AP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY DIGITAL TEXTBOOK: MIKE BUSARELLO

Google maps brings the world to your desktop - well, most of it, anyway. Here are 10 locations that governments and other entities have blurred or removed from satellite photos.

A user of geospatial technologies is not free to explore all places of the Earth with equal levels of specificity. Why?  Where?  How come?

Across Africa, a continent where the average age is about 19, protests have flared against leaders who may have outstayed their welcome.

This interactive mapping feature compares two distinct data sets in an attempt to show that the two are correlated on the continent of Africa.  The base layer of this thematic map is demographic, noting how much of the overall population in a given country is under the age of 16.  The interactive feature with point data describes the political unrest or instability in that particular country. 

Questions to ponder: Does the cartographer 'convince' you that Africa's having a very young (globally speaking) demographic cohort led towards greater political instability?  Are there other factors worth considering?  What does this map and it's embedded data tell us?    

Tags: Africa, political, conflict, unit 4 political, states, governance, population, demographics, unit 2 population. 

When African states gained independence, the continent's new leaders agreed to respect the old colonial borders to avoid endless wars.

This interactive map shows the major conflicts on the African continent where the combatants have geopolitical aspirations to separate from the state and create a new, autonomous state.  Click on the red arrows and you can read about the warring factions and the current situation in that region.   

Tags: political, governance, Africa, unit 4 political, war, conflict, states, colonialism.