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 a framed/unframed print of the Scotland of Old Map through Mapseeker – Historical Maps Online.

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.

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.



Technorati verification code ST6G9WDTEK57

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

The Key to a Map is its Key

Do you think you can tell the subject of a map by just looking at the mapping itself and not the key?

The Morning News online magazine has created a quiz to test your map reading skills by leaving off the legend. Click on The Morning News: Cloud of Atlases map quiz, see how you score and let me know.

For more map related quizzes see FunTrivia.com Geography Quizzes: Names, Maps & Borders

Ashmolean Revamp Features Collins Geo Mapping

Over 20,000 people visited the revamped Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford over the first weekend after re-opening on Sat 7 Nov following a multi-million pound redevelopment.

Three of the new thirty-nine galleries will feature mapping created by us. The West Meets East, Ancient Crossroads, and Ancient World galleries form a special group called the ‘Orientation Galleries’. In each gallery there is a 1400mm wide map showing the focus subject, e.g. trade routes, the location of ancient cities, or navigation routes in the Age of Discovery. There are also high level maps in each gallery which are over 6m wide.

Ancient Crossroads Gallery mapping created by Collins Geo.

Links to the reopening at BBC News online and the Oxford Mail online

Kenneth Gibson, Database Coordinator, Collins Geo

The World's Heritage reviews online

Our new World Heritage Sites book has received some great recommendations on the abc News travel site post: Travel Books Worth Giving Both Classic and New and Free Press Travel site item: Your guide to the planet's best travel itinerary.

The book features every one of the 878 sites the United Nations has designated as culturally or environmentally important to the world. It has been published in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Estonian, Dutch and Hungarian editions.

For further details see The World's Heritage: A Complete Guide to the Most Extraordinary Places

Making the Times Comprehensive Atlas Luxury edition, and competition to win your own

“After more than a century of costume changes, the Times atlas has become a more refined creature. Its latest incarnation — a bespoke, luxury edition — is like a Rolls-Royce of mapping.”

The Times Travels section on Saturday (14 Nov) had a feature by Kathleen Wyatt, Travel Editor on her (dream come true) visit to the Book Works Studio to see how the Luxury Edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World is hand crafted to order.

“As I fantasised about sheets of gold leaf, initialled spines and slipcases, I realised what was missing from Google’s great crane in the sky — feeling.”

View her article at Times Online: Confessions of a map fetishist, and win your own bespoke atlas, worth £2,000 by answering the question, by 5pm on Wednesday (18th Nov 09).

To see the Times atlas range, starting at £6.99 for the Mini edition — or to order a Luxury one, visit www.timesatlas.com.

ICA Conference 2009

Sunday sees the start of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) – Association Cartographique International (ACI) annual conference.

ICC 2009 marks the 24th International Cartography Conference, 15–21 November 2009, Santiago, Chile. The program includes keynote speakers, exhibitions, technical sessions, commercial fair, poster sessions, ICA meetings and the Gala dinner. Collins Geo has contributed maps and atlases to the UK exhibit.

The mission of the ICA is to promote the discipline and profession of cartography in an international context. The Association works with national and international governmental and commercial bodies and with other international scientific societies. This year they are celebrating their 50th anniversary, download the ICA Newsletter Special Issue 50th Anniversary of ICA 2009 for details.

Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) Playground Map Project

The latest issue of the RSGS newsletter has some details on the ongoing initiative to create huge playground maps of the world.

The editorial in The Geographer August 09 notes the development of this joint project with Collins Geo (HarperCollins) to produce stencils which will be used to create playground maps to aid geography teaching.



Stencil plots laid out in the HarperCollins canteen, click to enlarge. ...Photos: Keith Moore

The Geographer, issued four times per year, subscription is free of charge to members.

UK enhancing protection for Antarctica and the oceans

Yesterday the UK government announced three measures to increase environmental protection for Antarctica and the world’s oceans.

● The publication of a draft Antarctic bill “to enhance the protection of this unique and unspoilt wilderness”.

● A consultation that would see the British Indian Ocean Territory become one of the world’s largest Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

● The announcement that The South Orkneys MPA would be created in May 2010.

Extract of Ocean mapping in the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World

Further details from FCO News 10 Nov 09.

National capitals won’t stay still!

Among recent news which has sparked our interest here at Collins Geo is the latest suggestion that the great city of Tehran might be replaced as Iran’s national capital. It is worryingly vulnerable to earthquakes, though there could be deeper political motivations too. It will be interesting - and of course vital - for us to watch that space. We don’t know what will happen yet.

.................................................... >>>>>>>...>>>...>>>>>>>>>Map from the Times Concise Atlas of the World

But if Iran does move the functions of its capital to either another town, or to a new site entirely, it will be just the latest in quite a series of these moves seen in modern times all across the world. Without wishing to produce a full catalogue of these things here - undoubtedly some well-known web sites do that very thoroughly already, and we have visited them all intimately from our fastnesses in Edinburgh and Bishopbriggs - it’s quite easy for me to recall many suggestions to move a national capital during my career, from Argentina quite a while ago (what ever happened to Viedma anyway?), to South Korea quite recently. Some time between those two proposals Nigeria did actually do it, depriving Lagos of the crown and giving it to somewhere called Abuja - while what we used to call the Ivory Coast decided that its president’s home village of Yamoussoukro would be a better choice than Abidjan. That was partly because it’s much more central to the country - but mostly, one feels, personal reasons came into it. Then there was the case of the tiny island nation of Palau: it hopped its capital over to a different island not long ago, although it felt to us map-watchers as if it was taking an unconscionable time a-doing it. So this issue has cropped up quite often, it seems to me. (I hasten to add that I am not the office junior any more).

Meanwhile in Malaysia a new capital (Putrajaya) has been under development for some years and will eventually replace Kuala Lumpur entirely; and similarly, Sri Lanka moved a lot of its government functions out of Colombo proper to the outlying town of Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte (also spelt in various other ways). The dramatic and puzzling case of Myanmar’s new jungle-centred capital of Nay Pyi Taw (also subject to debate as to its best spelling, leave alone its meaning - or even its reason for existence!) was probably the one that has been uppermost in our minds as cartographers and geodata people in recent years.

Some of us are old enough to remember (as kids) when Brasília was carved out of another site in the jungle, but not so old that we can remember Canberra being planted in similarly unpopulated vegetation just after the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet it seems no time ago to me that Tanzania’s government decided to move over to Dodoma, again in more or less empty space - though whether Dar really remains the real capital in all but name remains open to the jury. These greenfield sites are popular because the authorities have a clean slate. Though maybe we had better call them greentree sites.

Brasilia © ostill used under licence of shutterstock.com, from Collins The World's Heritage.

Possibly not many trees will need to be demolished in Iran, however, as they weren’t when its near neighbour Kazakhstan shifted its capital rather suddenly from Alma-Ata (now spelt Almaty) to a pretty dry existing town that became known as Astana. That for one was not a greenfield site, in any sense.

We can scarcely forget Berlin, either, of course - a timely matter around the twentieth anniversary of the demise of The Wall. Bonn was probably always a bit of a compromise candidate anyway; and of course East Berlin always was the capital of East Germany. But once Germany was united again in 1990, it led not long afterwards to Berlin’s full resumption of the laurels, as a sort of triumphant seal on the whole process, telling the world that normality had returned.

OK, I said it wasn’t going to be a catalogue of capital changes, and I daresay it isn’t. If you feel you must point out the ones I allowed to get away, please do so. But even if I forgot a few, it’s surprising how news of one case brings memories of so many others out of the woodwork.

As for joint capitals, and arguments over what’s the capital really - well, don’t get me started…..!

Roger Pountain, Senior Information Analyst, Collins Geo

Afghanistan map used in National War Museum Exhibition

Scotland’s National War Museum, based in Edinburgh Castle, records how over 400 years of military service has touched the lives of countless Scots, leaving their mark on the nation’s history, image and reputation abroad.

The Museum is currently running a special exhibition Helmand: Faces of Conflict featuring photographs by Robert Wilson. Taken in the Helmand region, the photographs “capture the human aspect of conflict in unflinching intimacy”.

Collins Geo have worked with the Ministry of Defence Defence Geographic Centre to create a series of small scale briefing maps. The Afghanistan map is displayed as part of this exhibition.

The exhibition runs till the end of January 2010.

Photo by Carol Cumming.

More Sat Nav Disasters

One of my favourite items on the World Highways website is the monthly Skidmarks article - a collection of entertaining and amusing road-related stories. Their latest 5 October Skidmarks posting includes the now-familiar Sat Nav mishaps:

“Drivers using GPS navigation systems are being urged not to trust their devices too closely by police forces. In the Australian state of Victoria, police are telling drivers not to throw away their maps after a series of incidents in which motorists in ordinary road cars have become stranded after following GPS directions and taking routes only accessible to four-wheel drive vehicles. Similarly in the US state of Vermont, highway authorities are telling GPS users to use common sense as a number of drivers have had to call for help after getting stuck when using snowmobile trails.
Some drivers could benefit from brushing up on their geography skills, with a Syrian lorry driver having found his way to the Gibraltar Point nature reserve in the UK, 2,500km from Gibraltar on the southern tip of Spain where he was supposed to deliver a load of cars. The new owners of the cars had to wait a little longer. Meanwhile a Polish driver found that his vehicle was not amphibious, following GPS instructions that resulted in him driving into a reservoir. Luckily, the man and his passenger were rescued.”

So, why not try our new Sat Nav Buddy or get an up-to-date Collins Europe Road Atlas to avoid your own blunders.

Collins Geo Picks up More Awards for its Educational Atlases

Anne Mahon and the Geo Education team picked up three more awards on Saturday 31 Oct at the SAGT 2009 Conference in Edinburgh.

The SAGT (Scottish Association of Geography Teachers) is the professional body for Geography in Scottish schools and has over 700 members.

The awards were:
Book Category Winner – Collins Student World Atlas


Book Category Commended – Collins Keystart Atlas Series


Non Book Category Highly Commended – Collins Student World Atlas Statistics Flipchart


“These awards recognise our commitment to educational atlas publishing. Thanks to all of the team who made it possible.”
Anne Mahon, Senior Publishing Editor, Collins Geo

Kilimanjaro to be snow free within 20 years

A report published earlier this week predicts that the summit of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania will be ice free by 2033 and possibly as early as 2022.

The highest mountain in Africa inspired Ernest Hemmingway to write the short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, first published in 1936. The snow-capped volcano now attracts around 40,000 visitors per year.





Kilimanjaro:© enote/Shutterstock used in the new Times Concise Atlas of the World.

A team of scientists from Ohio State University believe that warmer global temperatures have had a huge impact on the increase in glacier melting rates at Kilimanjaro and around the world.

See the original article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and a report at TimesOnline.

The Next New Country?

This morning I received a tip off from one of my ‘sources’, saying that the creation of a new nation was imminent and that they had already decided on a flag. It predicted that Southern Sudan would soon achieve independence from the rest of Sudan.

However after a bit of research it looks like this is just the ‘official’ call for full independence and the region will decide by referendum in 2011. So it’s now a surveillance brief on the situation, to keep an eye on developments.


States and Territories information from the Times Universal Atlas of the World.

* Sudan gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1956.
* Sudan's north and south fought over differences of ideology, ethnicity and religion; the southerners are largely Christian and followers of traditional beliefs whilst northern Sudan is mostly Muslim.
* The vote on whether to break away from Sudan came as part of a 2005 peace deal with the north that ended decades of civil war.
* Two million people were killed and 4 million were displaced in the conflict between 1983 and 2005.

Sudan at Collins Maps.
Further information from BBC News and The New York Times.

British Cartographic Society Awards 2010

Collins Geo, through Collins Bartholomew, and the family of the late John C. Bartholomew sponsor of one of the key British Cartographic Society (BCS) awards - The John C. Bartholomew Award for Small Scale Mapping. This award is presented for originality and excellence in the field of thematic cartography with emphasis on effective communication of the intended theme or themes.

For more information on all the awards which will be judged and presented this summer, click on the images below, or go to the BCS website. The winners will be announced at The BCS Annual Symposium, 9 - 11 June 2010, Nottingham.


Click on images to enlarge

Collins Geo success at the BCS Awards June 2009