#30DayMapChallenge 2022

Every November for the past few years, map geeks around the world have shown off their skills on social media by making and posting maps based on various themes. You can see this year’s (and past years) themes here: https://30daymapchallenge.com

Below are maps I created for #30DayMapChallenge in November 2022 and posted on Twitter.

Curious how I made a map? You can find project details and code on my Github: https://github.com/devinmlea/MapsAndCode/tree/main/30DayMapChallenge2022

FYI: I release most maps on my website under a Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + Share Alike license (look for the license on the map). If you see this symbol, it means you can take these maps and reshare them or reproduce/remix them for noncommercial purposes, but please attribute me if you do so, or contact me if you wish to use them for commercial purposes.

Day 1: Points

A map of the United States of America displaying the locations of zoos and aquariums that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums organization. There are more than 235 accredited institutions in the United States. To learn more about the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, see their website at https://www.aza.org/
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 2: Lines

Map shows the location of Line 5 oil pipeline and past significant oil spills. Text provides context and says: Line 5 refers to a 645-mile long segment of oil pipeline that delivers oil products from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario. This oil pipeline is operated as part of a pipeline system by Enbridge, Inc., a multinational pipeline company. Although the pipeline has been operational since it was completed in 1953, public pressure to shut down its operation has increased over the last decade. At least a dozen spills over 1,000 gallons have occurred along the course of the pipeline (black circles) since it became operational, with several spills on or near National Forest Lane (green). A 2013 expansion of pipline capacity by improving pumping stations led environmental groups to voice concerns about aging pipes and of Alberta oil sands product possibly being transported via the pipeline. By the end of 2015, eight Michigan municipalities and counties passed resolutions calling for shutdown of oil flow through the Mackinac Straits portion of Line 5, a number that has increased to dozens of municipalities, counties, and townships across the state today. In December 2018, outgoing Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation that would create the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority, which voted to approve an agreement with Enbridge to build a utility tunnel in the Mackinac Straits to better protect from a potential oil spill into the Great Lakes. However, no ground at present has been broken on the tunnel due to ongoing environmental assessments. In 2019, incoming Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel began pursuing two lawsuits involving Enbridge and stopping operation of Line 5 in the Mackinac Straits, one of which is still active. As of this writing, Line 5 still is in operation
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 3: Polygons

A gray scale map of United States counties, showing that Devin has either never been there, traveled through there, stayed overnight there, or lived there. Devin has traveled through 470 counties, stayed a night in another 103, and has lived in another 6.
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 4: Green

Map shows avocado production for each country in the world. The five largest producing countries are Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Indonesia. The map also shows the largest exports of Avocado around the world. The largest exporter in the world is Mexico to the United States. The key of the map is an avocado with four different colors and categories matching production categories on the map.
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 5: Ukraine

Map of Ukraine where horizontal lines across the country are vertically exaggerated based on the proportion of population in the area. Population is based on 2020 data. The lines are alternating blue and yellow, same colors as Ukraine flag.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, R, Adobe Illustrator

Day 6: Network

Map depicts bike paths in Eugene and Springfield in the style of subway system maps. The map includes Fern Ridge path, Roosevelt and Jessen paths, river paths along the Willamette River, Garden Way Trail, I-5 path, By-Gully path, Rosa Parks and EWEB paths.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 7: Raster

A raster map showing the extent of Willamette National Forest and locations shaded by elevation. Colors are all in shades of green, with the darkest green for higher elevation and light green for lower elevation.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, R, Adobe Illustrator

Day 8: OpenStreetMap

A map shows the primary and secondary streets of Accra, Ghana in West Africa. The title text for the map uses the red, yellow, and green colors of Ghana's national flag.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 9: Space

Map shows the locations and a picture of each of the 33 murals in Berkley, MI. The picture of each mural is in the center of the map and is labeled with a number, and that number is correspondingly located on the map in the approximate location of the mural.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 10: A Bad Map

Map of the United States titled "Where in the United States you can hear Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You being played in December". All states and territories are filled with red or green. The key for red says "here", while the key for green says "also here".
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 11: Red

Map of the world showing approximate locations where a selection of animals with red in their common name that are also on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" of Critically Endangered Species can be found. A photo of each species rings the map and points to where the species can be or historically has been found.
Tools Used:

Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop + Illustrator, QGIS

Day 12: Scale

A map showing the scales and systems of State Supreme Courts in the United States. The bottom left shows the tiers of state court systems, with local trial courts on the bottom, then state appeals courts, then the state supreme court at the top. Each state on the map is represented by a larger hexagon and a second smaller hexagon within it. The larger hexagon is one of four colors and depicts the mode of how supreme court justices are selected, either by appointment, partisan election, non-partisan election, or the Missouri Plan. The second smaller hexagon shows term length of supreme court justices, grouped either by 6 to 8 years, 10 to 15 years, or life terms.
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator

Day 13: 5 Minute Map

Map shows the area in the United States that is either National Forest Service Land in green or National Park Service Land that is brown.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 14: Hexagons

Map contains a hexagon for each United States state, territory, and commonwealth. Each hexagon is categorized into one of four categories: (1) Has "Right-To-Work" law and pays federal minimum wage, (2) Has "Right-To-Work" law and pays above federal minimum wage, (3) No "Right-To-Work" law and pays federal minimum wage, (4) No "Right-To-Work" law and pays above federal minimum wage
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator

Day 15: Food/Drink

Map shows the location of each town in the upper peninsula of Michigan where Google says there is one or more restaurants or bakeries that serve pasties. Each county is also shaded proportionally based on the ratio between the number of pasty-serving restaurants and the number of residents. Keweenaw peninsula has the most restaurants per people with a ratio of 1:700, while Delta county has the fewest pasty-serving restaurants per people with a ratio of 1:5,124. The text on the map reads: The pasty, made by placing meat and vegetables on a shortcrust pastry circle and then folding the pastry on itself to seal it before baking, became associated with the culture of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when many copper miners used them as portable meals. Pasties have become a significant tourist attraction in the Upper Peninsula, which includes an annual pasty festival in Calumet, Michigan.
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop + Illustrator, QGIS

Day 16: Minimal

This map is titled Michigan School Districts where over 1 in 5 students live below the poverty line. The map is just the words of all the school districts in Michigan where more than 1 in 5 students are below the poverty line, placed so that they together form the shape of the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator

Day 17: Map Without A Computer

Shows an image of the outline of the state of Michigan traced into snow that has fallen onto the windshield of a car
Tools Used:
  • Snow

Day 18: Blue

A map showing the habitat of the Blue-Footed Booby and with several facts about the bird. Text as follows. Males strut and display their blue feet in an elaborate courtship display to attract females. The name “booby” derives from the Spanish word “bobo” (meaning ”stupid”, “foolish”, or “clown) because, like other seabirds, they are clumsy on land. Blue-Footed Boobies live around and breed on the tropical and sub-tropical islands and west coasts of the Americas, with about half of all breeding pairs nesting on the Galápagos Islands. Eggs are laid and chicks hatch asynchronously (at different times), which often results in growth inequality and size disparity between siblings and even siblicide by older chicks when there are food shortages (you thought your sibling fights were bad!). Fish are its main food source, which are obtained by diving and sometimes swimming underwater; while they can hunt alone, they more frequently hunt together in groups
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Photoshop + Illustrator

Day 19: Globe

The animated image shows a black and white globe-shaped earth rotating. The text above the globe says Earth's rotation and tilt, while below the globe the text notes that the earth's tilt from vertical is 23.5 degrees.

Made this into a .gif via imgflip.com so I could show it here

Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Video Editor

Day 20: My Favorite…

The map is titled Devin's favorite hikes in Glacier National Park. A three-dimensional map is at center of display showing three hikes. One is Iceberg Lake, which is a 9.5-mile roundtrip hike. Another is Grinnell Glacier, which is a 12-mile roundtrip hike. The last is Cracker Lake, which is a 13-mile roundtrip hike. Pictures of each hike ring the map.
Tools Used:
  • R, Adobe Illustrator

Day 21: Kontur Population Dataset

Map shows three-dimensional rendering of population in the Detroit, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area at approximately 400 meter by 400 meter resolution based on data from the Kontur Population Dataset.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Aerialod, Adobe Illustrator

Day 22: NULL

The map shows the city boundaries of Colorado Springs. The fill of the city contains the pattern of the progress pride flag. Within the fill color, the names of the five victims who lost their lives in the Club Q shooting are spelled in white: Daniel Aston, Ashley Paugh, Kelly Loving, Raymond Green Vance, Derrick Rump. In the top right the haiku reads: Colorado Springs, we mourn for friends, family, lovers, now null from our lives. A note on the bottom right reads: I invoke null here in the data sense of missing, that we still keep the memories and knowledge of our community even when we physically are no longer together
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 23: Movement

The map shows internal displacement and refugees from the Syrian Civil War as of 2021. Before the Syrian Civil War Syria had a population of about 22 million. Of this population, approximately 6.7 million people have been internally displaced within Syria, and another 5.6 million people are refugees in another county. About 3.6 million refugees are in Turkey. About another one million are in a number of western or northern European countries and the United States. Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt have significant refugee populations in the hundreds of thousands, with several other countries in the region with smaller refugee populations.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 24: Fantasy

A map showing the town of Rust Bank and relevant locations that appear in the stop motion movie Wendell and Wild by Henry Selick and Jordan Peele.
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator

Day 25: 2 Colors

Black and white map, where the background is black and the city streets of Detroit are white and weighted dependent on use (thicker lines for interstate highways and major roads, thinner lines for residential streets).
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 26: Island(s)

A map of the world showing locations of islands that have been created over the past one hundred years by Volcanism, Earthquake, Erosion or Deposition, or by Glacial Retreat. There are 18 created by volcanism, 5 created by erosion or deposition, 4 by glacial retreat, and 1 by Earthquake.
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator

Day 27: Music

The map shows coverage of North America and the three legs of the 2022 Screen Violence Tour across North America by the Scottish band Chvrches (pronounced Churches). Leg one was between May 13 and June 18 and covered 18 cities. Segment two was between July 24 and August 5 and covered 10 cities. Leg three was between September 20 and October 3 and covered 10 cities.
Tools Used:
  • QGIS, Adobe Illustrator

Day 28: 3D

A three-dimensional model of the topography of Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon. The model points out that Mt. Hood is 11,240 feet above sea level (or 3,426 meters above sea level). The view of the model is viewing the national forest from the northwest, and the National Forest is about 1 million acres or 4,300 square miles).
Tools Used:
  • R, Adobe Illustrator

Day 29: Out of My Comfort Zone

The diagram shows each day on the left side and the various methods Devin used to create maps on the right side. For each day, one or more lines connect the individual day on the left side with the methods on the right side depending on the amount of time each tool was used. For example, on day 1, if 50 percent of the time was spent using QGIS and 50 percent spent using Adobe Illustrator, the full line is evenly split so half goes to QGIS and half goes to Adobe Illustrator.
Tools Used:
  • Microsoft Excel, R, Adobe Illustrator

Day 30: Remix

Map of Ukraine where horizontal lines across the country are vertically exaggerated based on the proportion of population in the area. Population is based on 2020 data. The lines have alternating blue and yellow fill, same colors as Ukraine flag.
Tools Used:
  • Adobe Illustrator (to remix day 5 map)