Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Twelve Mile Circle

  • New Urbanism Viewed through Maps

    An urban design movement began to coalesce in the early 1980’s as a counterbalance to what planners and architects viewed as the sprawl of modern suburbs arising from the postwar environment. Practitioners called it “New Urbanism“. Organizations such as the Congress for the New Urbanism began to promote its hallmarks. Some of the features typical…

  • River Headwaters and Sources

    Long is the history of adventurers who explored distant lands and tangled jungles to find the true origin of mighty rivers. But rivers are not simple contiguous lines that trace back easily to a single spot. Rather they are widely spread watersheds that drain to a common outlet. There can be hundreds of liquid tendrils…

  • USA States Called Commonwealths

    The term “Commonwealth” breaks down into two basic components to understand its meaning. The “common” portion refers to the people or to the public. Meanwhile, “wealth” refers to well being or welfare. So commonwealth is a system of government that performs in the interests and well being of the people. It exists through their consent…

  • Brunei Exclave

    Once again I find myself pondering the mapping tools available through Google Analytics. I follow those daydreams to wherever they may lead. This time a visitor from Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei Darussalam caught my eye. So mentally I set off for the Southeast Asian island of Borneo to see what I might find. A…

  • Arkansas (finally) Checks In!

    Many of you will recall my recent posting about Google Analytics. It’s a wonderful tool that Google provides for people who like to leaf through maps for hours on end. It serves as such a delightful diversion. In that post I whined a bit about a lack of traffic from Arkansas. I’d installed Google Analytics…

  • The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

    The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is an ongoing project undertaken by the Newberry Library in Chicago. When fully completed, the effort will result in the presentation of all United States county boundary changes. These stretch from their creation during colonial times all the way through the 21st Century. The Newberry Library explains why it…

  • Canada Draining to the Gulf of Mexico

    Several distinct continental divides cross through Canada. Water flows eventually to one of five different bodies of water depending on its point of origination. Huge portions of Canadian territory rest within watersheds draining to the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and Hudson Bay. However one small corner of Alberta and Saskatchewan drains to the Gulf…

  • United States Ferries Update

    Regular readers may recall a certain November 2007 post. It announced the early version of my United States Domestic Ferry Map page. So today I learned that one of my favorite sites, Google Maps Mania, has included this site today as one of its “12 great new US Google Maps Mashups and Tools”. My many…

  • Australia’s Highest Elevation

    The highest point of elevation on the Australian continent is Mount Kosciuszko of the Great Dividing Range at 2,228 metres (7,310 feet). What is lesser know, however, is that’s it’s not actually the highest point in the country of Australia. The nation does encompass territory beyond the continent. That honour goes to Mawson Peak, the…

  • Maps on Google Analytics

    I enabled Google Analytics recently on my web pages. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this tool, it involves the addition of a few lines of javascript to each page which in turn reports basic information back to the great Google mothership. It allows me to gain a better understanding of web traffic…

Latest Comments

  2. Hi Mr. Howder — Just going from memory, I recall that your “rule” for counting a nation/state/county is “if I’m…

  5. Does anyone have actual music to the song – Tanaha ,Timpson. Bobo and Blair ?? It was recorded by Tex…