World Refugee Day

Today is World Refugee Day, marking the roughly 26 million internally displaced persons (IDPs, people who are forced to move elsewhere in their own country) and 15 million refugees (people forced to move outside their own country).  The 41-or-so million displaced around the world for 2011 is actually lower than the 43-or-so million displaced in 2010.  Fortunately, there has been some moves back home into Iraq and Afghanistan by refugees who's area is now safe or at very least out of the immediate conflict zone.  However, The Arab Spring Wars and other other conflicts both new and old have resulted in 4.3 million new refugees and IDPs in the past year.

The leading countries for refugee origins are

1. Afghanistan 
2. Iraq 
3. Somalia 
4. Sudan/South Sudan 
5. Democratic Republic of the Congo 
6. Burma 
7. Colombia 
8. Vietnam 
9. Eritrea 
10. People's Republic of China

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has an online "choose your own adventure"-style quiz on the choices a refugee has to deal with.  It even created the great online report below which surveys the geography and demographics of refugees around the world.

Joshua Project: Christian Missionary GeoInfo for the World

The Joshua Project is an Evangelical Protestant effort to preach the Gospels to communities that have very small (or no) Christian population.  The project details the many various ethnic and national groups of countries around the world.  The website is generally map driven.

The bias in the project is that Catholic and various Orthodox faiths are considered good but not good enough.  For a population to be "fully reached" the website rates the group by number of Evangelicals.

A related project is Unreached People of the Day.  This website sums up the information of the Joshua Project into daily updates.

Australian Geographic Articles Now Browsable on a Map

There is something in me that biases myself towards Australia.  I do not what it is, maybe it is my personal construction of Australia being a giant American Midwest and West on its own contentent  Maybe not.  Either way I know I really like learning about Australia.

The magazine Australian Geographic would be on my must read list... if I could afford it.  Sadly international subscription rates are extremely expensive no matter where one lives and there is no cheap online or kindle edition.

However, a collection of their articles are available for online reading.  What is even neater in the geographical sense is that one can browse through the articles via a Google Maps mashup on Australian Geographic's Explore Australia page.  Now is a great time to read up on all the articles you probably missed like a dispute over a T-Rex like dinosaur in Australia and the last horseback surveyors in Australia.  Enjoy the readings and have a g'day!

Every Country, Culture, Media Environment, and National Foods

While searching for good sources on world cultures I found a gold mine of information. Several gold mines to be exact.

Encyclopedia of the Nations has a broad survey of the countries of the world with subjects ranging from flora and fauna to religions, transportation, labor, and much more.

Countries and their Cultures is a surprisingly detailed website that might as well be the CIA World Factbook of cultures. Just check out the page for Moldova! If Moldova is this detailed then the website creators must be very dedicated to their mission.

Press Reference is like Countries and their Cultures but focuses on press, government-press relationships, and media access. From the website I learned that Togo's press has yet to divorce itself from the government but the people do have access to other French-language media.

Food in Every Country not only has information about the food culture of countries but also recipes from each country! Make your own South African dish for the World Cup.

PBS Oil Leak Webcam with Oil Leak Estimate

From PBS

Afghanistan Provincial and Pakistani Tribal Overviews

The Navy Postgraduate School's Program for Culture & Conflict Studies has excellent resources on the provinces of Afghanistan, tribes in the FATA region of Pakistan, and the countries of Central Asia. These are excellent packets of information give a wonderful overview of the human and physical terrain of these areas which appear in the news more and more.

Statoid: Census Data and More for Administrative Divisions

Periodically my research requires me to look up various demographic and geographic information of various countries. For national level data the CIA World Factbook and the United State Census Bureau's International Data Base answer most questions. However, many times I need data relating to primary or secondary administrative districts. It is especially difficult with third world countries to find province and district level demographic and geographic data.

The website Statoids fortunately fills this gap. Statoids combines various censuses with other geographic data to create webpages filled with information on primary and secondary administrative districts. Check out Yemen's primary administrative divisions or Rwanda's secondary for prime examples. The addition of historical background on the administrative district helps one get a better understanding of the federal (or lack there of) nature of each country. Statoids is a great research tool for those who need subnational demographic and geographic data.

Online Asian Culture Guide

Cultural misunderstandings can not only embarrassing but also costly. Ask any tourist who has had a run in with the police for "indecency" or "insulting the leader" or any businessman who's business trip ended in a failed deal and made potential clients into enemies.

Dat Nguyen has set out to help travelers understand Asian cultures so that they may avoid unfortunate cultural misunderstandings. His website, Understanding Asian & Chinese Culture and Customs for Travel, and related Twitter feed have useful explanations like Vietnamese chopstick and dinning etiquitte.

The website is still new so it is not complete but instead a living work in progress. Be sure to check this out if China, Vietnam, India, or another Asian country is on your travel list.

The World Bank's Atlas of Global Development

Now embeded thanks to La Cartoteca!

The World Bank has released the second edition of their Atlas of Global Development. The atlas is available online and is embeded below (text further below).

Open publication - Free publishing

The atlas is basically the state of the world's countries. Global patterns and trends are mapped throughout the book with commentary. The overall trend is up but some countries are still lagging and the full effects of the global economic downturn have not been measured yet.

The atlas is a great addition to any geographer's online library and really complements the CIA World Factbook. For easy to comprehend information with plenty of maps, the Atlas of Global Development is a must.

Gapminder: Geography Explored Through Statistics

Gapminder is a website museum lead by Hans Rosling. The site is full of videos and graphs dedicated to exploring and explaining demographics, climate, and health issues from a global perspective.

Gapminder makes excellent use of flash and allows for easy customization of their graphics. One can compare everything from life expectancy in Chinese province against the rest of the world or discover who has the best teeth. Meanwhile, the videos are about ten minutes each and give a good, quick overview of statistical geography debunking myths many people have on various issues.

Try out Gapminder today!

State Flag versus Civil Flag versus Battle Flag

Once when I was real young I had a rather heated argument with my brother. We argued over if the coat of arms was on Poland’s flag. Little did we understand that many countries have at least two flags, civil and state.

State flags are flags that are reserved for use by the government. Most of the time state flags feature the coat of arms. Civil flags are for general, public, use and most lack the coat of arms. The reason for having a separate civil flag dates back to the past when European sea trade was becoming huge. Both states and merchants wished to identify themselves yet show they were not a military or government entity. This allowed for an operating environment to be created with little confusion on whether the upcoming vessel was hostile or a mere trade competitor.

Today there is less distinction between state and civil flags. Part of the reason is cost. In the past cloth flags with the added complex coat of arms cost more money. This limited use to primarily the government. Today, nylon flags are much cheaper and coat of arms can be printed onto the fabric. Most civil and state flags are the same. However, Latin America and many European nations still have separate flags for tradition reasons.

Many countries also have naval ensigns and battle flags. These flags are used by navies and armies. The most well known battle flag has to be that of the Confederate States of America. The well known flag was also the jack for two of the national flags but was never the national flag for the Confederacy. However, its use in battle and reuse in reenactments has embedded it as the symbol of rebellion in many people's mind. This has led to the confusion over its historical meaning.

Flag Identifier: Finding out what Flags Belong to Who

Ever seen a strange flag that you have no idea who it belongs to? Catholicgauze has and so have many others who ask me about flags. Well now there is the handy dandy Flag Identifier who can help out.

Flag Identifier allows one to search for flags by design, color, features, etc. Countries, cities, states, regions, orgizations, militiaries all have flags that are on Flag Identifier. This is a real useful tool for anyone who needs educational research or just for fun.

Interesting Fact: Aomori, Japan's flag has a map of the prefecture on it.

Kosovo Not on Online or Newspaper Maps

It has been almost five months since the Republic of Kosovo was declared and since recognized by a current total of 44 countries.

The mapping world is slow to recognize the change though. The big online three: Google Maps, Microsoft's Live Maps, Yahoo Maps; do not have a free Kosovo. National Geographic, MapQuest (has pre-2006 Serbia), and Maporama also have lack Kosovo. The Weather Channel gets the nod for the worst mapping with not only a pre-2006 Serbia (plus Montenegro) but for some reason West Berlin as well.

Newspapers such as USA Today, Washington Post, and the International Herald Tribune all have Kosovo as part of Serbia both on their maps.

The only places to find Kosovo maps online are Geography at About and MultiMap. However, depending on the zoom there is a free Kosovo, no free Kosovo, or a pre-2006 Serbia and Montenegro!

So what is to blame for no Kosovo on maps? The still lacking neigh-on-universal recognition for the new state? Somesort of Serbian conspiracy that owns all popular mapping businesses? Or is it just computer jockeys using software with no knowledge of geography? I think it is ten percent of the first and ninety percent of the latter. Geographers and cartographers are desperately needed in today's world. It is no wonder why kids cannot find countries on the map if are educational tools are wrong.

Note: The Weather Channel's maps are really bad. Two Yemens: those united in 1990.

Soils Database and Maps

If Catholicgauze was into soils then this site would be heaven. The ISRIC International Soils database is a massive site with everything you ever wanted to know about soils. The database itself has tons of maps which can be searched for using the advanced search or by browsing the various continents using a Google Maps mashup. One just has to go through the mountains of books citations to find the good stuff.

English Newspapers Around the World

International newspapers are an excellent geographical teaching resource. They allow one to see what is going on around the world and see new viewpoints.

Earlier Catholicgauze linked to the Newseum's flash page of newspaper front covers. The one drawback was only seeing the front page. World Newspapers and Magazines makes up for this. This site links to English language newspapers and magazines around the world. One can sort through by country, region, or magazine topic. Three random sources to start off with are the Cook Islands News; the Cape Argus from Cape Town, South Africa; and The Irish News from Northern Ireland.

Hazlitt: A Gazetteer of the Ancient Classical World

I am a huge fan of the study of the ancient and classical world. Western Civilization owes its very existence because of places like Babylon, Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. Other places like villages and fields have been the sites were kings have been born and empires won or lost. These locations range from well known to obscure.

But now its possible to understand where these sites our. The Ancient Library has a scanned copy of Hazlitt, The Classical Gazetteer. Hazlitt was written by William Hazlitt in 1851. The gazetteer has "15,000 classical places—famous, obscure and jaw-droppingly obscure. Of the latter, most are absent from the common classical dictionaries."

Although not operation now, Google is expected soon to index the book and thus make it searchable. Now one can select a letter and flip through the pages.

So enjoy and learn facts like the Gabri were a people of Sarmatia near Cissii. Just imagine this with hyperlinks to an encyclopedia!

World66

Catholicgauze has been painting the map read ever since he's been seven months old!

World 66 is a travel website and "sister" website to Wikitravel. So imagine Wikipedia meant for the traveler. Any place imaginable is available to be read about or edit.

A neat feature on the website is one can create maps of places visited. Above is my current states traveled to map but other ones available for customization are visited countries, visited Canadian provinces, and visited European countries.

Browse around and plan your next big or small trip today! (Hat tip: BigFlax.com Blog)

Culture Smart Cards

The military is realizing the importance of cultural geography. Culture Smart Cards are being handed out to marines. The cards contain useful cultural information about countries. Language, religion, ethnic groups, behavior and more.

The Iraqi culture card is fascinating. Did you know the red Islamic flag means sacrifice? That a red-checkered male headdress means the wearer did the Hajj and comes from a monarchy? That the "OK" hand signal is obscene to Iraqis? And that no one likes the Turkoman besides the Eastern Rite Catholics? All this and more on the card is very useful to the average grunt on the ground.

Sadly most of these cards are off-limits to civilian purchases. I wish one day they will be released because my former students would have benefited greatly from this easy-to-use yet in-depth source.

Electoral Geography

Electoral Geography is a website database of almost every modern election for every country. Results for Belize's legislative election of 2003, Switzerland's referendum on arming peace keepers, and Madagascar's presidential election of 2006 with a map are just a sampling of the available votes one can browse. Check it out today! (Hat tip: The Map Room via Very Spatial)

Harm de Blij on YouTube

One of the reasons I began blogging was because of Harm de Blij. He has been a man who's Dutch-accented voice can inspire geographers to show the world the wonders of geography. Well, now it is possible for you to enjoy some of his works via YouTube. Parts of his presentation to Texas State University are viewable online. Among the topics discussed are geography in the twentieth-century, climate change, and plate tectonics. Enjoy!

Below is the excellent short on why Harm de Blij became a geographer

(Hat Tip: Radical Geography)