User:Maproom/lmaps

=Some location maps in use in Wikipedia=

Many Wikipedia articles on places include a "location map", a map to show where the place is. It would be even better if every such article included such a map.

Location maps exist in a very wide variety of styles. More consistency might be desirable. The purpose of this user subpage is to collect, and comment on, some location maps.

I welcome comments on the talk page of this user page.

Examples
Each of the subsections below includes a location map, with a title that links to the article where I found the original. Some of them are infoboxes, from which I have deleted fields that do not affect the map. As I have caused this page to contain more than one infobox for what the infobox template thinks is the subject of this "article", this has caused some red error warnings: please ignore these.

Oxford, England
I like this location map.

The Oxford article starts "Oxford .. is a city in central southern England." I can envisage two reasonable reactions to this:
 * "Oh, England. I'm not interested in that."
 * "Ahh, I know a bit about England. I'll look at the map and find out where exactly it is."

This location map does all that can be expected by either. The latter reader will probably recognise and know the location of a map of England; the former won't care.

The map shows the urban district of Oxford rather than the city itself, which I consider reasonable.

Tavistock, England
(This is a cut-down infobox. It shows the name of the place as "maproom/maps" rather than as "Tavistock, Devon" because of the way infobox template works.)

This is also good. Again, it assumes that an interested reader viewer will recognise and know the location of a map of England, and an uninterested one won't care.

Acadia
The article on Acadia starts "Acadia .. was a colony of New France in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine to the Kennebec River." The map does not include any of Maine. But Wikipedia editors have to use material that exists. This map seems to me reasonable for its purpose.

I have included it here because what it really shows is the Maritime Provinces, but it is very different from the following location map for the Maritime Provinces.

Note that in the inset, showing the position of Acadia in Canada, Canada has been oriented tilted clockwise relative to the way it is usually shown, so that the Maritime Provinces themselves are "the right way up".

The Maritime Provinces
This map locates the maritime Provinces using a map of the whole of Canada.

Note the different orientation of the Maritime Provinces in this map and the one above. Both maps have north at the top; in the map above the Maritime Provinces are therefore "the right way up", but in this map, it is the whole of Canada (or more specifically, Manitoba) that is "the right way up", with the maritime Provinces being tilted anticlockwise.

Iwamizawa
(Please ignore the red error message below the location map. It is the result of my putting several infoboxes with location maps on the same page.)

The two maps to the right locate the city of Iwazima within Sorachi Subprefecture, and within Japan. The latter is good, but the former relies on familiarity with Sorachi Subprefecture, which I suspect few readers of English Wikipedia will have. Moreover, its map of Sorachi Subprefecture is different from the one in the Sorachi Subprefecture article, shown to the left.

Germany
This map does a good job of showing where Germany is within Europe. But it shows the European Union (rather than Europe) in a ginger colour, which is misleading.

Also, it has an inset showing where Europe is in the world. I feel that this is unnecessary. The article says in its first sentence "Germany .. is .. in western-central Europe." Readers who care about where Germany is, are very likely to be able to find Europe on a map of the world.

Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Jena
This map locates these two 19th-century duchies correctly within Thuringia. But it assumes that readers will recognise the map of 19th-century Thuringia (which is different from the modern German Land), and be able to locate it within Germany. I think this is unrealistic.

British Indian Ocean Territory
This map locates the British Indian Ocean Territory within the Indian Ocean – not well, in my opinion, but acceptably. I have included it here because of its inset, which locates the main map (including Europe, most of Africa, and a large part of Asia) on a map of the world. I feel that this is unnecessary and unhelpful.

Sochi
These two maps do a good job. One locates the city of Sochi within Krasnodar Krai, the other locates Krasnodar Krai within Russia. It would be better if the map that locates Krasnodar Krai included the whole of the Black Sea (on whose coast Sochi lies) and less of Eastern Siberia; but Wikipedia editors can only use the material available to them.

The Happisburgh footprints
The map to the right locates the recently topical Happisburgh footprints on a 400-yard stretch of the Norfolk coast, and on a map of the British Isles. Something intermediate in scale would help a lot. Indeed, at the time of writing, it has already been replaced by a much better map, to the left. My thanks, and congratulations, to Philg88 for creating such a good location map!

Lakshadweep
A remarkable location map: it omits the location. I assume that something has gone wrong in the infobox (not just here, but in the Lakshadweep article), but I don't know how to fix it.

The map in the article has now been corrected.

Siletzia
This map locates a geological structure. It is centred on the western part of Washington State, though that may not be obvious. I eventually spotted the shape of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I think it should do more to let the general reader know what part of the world it shows.

Aizu
I wonder how many readers of English-language Wikipedia are familiar with the shape of Fukushima Prefecture? Note that the map caption does not even give a link to the article about the prefecture. I have now added one to the article itself.

Adana Massacre


This is not a location map. But it uses a location map, as an inset, in a way which is in my opinion exactly right. Its location map shows enough of the surrounding area that almost any interested reader will be able to identify it, while being large enough in scale that it locates the city with as much precision as is likely to be useful.

Jeju City
This location map has three faults, two of them serious.
 * 1) It is meant to be a location map for Jeju City, but it does not show Jeju City. It shows, in red, the administrative division in which the city is situated; the city is in fact half-way along the north coast of the island.
 * 2) It shows Jeju Island in the wrong place. The island is south-west, not south-east, of the end of the Korean peninsula. The black line around the island indicates that it is an inset, and the island is not really where it is shown relative to the rest of South Korea; but there is no indication of where it really is.
 * 3) It shows South Korea as an island, making the neighbouring state of North Korea the same colour as the sea and omitting its coastline.

I have now replaced this map, in the en:Jeju City article, by a better one.

Bhagalpur district


This map locates Bhagalpur( the small pink disk) within Bhagalpur district (the black area), and Bhagalpur district within Bihar state (the pink area), India. It does these things well.

However, if you are not familiar with Bihar, you may get the impression that it is on the north coast of India. This would be odd, as India does not have much north coast. In fact, the blue area (ok, it's only slightly blue, r=231 g=232 b=233) is not sea – the large blue area is part of Nepal, and the small blue areas are parts of Bangladesh. But it would be better to have used a colour other than blue.

Hikone


This map locates the city of Hikone within Shiga prefecture in Japan.

Shiga city is towards the northern end of the 20-km long red area – this is not clear from the map. And there is no explanation of the light ginger areas in the map.

I recognise the shape of Lake Biwa, the white area in the centre of the map; and I assume that Japanese users will. But I suspect that few English-speaking users will recognise it.

So this location map has two flaws: most users won't understand what the map shows, and the map itself does not show the place that it is there to locate.

Peru


To the right is a good location map for Peru.

To the left is an alternative version which was substituted for the one on the right, and thankfully removed again a few days later. Maybe the version on the left will be preferred by anyone who doesn't recognise the shape of South America, but is able to work out where it is in the world by looking at the strange lop-ended stadium shape and the concave quadrilateral within it.

Tui
I include this map because it is the only one I have found with three levels of submap.


 * 1) To the left is the Spanish province of Galicia, with the administrative province of Pontevedra in colour: Tui is red, the rest of the county of El Bajo Miño is grey-green, and the rest of the administrative province of Pontevedra is mid-green.
 * 2) To the lower right is a submap of Spain, with El Bajo Miño in red. As with the main map, Portugal and France are not distinguished from the sea, which may puzzle some readers, or give them the impression that Tui is on the coast. An inset shows the Canary Islands, 650 miles from their real place; this is also confusing, and I may get round to removing them. There is a tiny black spot representing Melilla (you'll need to click on the image on this page and look at the full-sized version to see it): I mistook it for a speck of dirt on my screen, but it is in the right place.
 * 3) To the upper right is a subsubmap of Western Europe, with Spain shown in red. Unlike the two larger-scale maps, this one shows Portugal. Majorca is particularly dark, probably by mistake.
 * 4) To the upper left of the subsubmap is an inset, which uses a black rectangle to locate Western Europe on a map of the world. I feel that this subsubsubmap is unnecessary, but it is competently done.

Ballindalloch Castle
The location does not appear on the main map. The inset appears to show Ballindalloch Castle as near Berwick, instead of in Aberdeenshire. Easy to see how it happens, hard to know what to do about it (use a different map).

The Ballindalloch Castle article no longer uses this location map. It uses a much better one, put there by Usedtobecool.

Pedra Branca, Singapore
This is the least informative location map I've ever seen.

The Baribis Fault
This (geological) fault is on the island of Java. The inset in its lower left shows the north-western part of Indonesia − Java is off the bottom of this inset, making the inset useless.