Explore your world with maps

We know many of you are map-lovers, so we’ve collected a selection of online maps to provoke thought and spark exploration. We’ll regularly feature a recent map of particular interest. We have included a set of maps featuring the Charlotte region, from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute’s three websites. Below those are links to intriguing maps we found online.

Featured map

Our maps

Maps we like

  • The cultural generation gap mapped - Diversity in America

  • Where There Are More Single Men Than Women

    Staff - Feb 23, 2015
    There is an interesting spatial distribution of single men and women across the United States.  What makes this even more interesting is the difference when age groups are calculated.  In almost every major metro area in the country, between the ages of 18 and 34, single men outnumber single women.  However, in the age group of 45 to 64, single women tend to outnumber single men in most of the country's cities.

  • America's quietest places

    Staff - Feb 18, 2015
    Looking for a quiet place? This map from the American Association for the Advancement of Science shows the noise levels across the country on an average summer day.

  • The most common job in every state 1978-2014

    Staff - Feb 16, 2015
    What jobs are most common in each state? How does that compare with 1978? And what happened to all the secretaries?

Articles

  • Walking in HunterWood, a Charlotte section of Cotswold.

    Charlotte has 56 “tear-down” neighborhoods: Here’s a portrait of one

    David Perlmutt - Jan 6, 2020
    The Walters-brand piano held a commanding spot for decades in Sue and Dale Riley’s den, on Charlotte’s Wonderwood Drive. They bought it for $75, used, for their daughter Megan to learn on when she was 4 or 5 (she’s 47 now). Even when she was grown and came home on weekends or holidays, the piano, ever in need of tuning, came alive again. Until recently. One bright afternoon on my daily walk, I found the aging upright kicked to the curb.
  • Construction on Wonderwood in Charlotte

    Accepting change when you can’t stop it in a “tear-down” neighborhood

    David Perlmutt - Jan 6, 2020
    HunterWood is fast approaching a tipping point, as new houses replace old. A quick walk around the neighborhood found 76 old houses (built before 2007) and 50 post-2007 houses. On my walk, I found long-time neighbor Jane Stout walking her dog. “The neighborhood is simply recycling. I get it. That happens,” she said. “I just wish the builders could be more sensitive to the surroundings. They seem to be so callous to what a lot of us like about the neighborhood.”
  • Artist's rendering of the pedestrian bridge across Interstate 277 in Charlotte

    What’s on our city’s wish list? See some gifts for Charlotte

    Ely Portillo - Dec 6, 2019
    It’s hard shopping for the city that has it all: Gleaming office towers, a new-ish light rail line, a booming population and one of the world’s busiest airports. But that doesn’t mean Charlotte couldn't still use a few gifts this holiday season. After all, despite the city’s obvious and explosive growth, there are still plenty of challenges: Housing that’s too expensive for many, a rising violent crime and murder rate, increasing traffic and low economic mobility for those born into poverty.  So, what would you get Charlotte this year, if you could gift the city anything? I took a (very informal, totally unscientific) poll on Twitter, and received more than 100 replies and suggestions. 
  • An apartment construction site at 500 West Trade Street in uptown Charlotte. Photo: Nathan Griffin

    Single-family construction once dominated Mecklenburg, but that’s changed

    Nathan Griffin - Dec 4, 2019
    After the 2008 recession, apartments came to dominate housing construction in Charlotte, reversing longstanding trends and outpacing the number of single-family buildings. What factors led to this, and will this furious pace of construction be sustainable?