The accuracy of latitude and longitude markers has improved significantly in this version. In the previous version, the accuracy of latitude and longitude markers got progressively worse as you moved away from the equator.  This version corrects for that bias.  You can see the improvement in the following screenshots:

Old version (1.2)...Notice how Stockholm is inland.

New version (1.3)...Stockholm is in the correct place.

In the previous version, Stockholm is clearly too far inland.  The bias also existed, but was less severe, for other cities like London that were not as far away from the equator. If you find any errors in our maps, please contact us so that they can can correct them in future updates. Thanks!

Phil offers the following Apache configuration code to fix the issue
by excluding file types and browsers known to have issues.

However, the Mod_Deflate documentation itself suggests a Sample
Configuration that may be preferable.

This opt-in scheme will only target the content types you specify.
You get the most compression bang-for-your-buck by compressing
uncompiled code files, like (X)HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.  So, add
those content types to the rule, as well, along with any other simple
types of data your server commonly transfers.

Browsers change, and new file types emerge.  The opt-in method
protects you from these changes.  It probably garners less bandwidth
savings than the opt-out method, but also fewer support issues from
clients, when their Flash toys end up broken on the odd browser.

You can buy this beautiful interactive europe map for only $99. You can learn more about the map by visiting:  http://www.flashworldmap.com/europe.php.  We are considering adding similar maps for continents such as the Middle East, South America, Oceania and Asia.  If you would be interested in one of these maps or something else all together, please contact us and let us know.  We do our best to add new products to meet customer demand.

Updated – 3-7-2011

A few days ago I posted about suicide rates.  Then, I came across this article talking about the happiest states.   I decided to visualize the happiness data so you could compare and contrast it against the suicide rates.  Interestingly, some states, like Wyoming and Alaska have both high suicide rates and very high rates of happiness.  Happiness rankings were based on the following measures:  life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical healthy; healthy behavior, and basic access. Both maps were made in minutes using this free state statistics software.

Happiness by State

Suicide Rate by State

The rate is per 100,000 (2006)

———-Original Post on Suicide Rates———

The other day I was talking to a colleague who was considering taking a job in Seattle, Washington.  However, he was hesitant to take a job in place with so much rain.  This led to a debate about the relationship between weather, depression, and suicide.  This isn’t a topic to be taken lightly, but there are some interesting relationships when you map the suicide rates of different states.

Data comes from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  It is interesting how suicide rates are higher in the West.  Might this have something to do with more lax gun control policies that make suicide attempts more likely to succeed?  I don’t have any agenda here, but feel that state visualizations like these are important tools to better understand national trends on serious issues like suicide.  If you would like help adding a map like this to your site, please contact us.

Addendum – 4/10/2011

If you are interested in this topic you should check out the work done by economists Daly, Oswald, Wilson and Wu on The Happiness-Suicide Paradox (forthcoming Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization).  They find a spatial relationship between suicide and happiness after accounting for individual characteristics like race, income, education and more.  They’re not suggesting that happier people are more likely to take their own lives. Rather, that “personal unhappiness may be at its worst when surrounded by those who are relatively more content with their lives.”  In other words, cheerful people impose negative externalities on discontent people.  Definitely, a thought provoking theory worthy of further exploration.

Note:  Replace instances of yourdomain.com with the domain of your site.

1. Go to your main “quick navigation panel”. This is the panel where you select your pages to design.
2. Click on upload files.
   

   Step 2

3. This will take you to the upload files page.
4. Check the “place images in folder” box.
5. Click browse and find the location where you downloaded the map.xml and usmap.swf files; select both of these and click upload.
   

   After you have uploaded your files

6. Your files will appear at the bottom of the page. Click each one to test that the map and the xml code appears.
7. Republish your site.
8. Go to http://www.yourdomain.com/uploads/usmap.swf.  Your map should appear.
9. Go to the web page where you want insert the map. Click on “insert” and “block”, then “insert” then “script”. Copy the installation script found in the installation guide PDF.
10. Replace usmap.swf?xmlPath=map.xml with http://www.yourdomain.com/uploads/usmap.swf?xmlPath=http://www.yourdomain.com/uploads/map.xml
11. Your map will only show a script box in design mode; until you view pages or publish.
    

    Finished map! Don't forget to publish.

1.  To embed a map in a post or page. The easiest way to do this is to use the plugin Kimili Flash Embed.  After you have activated the plugin, you will see a little flash icon appear in your toolbar when you are writing a post.

Clicking on this icon will allow you to embed your map.  You need to edit the following fields:

1. Width and Height: 500 X 309 for a U.S. map and 550 X 349 for a world map.
2. Flash (.swf): This is the location of the .swf file that you uploaded.  For example: http://www.flashmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/usmap.swf
3. fvars: This tells the .swf where to find the XML file.  It should be “xmlPath=” followed by the location of the xml file.  For example for the US map this might be: xmlPath=http://www.flashmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/map.xml (Note: xmlPath is the name of the Flash Variable for the current versions of both the US and world maps).

That’s it!  Your map should be working.

2.  Add the map to a theme file.  If you want to add the map to a theme file you need to use a different approach.   For example, say you want to put a map on the homepage.  You need to edit index.php and insert the code from the documentation making two small changes:

1. Replace the relative url of the .swf file with the  absolute url for the .swf file. For example, http://www.flashmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/usmap.swf instead of usmap.swf.
2. Add ?xmlPath= to the end of the .swf url.  Then paste in the absolute url of the xml file.

An example of what the code should look like is as follows:

And in a form that you can copy/paste:

That’s it! Your map should now show up in your theme.

Why is this so difficult? Because, WordPress  is a content management system (CMS). When you write a new post it automatically creates a new webpage on your site.  This is really convenient, because you don’t have to mess HTML or uploading a new web page to your server.  However, what many people don’t realize is that the pages on your blog don’t actually exist. If you create a post called “dogs” there is no file called dogs.html on your server.  Instead, when some goes to http://www.yoursite.com/dogs your server directs them to a template file and fills that file with information from a database.  The actual template file that is being shown exists at http://www.yousite.com/wp-content/themes/templatefile.php.  So, when you embed the map the Flash file is looking for the XML file at http://www.yoursite.com/map.xml when it should be looking elsewhere.  To fix this problem, we have to tell the Flash file exactly where to find the XML file using an absolute url.  Both of the solutions above do just that.

If you have any questions about the process, leave a comment or contact us for support.

You may have noticed that we have changed the look and feel of the map.  We’ve changed the labels to white to make the map softer.  Also, based on feedback from customers, we’ve decided to increase the opacity of the tooltip (the background is not as transparent anymore).  This should make it easier to read text that you’ve included in the <description>.  These design changes will be reflected in the newest update of our USA map as well.

The other main difference with the Canada map is the dimensions of the country.  The United States is shaped like a wide rectangle while Canada is shaped more like a square.  By default, the map is 500px X 500px, which makes resizing nice and convenient.

If you’re in need of an clickable map of Canada for your website, download the free trial.

What to do?  You could change the name of the XML file.  But, that can be a hassle if your data changes frequently.  I don’t want hundreds of XML files piling up.  The simple solution is simply adding a random parameter to the end of the url pointing to the xml file.  In this case, I specify the location of the XML file using FlashVars.  My code looks like this:
url=map.xml
If I want to keep browsers from caching the file I add a random parameter to the end like so:
url=map.xml?1234567
You want the random character to be something that changes all the time. I just use a time stamp. In php the code looks like this:
url=map.xml<?php $time = time(); echo “?”; echo $time; ?>

How this helps someone!

This was a difficult feature to implement because the world is a globe and when you project that globe onto two-dimensional space the latitude and longitude lines are not evenly spaced or perpendicular lines.  Solving the problem is particularly difficult for the Robinson Projection.  This is one of the most popular map projections.  It was popularized by Randy McNally in the 1960′s and is considered to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing projections of the globe.  However, unlike other projections it isn’t based on a nice formula.  Rather, it is based on an ad hoc table of input values that were chosen to look good.

To figure out how to take latitude and longitude coordinates and project them into x/y space  I had to wade through this journal article (the find articles version omits this very important table).

The process is not exactly straightforward.  You need to convert latitude and longitude into radians.  You also need to extrapolate for values that are between rows in the table.  After many frustrating hours I finally coded up some Actionscript 3 that will transform lat/lon into x/y coordinates.  These x/y coordinates are based an origin located in Africa.  So, to get them to work with Flash which has an origin in the upper left corner takes some adjustments.  Of course, you also need to scale the x/y coordinates based on the size of your map.  For the code to work, your map must be a Robinson projection and have a width that is 1.97 times the height.  I wrote some directions to walk you through the process.  As you work, use this resource for verifying output values.

————————-Download the Code————————-

1.  Robinson-Projection-Actionscript3 Code (.as)

2.  Directions on Scaling and Use (.txt)

——————————————————————

All code is licensed under the GPLv2.  This means that any derivate works that you create using the code must be released under the same license.  If you wish to use this code in a product you want to resell, you need to ask for permission by contacting me.