.
People and politics
Faith on the Map
Religion in 201 countries, every UK neighbourhood and 1.6 million places of worship: Christianity's centre has moved to sub-Saharan Africa, and most of Scotland now says no religion.
Early modern and modern
Styles in Stone
180,451 buildings with an architectural style, sorted into 25 families and mapped century by century: Romanesque gives way to Gothic, Baroque and the revivals, and Gothic Revival sails to Toronto and Melbourne.
Everyday life
What Does the World Drink?
1,985 protected drink names, 32,425 wineries, breweries and distilleries and the national drink of 201 countries: the national drink is often tea.
People and politics
Born and Bred? How Local Are MPs?
Where 10,094 MPs since 1832 were born, set against the seats they won: for 170 years about a quarter were born in their seat's county, and since 2010 it is 41.9%.
Names on the map
Has Your Surname Left Home?
Where 133,761 notable Britons with each surname were born, 1800s against since 1950: Welsh Joneses and Cornish Tre- names are leaving home, though slowly.
People and politics
Who Is Your Town Twinned With?
All 29,437 twin town and sister city links on Wikidata as arcs on one map: a post-war European habit that peaked in 1990 and lost dozens of Russian links after 2022.
People and politics
Mentioned in the House
297,134 Commons mentions of UK towns and cities in Hansard since 1909: which places punch above their weight, and who names your constituency.
Early modern and modern
The Listed Kingdom
All 465,740 entries on the UK's four lists of listed buildings on one map: mostly Georgian and Victorian houses, with a great many churches at the top.
Land, sea and sky
Signature Species
60.9 million open wildlife records sorted into 118 vice counties, to find the species each one records far more often than the rest of Britain and Northern Ireland.
People and politics
Who Won Here?
All 49 UK general elections from 1832 to 2024 on one map: 31,736 seats, the forgotten uncontested elections, the Liberal fall and the Red Wall.
Everyday life
What Does the World Eat?
National dishes for 186 countries, breakfasts for 73 and 2,706 regional dishes from fabada in Asturias to takoyaki in Osaka, and why there is no lunch map.
Names on the map
-ton, -by, Llan- and Bally-
105,532 place names in Britain and Ireland tagged by the English, Norse, Latin, Welsh and Gaelic words inside them: Kil- is a wood far more often than you might think.
Land, sea and sky
Darkest Skies
The glow of the world's lights modelled from satellite images and checked against 6,653 sky meter readings: 52% of people, and 85% in the UK, cannot see the Milky Way from home.
Land, sea and sky
Where Rain Goes
Every place in Britain, Ireland and the world followed downhill to the sea: 50% of Great Britain drains to the North Sea, and 24% of the world's land never reaches the sea at all.
Land, sea and sky
How Wrong Is Your Clock?
For 76% of the world's people the clock runs ahead of the sun: the gap everywhere, and why winter mornings in Galicia stay dark until after nine.
Names on the map
High Street or Main Street?
All 913,335 named streets in the UK sorted by name: High Street rules the towns, Main Street the villages of Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of England.
Everyday life
Chips, Curry or Kebab?
62,949 takeaways and 141,306 restaurants on the food hygiene register sorted by what their names sell: the chip shop capital is the seaside, the curry capital Hounslow.
Everyday life
Signature Sports
Which sport each country plays far more than the world, from 99,246 clubs: pesäpallo in Finland, tchoukball in Switzerland, hurling in Ireland, speedway in Poland.
Everyday life
Born Here, Loved There
573 dog breeds mapped to their countries of origin and set against kennel club registrations: in 8 of 10 countries the favourite dog was born somewhere else.
People and politics
School Catchments
Every one of the UK's 27,024 state schools and how much ground each serves: the biggest catchment, Golspie High School, covers 2,215 km².
Everyday life
What Britain Drives
42,728,066 MOT tests mapped by make, model and colour: the average British car is a blue Ford Fiesta, Scotland prefers white, and Shetland loves Toyotas.
People and politics
Where Would You Go to University?
Every country by where its students most often go to study abroad, 1999 to 2023: old empires still show, Turkey is a magnet, and India has overtaken China in Britain.
Names on the map
Games on the Map
A world map of 6,691 video games tied to real places: New York leads, Japan to the United States is the busiest route from studio to setting, and the Moon beats Mars.
Land, sea and sky
What Grows Where
Every wood in Great Britain by type, England's public forests by species and planting year, and 88 tree genera worldwide: woodland covers 13.7% of Great Britain, 19.1% of Scotland but 10.3% of England.
Names on the map
What the World Calls Each Other
54,037 country names in 262 languages: most countries keep something like their own name everywhere, but Germany has six families of names.
Land, sea and sky
Hard Water
Water hardness from 16,682 river, lake and groundwater stations, and a simple model that guesses it from the rocks: Scandinavia's median is 14 mg/l, the Yucatán's 514.
Romans to Tudors
Britain in AD 500
What the ground can place instead of neat kingdoms: 891 pieces of evidence, a sharp east of graves and west of stones, and 24 kingdoms we can name but not draw.
Land, sea and sky
The Footpath Capital
Every council in England and Wales by miles of public footpath per square mile: Rossendale tops it at 7.7, and the South Pennine mill towns fill the top ten.
Land, sea and sky
The Rocks Beneath
A geological map of the British Isles and the world in the colours of 1969: Carboniferous rocks cover 17.5% of Great Britain, and England's layers get younger all the way to London.
Land, sea and sky
Drowned and Rising
A bathtub model of every sea level from the Ice Age to an ice-free world: Britain becomes an island at −30 m, and at +70 m a third of the UK is under water.
Land, sea and sky
How Many Months Are Pleasantly Warm?
Months with afternoon highs of 18 to 27 °C: the average city dweller gets 3.6 a year now and 2.9 by 2041 to 2060. Pick your own band.
Land, sea and sky
Sun and Rain: the World
The world's sunshine against its rainfall: only 3% of land is both sunny and wet, and 84% is sunnier than anywhere in the UK.
Land, sea and sky
Sun and Rain: the UK
Every square kilometre of the UK by sunshine and rainfall at once. Since 1961 to 1990 the country has become 5.6% sunnier and 7.2% wetter.
Land, sea and sky
When Did Your Town Last See a Total Eclipse?
Every path of totality across Britain and Ireland from AD 1000 to 2200, tested for 17,103 places: for most towns the last was in 1715 or 1724.
Romans to Tudors
Governing on the Move
King John and Edward I mapped night by night: John moved on 42% of the days we can follow him, Edward on 23%.
Early modern and modern
The Turnpike Towns
England's 1,245 turnpike trusts and 10,927 surviving milestones and toll houses: did the towns on the turnpikes grow faster? Not that the data show.
Early modern and modern
What’s the King on Your Postbox?
The royal cypher on 61,435 UK post boxes: 3,614 still carry Victoria's VR and 143 Edward VIII's.
Land, sea and sky
Britain’s Earthquakes Since 1382
All 7,032 quakes in the BGS catalogues: a magnitude 4 about every 3 years, and the busiest modern zones were coalfields.
Early modern and modern
The Lido Boom and Bust
An open register of 73 British lidos: 33 of 49 dated openings came in the 1930s, and 14 closed pools have reopened.
Early modern and modern
Did the Pits Closing Still Show?
167 of 196 deep mines closed between 1984 and 1994. Forty years on, pit towns have 2.0 points more adults long-term sick than similar towns.
Early modern and modern
Bombs on Britain
All 61,542 civilians on the CWGC's Second World War roll for the UK, town by town: 51% died outside London.
Land, sea and sky
Where Are Britain’s Oldest Trees?
1,626 notable trees on OpenStreetMap: oaks dominate, yews hug the old churches, and giants stand in the royal forests.
Early modern and modern
Ring the Changes
All 7,262 rings of change-ringing bells in Dove's Guide, mapped: jubilees, world wars and seven centuries of bell founding.
Early modern and modern
How Many Names on Your War Memorial?
First World War names on 14,119 community memorials: 18.3 for every 1,000 people living there today, and only 36 small places record no dead.
Early modern and modern
Did the Railway Invent the Seaside?
Britain's resorts were already growing 1.6% a year before the railway came. The line brought a burst in its first decade.
Early modern and modern
Captain Swing
3,117 Swing riot incidents of 1830: parishes with a threshing machine were twice as likely to riot, but 90% of riotous parishes had none.
Romans to Tudors
Market Towns That Failed
All 2,173 medieval market places in England and Wales, followed to today: 665 are towns, 1,168 villages, and a few are fields or sea.
Early modern and modern
Britain’s Last Line of Defence
14,690 pillboxes and defences of 1940: the planned German landing beaches had 2.3 times the average density.
Early modern and modern
Did Beeching Kill Your Town?
3,331 stations closed from 1955 to 1975, and 643 towns lost every one. They are a little poorer and more car-bound today, but did not fall off a cliff.
Romans to Tudors
From Domesday Mills to Modern Mills
6,172 mills in Domesday Book: places that had one are 3.9 times as likely to have a watermill nearby today, but not a windmill.
Prehistory and monuments
Ley Lines, Tested
50,822 churches, barrows, stones, hillforts and wells against random points: crowding, not planning, explains the leys.
Names on the map
Barm, Bap, Cob or Roll?
20,038 dialect survey answers mapped into Britain's bread roll lines, checked against the high street.
Names on the map
Where the Devil Lives
107 Devil place names in Britain: 31% lie within 1 km of a prehistoric monument, against 19% of comparable places.
Prehistory and monuments
Did Fairy Belief Protect Ireland’s Ringforts?
31,431 ringforts set against barrows, enclosures and moated sites: the fairies left few fingerprints.
Names on the map
Haunted, or Just Old?
260 reportedly haunted places against 40,409 top listed buildings: castles and inns are 9 times as common among them, churches almost vanish.
Names on the map
Giants in the Landscape
331 giant places in Britain and Ireland: giants own graves, not mountains.
Early modern and modern
Great Fires
102 great town fires, 63% of them in the 1600s and 1700s: did the towns that burned rebuild bigger? Not clearly.
Early modern and modern
Who Gets a Blue Plaque?
6,476 plaques across the UK and all 1,037 English Heritage plaques in London: 16% honour women, but 54% of those since 2020.
Early modern and modern
Rotten Boroughs: Where Are They Now?
The 56 boroughs the 1832 Reform Act abolished, followed to today: 25 are villages, a hamlet or an empty hill.
Early modern and modern
Canal Mania
Did England's canal towns boom, and do they still lead? Bigger today, not richer.
Names on the map
Here Be Dragons
Britain's dragon legends and place names: they cling to the parish church, not the barrow or the river.
Early modern and modern
Cholera 1849
Farr's elevation law, Snow's pump and whether London's worst-hit districts are still the poorest.
Romans to Tudors
The Roman Commuter Belt?
617 Roman villas against today's household income: a premium that is almost all geography.
Romans to Tudors
Laid Waste: the Harrying of the North
Where Domesday's 'waste' fell after 1069 to 1070, and how faint its scar is today.
Early modern and modern
Fire on the Hills
Could the Armada beacons carry the news? 193 beacon hills and the lines of sight between them.
Names on the map
Ford or Bridge?
Every ford and bridge place name in Britain against the census and income: Oxford waded, Cambridge built.
Names on the map
Gallows Hill
Where Britain put its gallows: 340 names measured for height, roads, towns and boundaries.
Romans to Tudors
The Conquest in Castles
How fast Norman castles spread across Britain after Hastings, decade by decade.
Names on the map
From Saint to Wish
3,440 holy and wishing wells in Britain and Ireland: their saints, languages, cures and offerings.
Prehistory and monuments
Still Standing
6,837 buildings from before AD 1100 on one map, and what kept them standing.
Early modern and modern
There and Back Again
43 great journeys from 600 BC to 1947, mapped and graded by the evidence that they happened.
Prehistory and monuments
Same Shape, Different Millennia
Every stone circle in Europe's open data, sorted into traditions and dated.
Prehistory and monuments
Is the Barrow a European Thing?
99,049 burial mounds from Ireland to the steppe, with radiocarbon dates.
Prehistory and monuments
The Megalith Highway
13,280 megalithic monuments: did the idea of the great stone tomb travel by sea?
Romans to Tudors
What Became of the Abbeys?
808 houses Henry VIII closed, traced to what stands on their sites today.
Names on the map
Whose Church Is It?
279,212 churches in twelve Western European countries, sorted by patron saint.
Romans to Tudors
Where Was the Battle?
88 proposed sites for 18 lost battles of early Britain, scored against the texts.
Names on the map
Silver and Names
Viking hoards against Norse place names: they mostly agree, except in Lincolnshire.
Early modern and modern
Cold Years, Witch Years?
Scotland's 3,840 accused witches: did the panics follow cold years? They did not.
Romans to Tudors
The Villages That Vanished
England's 2,222 deserted medieval villages against Domesday Book.
Names on the map
Bloody Place Names
756 grim names on the OS map against 507 battles: only the Battles mark battlefields.
Early modern and modern
Whose Ships Sank Where?
106,550 shipwrecks in Europe's seas, 1744 to 1945, by the flag they sailed under.
Early modern and modern
Far From Home
Where each Victoria Cross was won, where its recipient was born, and the distance between.
Names on the map
What Pub Names Remember
Every named pub in Britain, grouped and mapped: Red Lions, Royal Oaks and the names that give a county away.
Names on the map
The Geography of Saints
17,116 church dedications mapped: Andrew in Scotland, David in Wales, and 98 saints found only in Cornwall.
Names on the map
Is There a Barrow in Barrow?
Do places named from Old English beorg sit by burial mounds? 129 names against 6,100 scheduled barrows.
Early modern and modern
Thankful Villages: Luck or Size?
The parishes where every man came home from the First World War. Small helps, but chance predicts hundreds more.
Prehistory and monuments
Within Sight
Could Britain and Ireland's 4,147 hillforts see each other? A line-of-sight network across two islands.
Early modern and modern
Did Lighthouses Work?
Shipwrecks before and after the lights were lit on the British and Irish coast, 1700 to 1945.
Names on the map
Dale, Down, Fell and Beck
Walk north and the water changes its name. The words Britain uses for hills, valleys and streams, mapped.
Romans to Tudors
Is Domesday Destiny?
Does a place's size in 1086 still predict its size today? 13,000 Domesday places on one map.
Prehistory and monuments
The Famous Few
4,147 hillforts, ten years of Wikipedia reading. Eleven sites take half of it, mostly for their castles.
Romans to Tudors
How Roman Is Your Road?
How much of each county's A-road network still follows a Roman line, with a lidar layer.
Names on the map
The High Ones
The Brigantes, Brigantium and the Celtic word for high, traced across Europe.
Prehistory and monuments
Rings in the Rock
Cup-and-ring carvings on Europe's Atlantic edge: where they are, when, and what they might mean.
Prehistory and monuments
The Triskell Boom
How an ancient triple spiral became a modern Celtic badge, 3500 BC to today.
Prehistory and monuments
Did Detectorists Start a Boom?
UK searches and Portable Antiquities Scheme finds, 2004 to 2026: did a sitcom send people out with metal detectors?
No studies match that search.
From the research
Alongside the maps I write papers on parties, leaders and campaigns online. Every one is open, in the research hub.
Paper. Europe, 2010 to 2020
Do Populists Win on Facebook?
A typical post by a populist party received about 2.5 times as many likes, comments, shares and reactions as a post by another party of the same size and government status.
Paper. Europe, 2011 to 2020
Engagement Is Not a Poll
As a forecast on its own, engagement was poor: its mean absolute error was 9.6 points, against 1.8 points for the final polls.
Paper. Britain, 2017
What Does a Satellite Campaign Do?
Momentum asked for a vote in 12% of posts. Instead about half its posts asked people to help on the doorstep, volunteer or sign up to campaign.
Paper. United States, 2016
Who Speaks in the Candidate’s Comment Section?
Participation was very unequal: the most active 1% of 1.1 million commenters wrote 31% of the comments.
Data studies kept as papers
- Does a Local MP Get a Local Bonus? 31,737 MP returns since 1832: MPs born within 25 km of their seat win about 1.3 points more of the vote, but are defeated just as often.
- Does Rain Keep Britain at Home? Rain while the polls were open at 22 UK general elections since 1945: turnout about a tenth of a point lower per millimetre, but not established.