25 years since the Bhopal Disaster

Today marks the 25 anniversary of the 'Bhopal disaster'.

The Indian city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh will forever be associated with the world’s worst industrial catastrophe. “Thousands of people died and over half a million people have health disorders after a leak of toxic gas from the Union Carbide plant in December 1984” - Collins need to know? The World.

Campaigners and survivors claim that dangerous toxins are still leaking from the site into the soil and drinking water, causing birth defects and chronic illnesses, and demand clean up action.

See also BBC News online: Bhopal: 25 years on

Glass Biodiversity Map at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

The John Hope Gateway (new entrance hallway) to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh opened recently after two years of construction. This massive state-of-the-art, eco friendly building has been designed to create space for travelling exhibitions and showcase some of their worldwide conservation work. It also boasts a Real Life Science studio, shop and restaurant.

“Visitor numbers at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh have hit record highs since the opening of the John Hope Gateway in October. More than 65,000 people have toured the £15.7m visitor centre since it opened on Wednesday 7 October. The weekend following the opening was the busiest in the Garden's history, with a total of 8,386 visitors to the Gateway over the two day period” - RBGE website.

The centrepiece of this new hall is a permanent biodiversity exhibition, the focus of which is a huge glass biodiversity map installation, and the map they used for this stunning object is one of our very own custom mapping projects. The huge map is 6 metres high by 30 metres wide and printed on glass.

Photos by Carol Cumming (click to enlarge)

The map really is something different, and it’s hard for photographs to do it justice. If you are in Edinburgh, go along to see the real thing (and enjoy the gardens of course).

Reviews of visits to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh via Google

Keith Moore, Head of Cartographic Services, Collins Geo.

World AIDS Day 2009

Today is World AIDS Day. UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation has published new research to highlight key trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The AIDS Epidemic Update 2009 shows the number of new AIDS cases decreasing worldwide, and HIV prevention programs are making the difference.

● The HIV pandemic was first identified in 1981
● In 2008, 33.4 million people worldwide were living with HIV worldwide
● 2.7 million people were newly infected in 2008
● 2 million people died of AIDS related illness in 2008
● In sub-Saharan Africa, the worst affected region, new infections in 2008 were 25% lower than their peak in 1995

See also the UNAIDS website

Rwanda joins The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth leaders agreed to admit Rwanda as a member during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM 2009) in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on 28 Nov 09.

Rwanda becomes the association's 54th member, and the second country which was not formerly a British colony to be admitted to the group (Mozambique the other)

Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's information minister said "My government sees this accession as recognition of the tremendous progress this country has made in the last 15 years".

Links to further information from BBC News online and AllAfrica online.

Karibu Rwanda!

Map of the Month Nov 09 - Clan Map of Scotland

Keen followers of this column might remember ‘Unfinishtstan’, a felt-tip politico-physical map of a fictional central Asian landscape, scrawled on the mauled Victorian plaster of my kitchen wall in 2008 by one of my sons (aged 25, with a passing interest in place names). Sadly, eighteen months without proper wall coverings is considered by my dear wife to be stretching it. And so it will not be many days before I am obliged to conceal, forever (sniff sniff) the great artwork above the sink. Maybe we will decide in future years to strip off again the layer of wallpaper which is to come, and replace it with reproductions of world maps or historic Bartholomew street plans of Edinburgh, you never know.

Map wallpapers are possible. Not all that long ago Collins Geo did indeed do a world wallpaper map - for an individual family in that case - but this time I’m going for a plain muted yellow as more relaxing to cook to. I’m sure there’s a wider market out there for map products such as wallpaper, shopping bags etc. It has been done with what we and my Australian friends always call downies (i.e. duvets). Even as we speak, a bed in our house is spread with a downie cover copied from one of Bartholomews’ world maps. The keen eye will spot the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and a united Yugoslavia. And no Eritrea. It isn’t that we never buy bed linen in our homestead, it’s just that it was good and durable, so why get a revised edition?

I’ve also spoken twice before here about maps on my walls - one a geological map jigsaw of the British Isles, and the other a small but perfectly formed map of Orkney in marquetry. Now a third one which has been peering down at me patiently for years as I tap away frenetically at Collins Geo’s place names database has been waiting for a mention, forming a pair opposite the geological map. It’s another product made by some bright entrepreneur. It is a jigsaw puzzle of the Bartholomew Clan Map of Scotland, also known as Scotland of Old. I now see from the web that you can get a quite different clan map jigsaw made of wood from somebody else, but that’s far more boring. This one’s vastly more colourful, complementing the also very riotous geology map opposite. In fact what most appeals to me about it is not the academic content but the sheer riot of azure, gules, argent, sable and vert, not to forget ‘or’ of course (gold, or really just yellow). With perhaps a spot of purpure, I don’t know. And a fur or two if I look closely - oh yes, there’s a fess ermine on a ground gules (red to you).

This is a digital copy of the original map, a much better illustration than my poor photographic reproduction of the jigsaw. Click to enlarge

To the aficionado of heraldry, which is one of many things I would have liked to be (given several lifetimes at once), these terms will be very familiar; in fact the chief feature of this bright and energetic product is the serried array of a hundred and seventy heraldic shields all round the map of Scotland, all tilted at the same rakish angle under their crests and mottoes. I could spend ages trying in amateurish and half-informed fashion to blazon some of these, but really blazoning [describing the thing in correct terminology and order] is not for the uninitiated. Heraldry is good fun: you can impress people at parties that you can distinguish your ‘barry wavy of five’ from your ‘argent, a griffon proper’. Well, I’m trying to do that now, amn’t I, as the Scots say. I do it with wine too - I don’t know much about that either, but all you’ve got to do is throw in some superb words like Tempranillo, Gewürtstraminer, and Botrytis.

The coats of arms, lovingly illustrated, form a bigger area in fact than the clan map itself, which attempts to portray - rather less arrestingly - where all the clans’ territories were at some specific time in history. The whole piece was designed by the late Don Pottinger (d. 1986), who painted it as a single artwork. Therefore it would have been no use discovering that one shield was out of order somehow - the whole thing would have to be painted again. This was not a modular and flexible DTP work, far from it: those days were long in the future. I had the privilege of meeting the excellent Mr. Pottinger once, when he came in to our Edinburgh office for what he endearingly called a ‘mumble’ about some other fine heraldic work that we were commissioning him to do. It was Old School politeness - I think we had omitted to pay him. He is best known for his small book ‘Simple Heraldry, Cheerfully Illustrated’, written with Sir Iain Moncreiffe (Of That Ilk), which I have also had for years, inherited I think from my parents.

On the Clan Map the really important people’s coats are bigger, at the top, though otherwise the charm of the work for an inveterate collector-obsessive is the rank upon rank of identically-shaped family crests. I’ve spotted a nice piece of licensed cheek, though, which few will have noticed: equal precedence has been given to the Queen’s Great Seal for Scotland (motto, ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’, which is Latin for ‘Who are you looking at, Jimmie?’) and the arms of her mere employee, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the chappie who looks after heraldry in Scotland.

This product is a fine visual break from pure cartography and toponymic databases, what with all its pales, chevrons, and of course bends sinister, which I knew you were going to ask about. Maps come in all sorts of guises. This one made a brilliant jigsaw - there’s not a trace of those tedious zones of white cloud and unrelieved greenery, though there are loads of pieces of sable or argent [black or white] which don’t at all connect with those other pieces of the same colour, thus causing endless merriment, oh yes. Heraldry uses hardly any tinctures [colours], and you are not allowed to bring in any new ones - so considering the restricted range available, this is a gloriously eyecatching item.

The modern edition - Clan and Family Names Map of Scotland may look very different, but all the glorious clan heraldry is still there [click here for map sample].

Roger Pountain, Senior Information Analyst, Collins Geo

Order the new Collins Clan and Family Names Map of Scotland (pub Apr 09) from Amazon.

Order your own personalised world map jigsaw from Times Atlases Gifts.
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Order your Times Personalised World Map Jigsaw, Poster or Newspaper Front Page

We are now offering an exciting new range of personalised jigsaws and posters of world maps and jigsaws of the front page of The London or The New York Times newspaper for ordering online.

Times Personalised World Map Jigsaw
This exciting, personalised 400-piece jigsaw puzzle features a full colour political world map, in a different style and with content for every year from 1890 to the present. It is reproduced from the renowned Collins Bartholomew World Through Time cartographic archive. The superb collection of mapping available ranges from the bygone days of copper plate engraving in the late 19th century through to the digitally produced maps of today.

●Our map jigsaw puzzles are individually created based on your selected special year along with a personalised message of up to 60 characters.
●The map jigsaw puzzle is “framed” in a stylish text border containing highlights of significant events from the chosen year.
●Your jigsaw will arrive in an attractive presentation box, which, for that added personal touch, contains an area on the box lid allowing you to write your own message to the recipient.
●Once the recipient completes their special year puzzle, your personalised message will be revealed.

Times Personalised World Map Poster
Bring the past to life with this remarkable personalised world map poster. Each map is individually created based on your selected special year featuring a different view of the world taken from our archive going back to 1890.

●Your print can also be personalised using up to 60 characters displayed in a special area at the bottom.
●Your poster is available either encapsulated or mounted and framed in a light or dark wood frame.
●The map is “framed” in a stylish text border containing highlights of significant events from the chosen year.

The Times Front Page Newspaper Jigsaw
The past meets the present with this superb 400-piece jigsaw puzzle featuring the front page of either The London or The New York Times newspaper, on a date of your choice. These fascinating jigsaws are individually created using high quality mono reproductions taken from original archive editions dating as far back as 1888.

●An ideal and prestigious gift for any special date or event: birth dates, anniversaries, weddings, retirements.
●Your newspaper jigsaw assembles to virtually the actual size of the original front page (48 x 34 cm).
●The puzzle also comes with a full-sized paper copy of the selected front page to use as a guide.

Visit our Times Atlases and Maps website Gifts pages for further details and order online now in time for Christmas.

Newcastle Tops the Greenest British City League

Newcastle (full name Newcastle upon Tyne) was recently ranked the ‘greenest city’ in Britain after the results of The Sustainable Cities Index 2009 were published.















Image © Verityjohnson used under licence of shutterstock.com

Newcastle was the most sustainable of 20 cities, beating 2008 winner Bristol into second place. The index rates cities according to their performance in three broad areas: their impact on the environment, their citizens’ quality of life, and their readiness for future challenges. Hull came 20th in the Forum for the Future’s report.

This news comes out in the same week that Newcastle (full name Newcastle United Football Club) reached the top of their league (the Championship), let’s see if they are both still top in 2010?

Find other Newcastles around the world by searching Collins Maps.

The World’s Heritage book featured on Heritage Key Website

Our new joint publication with UNESCO - The World's Heritage: A Complete Guide to the Most Extraordinary Places is featured a number of times on the Heritage Key website.

It's reviewed by Lynette Eyb who describes it as “ ... a lovely looking, well-designed telephone book for heritage-lovers, a manual for students, a reference tool for academics and a guidebook for armchair travellers the world over …”

Jethro Lennox, our Publishing Manager responsible for this book, explains how the World Heritage Site program came about, and what criteria UNESCO uses when deciding what sites to include in 10 Ways to Get Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Exactly How Hard is it to Get the Chop from UNESCO's World Heritage List? article describes how some sites fall out of favour or lose their prestigious World Heritage Site status.



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Treasures Exhibition at the National Library of Scotland

Ten iconic items spanning 400 years, highlighting key moments from Scotland’s history and culture, marking the end of Homecoming Scotland 2009 are now on display in the Treasures exhibition.

The centre-piece is the order for the Massacre of Glencoe, the infamous killing of members of clan MacDonald in 1692.

The oldest item in the display is the Forlani map, believed to be the first printed map of Scotland, taken from a 1545 map of the British Isles.

Forlani Map © National Library of Scotland click image for zoomable map

Also included are designs for the Union flag, 1603, the manuscript of Sir Walter Scott's 1814 novel 'Waverley' and the copperplate for the map in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel 'Treasure Island', 1895, from the Bartholomew Archive.

Peter Ross writing in Scotland on Sunday (22 Nov) Top of the Charts, enthuses: “ … home to one of the largest collections of maps in the world, some very beautiful and old. The Map Library reading room of the National Library of Scotland holds around two million cartographic items covering every part of the world and some parts out of it – star charts and maps of the moon.” He describes his visit and the treasure held there.

Follow these links for further details of the Treasures exhibition 19 November to 8 January, George IV Bridge Building, Edinburgh. The National Library of Scotland Map Collection, the Bartholomew Archive website and blog.

Mo Rocca, King of Capitals?

Mo Rocca, the American writer, comedian and political satirist, is challenged by members of the public to name country capitals.

It's not as easy as you might think. The video clip below show his memory and patience tested to the limit ...



First spotted on the wonderful Geographille blog

See more YouTube videos on the TimesAtlasVideos Channel