All posts tagged: Europe

Historical Map: Polish Airlines LOT Route Map, 1939

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

An absolutely phenomenal airline route diagram from 1939, which is both map and schedule in one.  The thicker route lines represent the routes that belong to Polish Airlines LOT – one of the oldest continually operating airlines in Europe; they still use the beautiful flying crane logo today – with thinner route lines representing partner or connecting airlines. Red lines show daily service, black lines show weekday or irregular service. The departure and arrival times […]

Submission – NEW Official Transportation Map of Szeged, Hungary, 2015

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Submitted by barnade, who says: Two years ago, you reviewed the transit map of Szeged, Hungary (September 2013, 0.5 stars). The conclusion was the map is a mess, as we here in Szeged thought so. Also, you’ve been pointed out that it would be much better, if a circular schematic form had been applied, based on the town’s triple-boulevard structure. Now, the day has come, the new official transit map of Szeged have been applied on trams, trolleybuses […]

Submission – Official Map: Bike Network Map of Houten, The Netherlands

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Submitted by Bertram Bourdrez, who says: I ran into this while reading about Houten (the Netherlands), a town celebrated for its high cycling rate (about 52% of all journeys): Translation of the first paragraph:  “Houten is a true cycling town, but all of its red cycleways look alike. Not everyone knows how to find their way around the different neighbourhoods. To solve this problem, the town council and the local chapter of the Dutch Cyclists’ Union […]

Historical Map: Cutaway View of Berlin’s Hermannplatz U-Bahn Station, c. 1929

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Cutaway Maps, Historical Maps

Here’s a lovely cutaway view of Hermannplatz station, at the intersection of what is now U7 (the lower platform here, running east-west) and U8 (the platform above, running north-south).  The map also shows the pedestrian tunnels that connected the station directly with the basement of the monumental Karstadt department store, then one of the largest in the world. However – probably for reasons of clarity – the diagram places the entrance in the first basement […]

Visualization: The remarkable distances you can travel on a European train in less than a day

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Visualizations

postgraphics: Tourists visiting Europe are often advised to travel by train rather than plane or car. Trains are considered reliable, fast and relatively cheap. But as a new research project shows, there are major differences within Europe: Whereas you can travel from London to Paris in less than four hours, traveling the same distance can last more than 22 hours in eastern Europe. A nice little series of isochrone maps showing how far you can […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Bus Routes of Luxembourg City by Jug Cerovic

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Jug (who you may remember for his INAT series of standardised transit maps), who says: Hi Cameron, 3 weeks ago you posted an article about the Luxembourg bus map (May 2015, 1 star). I was curious to see if that Gordian Knot could be disentangled and started working on it. Anyway when I succeeded and managed to understand how the system actually works I couldn’t help but redesign it altogether. You can see the […]

Official Map: St. Petersburg Metro, 2015

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Having posted Art Lebedev Studio’s impressive unofficial map of the St. Petersburg Metro, I was reminded by a few readers that I’m yet to post the actual official map. As it’s definitely interesting to compare the two, here’s the real deal. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty tired-looking effort, with some very loosely-rendered and distorted islands in the middle of the Neva River, and some awful, dated-looking radial gradients inside station markers. The map omits any points […]

Unofficial Map: St. Petersburg Metro by Art Lebedev Studio

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Unofficial Maps

From the studio that brought us the new official Moscow Metro map, here’s a map of the St. Petersburg Metro that they’ve developed under their own initiative – with an eye on making it the official map by the time the 2018 FIFA World Cup rolls around. It’s got all the hallmarks of the Moscow map – great attention to detail, lovely use of colour and iconography, a useful and well-applied underlying grid (see second […]

Submission – Official Map: Bus Routes of Trier, Germany, 2015

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Submitted by Tobias, who says: Trier’s not a big town (100,000 population), but it’s Germany’s oldest. Therefore many tourists are coming to visit and see the Roman buildings and ruins. I don’t know if they use the bus for that. See the plan attached. Transit Maps says: If Trier is like many other German towns that I’ve visited (and a quick look at Google Maps seems to confirm that it is), then the tourist-frequented historical […]

Historical Ad: Swissair “European Rapid Transit System” Poster, c. 1980s(?)

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Advertising, Historical Maps

Sent my way by long-time correspondent, Kyril Negoda. I’m not entirely sure of the vintage of this, as the archive it resides in covers the entire period from 1980–2000, and none of the images have dates attached to them. There’s definitely an early 1980s vibe to it, though – mainly from the tightly kerned Futura Bold heading at the top. I’ve seen transit map-styled airline maps before (here and here, for example), but this one […]