The Battles of Narvik

Germany invaded Norway in April 1940. The northern city of Narvik quickly became an important strategic target for both the Allies and the Nazi. Narvik's ice-free harbour in the North Atlantic provided perfect access by rail to the iron ore mines in Kiruna, Sweden. Both sides were keen to secure this iron supply for themselves and, by doing so, denying it to the enemy.

The Battles of Narvik is a web-documentary commemorating the 75th anniversary of the German invasion of Norway and the battle over the Norwegian town of Narvik. The documentary explores both the land and sea battles between the Nazis and the Allies in their struggle to secure Narvik.

Evidence of the sea battles can still be found deep in the Ofotfjord. On April 10th, 1940 the British Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine both lost two destroyers each. Three days later the British managed to sink another three German destroyers. Most of these shipwrecks remain at the bottom of the Ofotfjord to this day.

Narvik is a popular destination for scuba divers as it provides a unique opportunity to explore these German and British wrecks from World War II. To help divers locate the wrecks The Battles of Narvik includes a Google Map showing the locations of both the British and German destroyers now lying at the bottom of the Ofotfjord.


You can learn more about the invasion of Norway and the Allies resistance on Invasjonen av Norge. Norway and its allies managed to continue the fight against the German invasion in April 1940 for 62 days. However Germany's invasion of France in May caused Norway's allies to withdraw and the Norwegian government was forced to seek exile in London.

Invasjonen av Norge is a really nicely designed story map recounting the Norwegian War in 1940. The history of the campaign is told in chronological order. As you scroll through the chronology in the map side-panel the map automatically updates to show the relevant location.

Norwegian Time Machine

Step back in time with this Norwegian map of historical photographs. Tids Maskinen (Time Machine) is a Google Map which allows you to browse vintage photos of Norway by location and date.

The market for interactive maps of vintage photos is dominated by the popular Historypin. However Tids Maskinen is a very nicely designed map. It's very simple interface makes Tids Maskinen very easy to browse. The search bar at the top of the map allows you to search the vintage photos by location and the time-line allows you to filter the photos shown by date.


Where Historypin wins out is in the integration of Street View. Historypin allows you to view the submitted vintage photos overlaid on top of the view depicted on Google Maps Street View. Tids Maskinen does have Street View available on the map. However if you want to explore the view depicted in any of the vintage pictures you need to zoom in on its map marker, drop Pegman onto the map and try to find the view yourself.

Oslo Population Density in 3D

Bjørn Sandvik's Thematic Mapping Blog has just posted two interesting tutorials on mapping grid-based statistics. Both tutorials and the accompanying demo maps visualize population density in Oslo, Norway.

The first tutorial in Mapping Grid-Based statistics using OpenLayers, Three.js and D3.js shows you how to create a grid based interactive map to visualize population density. The map also allows the user to select an area on the map to see the number of inhabitants in a custom defined area.

The second map in the post provides a 3d visualization on the same population data, with each grid's population density shown as a 3d tower or block on the map. The usual problem with such an approach is that the towers or blocks in the foreground obscure the view of the towers in the background. Bjørn's 3d interactive map largely overcomes this problem by allowing you to rotate and zoom in and out on the map.

Both the tutorials for the maps are in Norwegian but the source code is available on GithHub and should be easy to follow for anyone familiar with OpenLayers and D3.js.

Mapping the Invasion of Norway

In April 1940 Germany invaded Norway. Norway and its allies managed to continue the fight against the invasion for 62 days. However Germany's invasion of France in May caused Norway's allies to withdraw and the Norwegian government was forced to seek exile in London.

Invasjonen av Norge is a really nicely designed story map recounting the Norwegian War in 1940. The history of the campaign is told in chronological order. As you scroll through the chronology in the map side-panel the map automatically updates to show the relevant location.

The Mapbox created map uses labelled markers. You can replicate this in your own Mapbox or Leaflet maps using the Leaflet.label or the Leaflet.iconlabel plug-ins. You can create your own story map with Mapbox very easily by using the Scroll-driven navigation with markers and a narrative example map in the Mapbox documentation as your starting template.

A Game of Norway

On May 17th Norway celebrates its Constitution Day. This national holiday celebrates the signing of the Constitution of Norway at Eidsvoll on May 17th 1814. The constitution declared Norway to be an independent kingdom in an attempt to avoid being ceded to Sweden after Denmark–Norway's devastating defeat in the Napoleonic Wars.

Last year, to mark the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Norwegian constitution, Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang released a story map to help tell the history behind the signing of the constitution. A Game of Norway is a beautifully designed story map exploring and explaining the historical events which eventually led to the signing of the Norwegian Constitution on May 17th 1814.

The map data for A Game of Norway was obtained from Natural Earth, who provide open source vector and raster map data at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. The map data was then styled using QGIS.

The map animations and narrative elements are made possible by using skrollr, a parallax scrolling JavaScript library. Skrollr allows you to animate any CSS property of any element based on the horizontal scrollbar position. Using skrollr A Game of Norway is able to move around the background map image and animate the movements of the ships, troops and other images on the map as the user scrolls down the page.

Via: Visualoop

Mapping Norway's War Dead

Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang has mapped the 11,724 Norwegians killed during the Second World War. Her Døde Nordmennene Under Andre Verdenskrig uses the Mapbox platform to show the locations where Norwegians were killed during World War II.

Once you press the play button on the map the locations of Norwegians killed during the war are added to the map in chronological order. As the war dead are added to the map the map side-bar updates with important events that occurred during the current time-line.

You can select any of the markers on the map to learn more about the individual Norwegian who died, including their name and photograph. The time-line above the map shows the frequency of deaths over time. Note the huge spike in the frequency of deaths in November 1942 after 767 Norwegian Jews were shipped to Auschwitz.

Who is Spying on Norway?

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has discovered evidence of a massive organised surveillance operation which appears to be aimed at eavesdropping on phone calls and tracking the movements of Norwegian government ministers and officials.

The newspaper has mapped the locations of false mobile phone base stations, called IMSI catchers, which surround the Prime Minister's office, the Norwegian Parliament and the Ministry of Defence. IMSI catchers are used to track the movements of mobile phone users and listening in on mobile communications. In an article, entitled Aftenposten Reveals Mobile Espionage, the newspaper has used the Leaflet.js mapping platform to visualize the locations of the IMSI catchers that the paper has uncovered in central Oslo.

The extent of the network of IMSI catchers and the obvious expence of the equipment used has led Aftenposten to assume that the spying must be the work of a foreign intelligence agency, a large criminal gang or a large private enterprise involved in industrial espionage. 

Aftenposten Reveals Mobile Espionage on Google Translate

Around Norway on Video

Norwegian television channel NRK has released a video map featuring clips from the popular television programme Norge Rundt. Norge Rundt (Around Norway) has been broadcasting since 1976, featuring local stories from NRK offices around Norway.

Kart hos NRK has mapped 2,064 video clips from Norge Rundt, all of which can be watched directly from the map. The map allows Norwegians to find and watch local Norge Rundt items which have been broadcast from their area of the country.

The map uses an interesting marker clustering system which works well when just a few video clips are being mapped to the same location. However it becomes a little messy when you have a lot of videos all mapped at the same location (see screenshot above). This suggest that Kart hos NRK still has a little work to do in more accurately geo-tagging the location of some of the Norge Rundt clips.

The Oslo to Bergen Trekking Map

Today Bjørn Sandvik set out on an epic trek from Oslo to Bergen in Norway. You can follow Bjørn's progress live on an impressive Leaflet map. Oslo-Bergen Til Fots (Oslo-Bergen on Foot) shows Bjørn's live position, photos he has taken on his trek and an elevation profile.

The map on its own is pretty amazing. What is truly awesome, however, is that Bjørn's blog Thematic Mapping has been recording the creation of this map over the last few months. Read the blog and you can find out how the map was built and even grab some of the code behind the map.

For example, Showing Instagram Photos and Videos on a Leaflet Map discusses the Leaflet plug-in (and gives the GitHub link for the plug-in) he created to add Instagram photos to the map. Other posts on the blog explain how to use a SPOT Satellite Messenger to track and map your trips and how to create an elevation profile.

Wealth Distribution in Norway

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten is using the Google Maps API to visualize wealth distribution in Norway. The Norwegian government is proposing to get rid of the country's wealth tax. The Aftenposten map uses data from 2012 tax returns to visualize the distribution of Norway's wealth and wealth tax payers.

The map allows you to search for an address by postal code, or by city or county. If you select a location on the map you can view the number of wealth tax payers in the selected area, the total wealth and the amount raised by the wealth tax in that area. The mapped interactive is being used in a series of articles from the Aftenposten examining a range of issues raised by the government's wealth tax proposals.

Plans Verden - Helping Children Worldwide

Plans Verden is a Norwegian charity which helps donors sponsor children in need around the world. The charity is currently involved in helping children in over 50 countries worldwide.

The Plans Verden website includes a really nicely designed Google Map to help promote the charity's projects across the globe. The map highlights the countries where sponsors come from and also the countries where children are being sponsored.

When the user selects a marker from the map an information window opens which helps to explain the needs of children in that country and the work that Plans Verden is undertaking in that country, including the number of children and communities being helped by the charity.

Remembering the 2011 Norway Attacks

On 22nd July 2011 Norway suffered two horrendous terrorist attacks. A car bomb explosion in Oslo killed eight people and injured at least 209 people. Later that day at a summer camp, organised by the Norwegian Labour Party (AP), on the island of Utøya, 69 people were shot dead and at least another 110 people were injured.

One year on from those terrible attacks the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) have created a 22nd July Memory Map. The map has been created so that Norwegians have the opportunity to share their memories of the day. The broadcaster hopes that people will use the map to share where they were, what they did and how they felt.

It is possible to browse the map to read the contributions already added and to submit your own memories. Quick links are available below the map to zoom to the biggest cities.

Google Ice Maps

Iskart is a map guide to the ice thickness and condition on Norway's lakes and waterways.

Using map tiles from the Norwegian Mapping Authority (Statens Kartverk) with the Google Maps API Iskart provides a guide to ice thickness and snow conditions. The map enables users to find the latest ice thickness measurements, view webcam images and view data from real-time monitoring stations.

Street View Roulette

Here is another clever marketing campaign that used Google Maps to promote the Volkswagen Bluemotion.

To promote the Volswagen Bluemotion's low fuel consumption a competition was created called Bluemotion Roulette. The campaign used Google Maps Street View to turn a real car journey into an online game of roulette.

A Golf Bluemotion drove the E6 Norwegian road with a full tank of fuel. Using Google Maps and Street View entrants were asked to guess where along the road the car would run out of fuel. The prize for guessing correctly was a brand new Volkswagen car.

Unfortunately the campaign website is no longer live but you can see how the campaign used Google Maps in the video above.

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The Google Maps Guide to Hiking in Norway

UT.no is a complete guide to hiking in Norway. The site features hiking routes, cabins, a calendar of events and a hiking map built with the Google Maps API.

As well as the usual Google Map views the map features detailed topographical map tiles. Using the menu in the map sidebar you can select to view cabins, summer trails, winter trails, videos, articles and even current skiing conditions.

Kart - UT.no

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The Mapping Event of the Month

Hurtigruten: Minute by Minute

This is incredible and pretty mesmerising!

Norwegian Public Service broadcaster NRK are live broadcasting the voyage of the cruise liner Hurtigruten around the Norway coastline for 134 hours. As well as amazing live footage you can follow the position of the cruise liner on a real-time Google Map.

No money seems to have been spared for this live broadcast from the Hurtigruten. There seems to be a large number of cameras being used with some excellent editing between the various live views. There is also a pretty cool soundtrack, with the occasional addition of live commentary.

The event is obviously a big thing in Norway. Whilst I've been watching the voyage this morning nearly every house that has been passed has had the owners out front waving flags at the passing ship.

What makes this event unmissable however is the incredible Norwegian scenery which should be viewable for nearly the whole 134 hours, due to the broadcast being timed to coincide with the summer solstice and the Midnight Sun.

The map itself is also incredible. You can add layers of photos and videos of the cruise from a drop down menu. You can also click on the small circles on the ship's track to change from the live broadcast to watch a replay of the footage from the selected location.

There may well be no more posts on Google Maps Mania today ... as I don't think I'll be able to tear myself away from watching this.

Hat-tip: Ogle Earth

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Plotting Road Accidents with Google Maps

Norway's Killing Roads

Bergens Tidende have mapped the Norwegian Public Roads Administration’s database of road accidents. They have used Google Maps to plot 11,440 accidents to help give an overview of the extent and causes of Norwegian road accidents.

Each map marker contains details about the accident, i.e. time of day, type of vehicle, age of persons injured etc. Beneath the map are a large number of filters that allow you to create your own assemblies.

It is possible to view the data by year, time of day and by age. It is also possible to filter the results by the day of the week, speed limit, types of road and a number of other factors.

Via: patrickcain.ca

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Some Beautiful Norwegian Google Maps

Storm.no

Norwegian weather forecaster Storm.no have produced a route planner that can not only provide you with directions but can also show you the weather along your route.

The service uses the Google Maps API's driving directions service and overlays the weather forecast for locations along the route. When you enter you starting point and destination Storm.no also asks you to enter a date and time for your journey. In this way the forecast weather for the time of your journey can also be displayed on the map.

Norway Green Tours

Norway's Youth Hostelling Association has created this Google Maps guide to the west coast of Norway. The west coast of Norway is legendary for its fjords and beautiful scenery. With the Green Fjord Experience you can now plan your trip advance.

The Green Fjord Experience map shows the locations of Youth Hostels on the west coast, towns that you will want to visit and the locations of fjords and glaciers that you will want to see. Each mapped location contains brief details with a link to a fuller description elsewhere on the site.

The Norwegian Trekking Association

The Norwegian Trekking Association have produced a very useful Google Map to show trekking routes in Norway.

The map shows all the trekking routes with red or blue lines. The red lines indicate summer routes and the blue lines show winter routes. As well as the routes the map shows the locations of lodges, cabins and emergency shelters.

If you click on a route on the map you can get details of the trek (in Norwegian), including the trek's distance. If you click on a lodge or cabin's map marker you can get details about opening times and the number of bunks provided.

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The Fjords of Norway on Google Maps

Geirangerfjord and Ålesund From the Air

Norway's official tourism website Visit Norway has created a beautiful tour of the Geirangerfjord and Ålesund area. The tour features a number of 360 degree panoramic images that can be navigated via a Google Map.

Geirangerfjord is a UNESCO-protected fjord surrounded by majestic, snow-covered mountain peaks, wild waterfalls and lush, green vegetation. Thanks to Visit Norway you can now experience the fjord from a bird's eye perspective via a number of panoramic images.



The experience is rather like navigating with Street View, only from the air. You can navigate from one panoramic image to the next and you can use the inset Google Map to navigate to other images. Only, instead of the usual grimy city streets of Street View, here you get to fly above one of the most beautiful locations on Earth.



In the unlikely event that you tire of viewing Geirangerfjord, you should check out one of the other panoramic tours created by Visit Norway. You can fly over the pretty city of Ålesund, you can experience the Trollstigen Mountain Road and you can also climb the Trollveggen Mountain Wall.

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The Hells Angels Google Map

Norwegian Hells Angels Map

NRK, a Norwegian national television and radio station, are using Google Maps to show the addresses of Hells Angels' club houses in Norway. NRK say that the Hell Angels have a foothold in many Norwegian cities and have therefore created this application to show where the Hells Angels are active.

NRK have created a very nicely designed Flash application that allows readers to search for Hells Angels' club houses by province. When you select an individual club house a Google Map loads to show its location.

One nice design touch of the site is that the Google Map initially loads in black and white, which complements the overall design of the application. When you roll-over the map it then reverts to the normal Google Maps colour scheme.

Hat-tip: microformats.dk

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