Featured Map for 13 September 2011:
Great Circle Mapper's 15th Birthday

The Great Circle Mapper turns 15 today, counting from its public announcement. Since that start, users from at least 170 countries have generated over 170 million maps, including 4.5 million last month.

Businesses use the site to evaluate aircraft performance, potential airline routes, commercial and military charters, alternative refueling stops, and carbon offsets. Teachers use the site to teach students about geodesics. Frequent fliers map their flying and plan future trips. Virtual airlines display route maps and operations. Rescue and relief efforts use the site's search capabilities to find airports near disaster areas and to find the closest search and rescue (SAR) base. Some poeple simply have fun with the site.

Today's Featured Map shows an approximation of where maps were requested from over the span of a few weeks earlier this year. Latitude and longitude data was derived from geocoding of IP addresses using hostip.info, a relatively coarse (and sometimes imprecise) estimate of locations. The map was pre-generated due to the large number of points and limits on URL lengths.

References and additional information:

• Great Circle mapper; sci.aeronautics.airliners WWW page news
• Great circle flight path display (24 September 1996)
• Featured Maps: The First (14 January 2010)
• Featured Maps: Great Circle Mapper 14th Anniversary (13 September 2010)