Novelist and UC Riverside professor of creative writing Susan Straight has created a literary map of America, collaborating with ESRI to locate and label the settings of 1,001 novels that celebrate America, from small towns and city neighborhoods to ranches, bayous, deserts, and frozen tundra. To see the selections and their associated places, see storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/997b82273a12417798362d431897e1dc?item=13

Tourism was up sharply in 2022, but ticket sales at some of the world's most famous art museums still lagged pre-pandemic levels, in some cases by more than 30%, as this geo-graphic from Statista shows: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/30018.jpeg

Indonesia has about 14,000 islands, and Bali is often thought of as the "party island." Because the windy season begins in July each year, one of Bali's key festivals during July and August is the Bali Kite Festival. Kite making and kite flying play an important role in Balinese Hindu culture, and these kites are BIG: up to 10m long and 4m wide, with tails that can exceed 100m! www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/color-and-magic-fill-balis-skies-with-the-return-of-a-beloved-kite-festival

This article from Politico analyzes the geography of gun-related deaths in the context of U.S. cultural geography. "The geography of gun violence — and public and elite ideas about how it should be addressed — is the result of differences at once regional, cultural and historical. Once you understand how the country was colonized — and by whom — a number of insights into the problem are revealed. ... The reason the U.S. has strong regional differences is because our swath of the North American continent was settled by rival colonial projects that had very little in common, often despised one another and spread without regard for today’s state boundaries. ... As expected, the disparities between the regions are stark, but even I was shocked at just how wide the differences were and also by some unexpected revelations." www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/23/surprising-geography-of-gun-violence-00092413

Eighteen U.S. states have passed some sort of law circumscribing the teaching of race or race relations in public schools. This map shows the 18 states and where each one currently stands on the new AP African American Studies course. (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/18/states-review-ap-african-american-studies-class/.)

Foods represent a key intersection between biogeography and cultural geography.  This article from Geographical (UK) looks at the importance of the nsenene, a seasonal, edible grasshopper, to communities in Kampala, the capital of Uganda: geographical.co.uk/culture/ugandas-beneficial-nsenene-feast

A handful of acres in Jerusalem contain some of the holiest sites of both Islam and Judaism, as this map suggests. The accompanying article from The Washington Post explains why the area is a religious and political flashpoint and why it may be in the news more often with Israel's current government: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/05/temple-mount-al-aqsa-ben-gvir-israel/

Corporal punishment in schools is legal in the 19 states shown on this map (the darker the color, the higher the rate of corporal punishment, as reported to the Department of Education). Roughly 75% of all corporal punishment cases occur in four states: Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas, with Mississippi having both the most cases and the highest rate of corporal punishment.  (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/14/states-teachers-paddle/.)

This geo-graphic shows how COVID changed beer consumption in a sampling of countries, but it also points to significant differences in the cultural context of beer consumption:   www.statista.com/chart/27875/drinking-beer-at-home-vs-out

Banned Books Week just concluded.  This map from Quartz looks at book bans by state: i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/f243d7078b90019860ee2c5356763ac3.jpg

Food reflects the intersection of physical geography and cultural geography. This article looks at breakfast around the world: www.cnn.com/travel/article/breakfast-food-around-the-world/index.html

Historically, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was considered an autonomous subordinate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (long considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox Church) announced its intention to grant autoencephaly (religious independence) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at some point in the future, causing the Russian Orthodox Church to sever communion with Constantinople. In January 2019, after intense opposition by Russia, which reportedly included involvement of Russian security services operating in Ukraine, various factions of the Ukrainian Orthodox community agreed to unification, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was granted autoencephaly by Constantinople shortly thereafter. Since then, more than 2,000 Ukrainian parishes have switched from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to the newly unified and independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This map, created by a Reddit user 5 years ago, hints at the complexity of Orthodox Christianity in Europe and the Mediterranean. preview.redd.it/y2s27pd5oobz.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=cd386b0ae22f56b311ce36bfa4000926bf6f70d1

The Penn Museum's free, online At-Home Anthro series is designed to introduce K-8 students to topics and hands-on projects in archaeology, anthropology, and world cultures. Upcoming events feature Pomo basketry, Middle Eastern incantation bowls, and weaving with recycled materials. Classes are live on Tuesdays 1:00-1:45 ET: www.penn.museum/events/kids-family/at-home-anthropology-live

This map from Bloomberg combines educational attainment and prevalence of knowledge/professional/creative jobs to identify the top U.S. metropolitan areas for knowledge work. Top regions for knowledge work: the San Francisco Bay area, the Boston area, and the Washington, DC area.  Between 2010 and 2019, San Francisco saw the most growth in knowledge workers, followed by Pittsburgh and St. Louis.  (Map from www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-16/the-top-u-s-cities-for-knowledge-workers.)

War is bad for landscapes and cultural preservation.  Ukraine has 7 sites that have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and another 17 sites that are on a tentative list for prospective inclusion. To find out more about each of these sites, you can click on the site names or locations on this interactive UNESCO map: whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/UA

Egypt was once the bread basket of the ancient world. Today, it is the world's biggest importer of wheat. This map features the 10 biggest importers of wheat over the last 4 years -- with Egypt, Indonesia, and Turkey in the top three -- suggesting these countries are likely to feel the pinch of rising wheat prices and possible wheat shortages with Russian and Ukrainian wheat off the market. Egypt's heavy reliance on imported wheat coupled with its long political tradition of subsidizing bread makes it particularly vulnerable to crisis.

The Winter Olympics have not been the only major sporting event this month: soccer's Africa Cup of Nations recently came to a close, with Senegal winning its first Africa Cup trophy, beating Egypt on penalty kicks. This map shows Senegal and the countries that have won the Africa Cup at least twice. cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/26680.jpeg

In tonight's College Football Playoff National Championship game between the University of Georgia and the University of Alabama, more than half the country is rooting for Georgia, according to the sports betting site BetOnline. This map shows the state-by-state breakdown: pbs.twimg.com/media/FIo1splX0AQHFD_?format=jpg

According to a recent report by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, an estimated 4.3 million Americans (corresponding to 1.3% of the U.S. population) is Native American. In Bolivia, by contrast, nearly half of the population is indigenous. www.statista.com/chart/19633/countries-by-indigenous-population-in-the-americas

This New York Times article highlights an important aspect of cultural geography in central Africa: the role of cows, as wealth, as status, and as an important nutritional source. In Rwanda, milk is the drink of choice in bars, hot or cold, fresh or fermented. www.nytimes.com/2021/10/09/world/africa/rwanda-milk-bars.html

Recent street battles in Beirut -- reportedly started when Christian militias fired on Shi'ite protesters, who then fired back -- brought Lebanon's complex religious geography back into the news. This map, based on voter registration data because Lebanon has not had an official census since 1932, illustrates the issue:
i.pinimg.com/originals/be/0f/96/be0f960be4f6f80b6dfec38eaea99ab6.jpg

By comparing population genetics, researchers have concluded that the practice of building moai -- the huge carved "heads" found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and elsewhere in Polynesia -- may have originated on a single island in the Tuamotus, a lightly populated archipelago of nearly 80 small atolls near Tahiti that remains part of France. www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/092121_bb_polynesia_inline_desktop.jpg (Map from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna-genetics-how-polynesia-settled-migration-islands-pacific-ocean)

Religious identity is a key component of cultural geography. The Public Religion Research Institute recently released a report on religion in America, combining data from the 2020 Census with nearly 500,000 interviews with people across the U.S. The report has loads of interesting maps and graphs detailing the American religious landscape:  www.prri.org/research/2020-census-of-american-religion/

Although domestic tourism might be rebounding, the slow pace of vaccination in much of the world is expected to continue to depress international tourism. In fact, a recent UN report expects 2021 to be nearly as bad as 2020 in this regard, with estimates that global tourism will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 or later. This geo-graphic shows the 10 countries that are expected to take the biggest hits to their economies in 2021 because of the lack of tourism. www.statista.com/chart/25202/gdp-losses-by-country-due-to-a-pandemic-related-reduction-in-tourism

Long ago, Native American communities were moved to or allowed to exist in marginal lands, lands that Euro-American settlers, miners, or the U.S. government didn't particularly want. Those marginal lands are now proving to be particularly vulnerable to climate change. This article looks at the intersection of physical geography and human geography via the current impacts of climate-related changes on Native communities -- from rising waters and melting permafrost in Alaska to extended drought in the Southwest and the Ozarks to coastal erosion in the Pacific Northwest -- and the tricky question of who is supposed to "fix" the problem. www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/climate/climate-Native-Americans.html