I'm starting this thread as a place to keep track of some of the cool and useful tools/websites/databases people use to explore the Boston area. I come across neat tools then forget what they're called. Or someone here will post a link to some wonderful dataset and I can't remember what thread it was in a few months later. (I remember some interactive map with lots of historical traffic count data. Where the heck is that?) And I'm sure people here have interesting recommendations for things to peruse.
I'll kick off with a few (that most people here probably already know) to maybe give an idea of what I mean:
Map Junction https://www.mapjunction.com/
This is a Boston-specific website that has hundreds of historical maps and aerial views of the region. It also lets you put different maps over top of each other for comparison.
Urban Stats
urbanstats.org
This is a great website for browsing a really massive amount of demographic info. You can look at any region from a full state down to specific neighborhoods. See population, employment levels, car ownership, average commute times, obesity rates... literally hundreds of statistics on a browsable map. It has really detailed info for US and Canada, and more basic info for the rest of the world.
OpenRailwayMap https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
An interactive map of every railway in the world. You can also toggle on other info about things like electrification and max speeds.
Digital Commonwealth https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/
A really massive collection of historic photos, focusing on Massachusetts. Most of the stuff that ends up in the "Dirty Old Boston" thread, you can find here. They've also got lots of other digitized things I'm less familiar with. It looks like they're adding lots of old Massachusetts newspapers to the collection.
Map Frappe https://mapfrappe.com
Way more obscure tool, but this is just a website that lets you quickly compare sizes of things on two different maps. Use it to, for example, check the size of Gillette Stadium and see what kind of land it would take up in the city.
Please add more. Whatever you find yourself using a lot, feel free to mention it here.
I'll kick off with a few (that most people here probably already know) to maybe give an idea of what I mean:
Map Junction https://www.mapjunction.com/
This is a Boston-specific website that has hundreds of historical maps and aerial views of the region. It also lets you put different maps over top of each other for comparison.
Urban Stats
Urban Stats
Urban Stats is a database of statistics related to density, housing, race, transportation, elections, and climate change.
urbanstats.org
OpenRailwayMap https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
An interactive map of every railway in the world. You can also toggle on other info about things like electrification and max speeds.
Digital Commonwealth https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/
A really massive collection of historic photos, focusing on Massachusetts. Most of the stuff that ends up in the "Dirty Old Boston" thread, you can find here. They've also got lots of other digitized things I'm less familiar with. It looks like they're adding lots of old Massachusetts newspapers to the collection.
Map Frappe https://mapfrappe.com
Way more obscure tool, but this is just a website that lets you quickly compare sizes of things on two different maps. Use it to, for example, check the size of Gillette Stadium and see what kind of land it would take up in the city.
Please add more. Whatever you find yourself using a lot, feel free to mention it here.
