Tag: geography

  • The internet entrepôts of China: back to the 19th century?

    For centuries, and especially since the mid-19th century, entrepôts have been important sites of communication—both information and goods—between China and the outside world. Now, many of the same cities are sites of the grand digital switches that connect China to the global internet. I’ve noted before the interesting work of TeleGeography, a firm that produces…

  • Pollution from space, and human geography

    A remarkable photograph published by NASA shows, as Angel Hsu notes, the pollution in the air during the climate talks in Tianjin earlier this month. The high-resolution image is striking, and will live on the desktop of my external monitor for some time. NASA notes that this image captures an event that resulted from increased…

  • Mapping China's international internet business

    At Mobinode, Piet Walraven has published the results of some research into Chinese internet companies forming partnerships with overseas entities, and there’s a map. Walraven describes the map: It is a summary of all overseas operations organized in two categories: ‘partnerships, licensing, and co-production’ and ‘self operated or wholly owned overseas initiatives’. Through these two…

  • The Lost Island 'Atlantis' as a Reference to Japan?

    Strange Maps, the source of much cartographic delight, features an overlay of the real “new world” and what Columbian era transatlantic explorers expected to see on their way to Cipangu, which is what the Portuguese were calling Japan at the time. Among the many “phantom islands” that turned out not to exist is Antilla. Here,…