US Territorial Expansion: 200 years mapped with d3/HTML5

Very cool. Personally I find animated maps to be the easiest way to digest this kind of data (like the animation of nuclear testing[1] or walmart proliferation[2]). Looks like it would only take a few lines of javascript to accomplish this kind of "flipbook" animation. Just a thought -- great job regardless.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=51" rel="nofollow">http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=51</a>

I'm personally really curious about the "other territories" that US has control over (overseas) as a result of wars and other political events.<p>Examples [1]:<p>* The Line Islands (? – 1979): Disputed claim with United Kingdom, all U.S. claims were ceded to Kiribati upon its independence in 1979.<p>* The Panama Canal Zone (1903–1979): sovereignty was returned to Panama under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1978; the U.S. retained a military base there and actual control of the Canal until December 31, 1999.<p>* The Corn Islands (1914–1971): leased for 99 years under the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, but these were returned to Nicaragua upon the abrogation of the treaty in 1970.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States#Classification_of_former_U.S._territories_and_administered_areas" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_State...</a>

April of 1803 was a big month for the US.<p>From Wikipedia:<p>&#62; The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America in 1803 of 828,000 square miles for a total sum of 15 million dollars (less than 3 cents per acre) for the Louisiana territory ($233 million in 2011 dollars, less than 42 cents per acre).<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase</a>

Interesting. I've been through first 10-15 maps, no mention of American Indians. Did I miss something. It mentions about other nations (British, Spanish, Russian) but no mention of Indian Nations.

The purchase of Alaska in 1867 shows the panhandle as immediately being part of Alaska.<p>This does not take into account the Alaska boundary dispute[1] which, although officially resolved in 1903, is still disputed by many Canadians.<p>(Note: I live about an hour away from the "disputed" border)<p>[1]<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute</a>

Similar, but for Europe (which has had much more border changes):<p>* Maps every 100 years (0 → 2000) <a href="http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/index.html</a><p>* <a href="http://historicalatlas.com/" rel="nofollow">http://historicalatlas.com/</a> Software and videos of border changes

Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Phillipines (after the spanish american war), Virgin Islands..

As a Canadian, I am a bit offended by the handling of the Oregon territory/Columbia District. It is marked as unclaimed when in fact, it was claimed by the British. Then, it is marked as US territory when it was, at best, disputed. I suppose the Treaty of 1818 made it "shared" territory (and to be fair, the explanatory text explains this), but I still find it misleading to label it as US territory. Finally, the territory was split with the Oregon Treaty to form the current border.

It's in the About/Credits (which I initially missed), but fwiw, the source of all the text and dates here is the following Wikipedia article (which in turn cites "proper" sources, if you're curious about details): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_Un...</a>

The legend should probably be open by default. It is kinda annoying to keep referring to it, and it hides away in two seconds :)<p>I also agree that this kind of visualization is better served with having an animation, and an ability to select specific points in the timeline. I like the small multiples visualization, but the individual map view could be better.<p>I'd also like to add that having the year show up on hover only is another pain-point. It should be rendered below each map as well.

This I did not Know:<p>"In July 1777 delegates from 28 towns met and declared independence from jurisdictions and land claims of British colonies in New Hampshire and New York. They also abolished slavery within their boundaries."<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Republic" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Republic</a>

Thanks for this, extremely cool. I feel like I just relearned a lot of things I had forgotten/skipped out on in grade school.

I would like to see this with the faded background being black, or alternatively the entire continent of North America, as opposed to an outline of the US today. Sort of gives it away and distracts from viewing and appreciating the expansion.

I was at your talk @ Rocketspace. Thanks for sharing your stuff! For more cool D3 stuff from (the guy who wrote d3) check out his site: <a href="http://bost.ocks.org/mike/" rel="nofollow">http://bost.ocks.org/mike/</a>

In the blown up view of a map, the tooltip goes underneath the year if the two meet.<p>Chrome Version 22.0.1229.94 OSX<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/nk0F9.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/nk0F9.png</a>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War</a><p>Hey, we owned the whole Philippines for a while.

I just showed this to my U.S. History teacher and he loved it.

Its beautiful! Great work, but I have one issue:<p>"Mexico" in references to "New Mexico" is linked to "Mexico" as in "Old Mexico".

I thought this was going to be much more interesting and include the US occupation of foreign countries via military bases.

Any idea how the maps themselves were created? Were they edited using some SVG editor like Inkscape ?

UI looks great, except the default scroll-bar on the "Highlight Changes" section.

Would be interesting to see a view including territories and possessions

Does anybody know what the deal is with that top sliver of Texas?

July of 1868 is a little jacked up, shows up more than once.

Texas and Georgia were still not back in the Union in 1870?

Well done!

:/ One of Britain/the UK might be more interesting.<p>Also, where's Alaska?

html5? how irrelevant.<p>The only thing html5 about this is the doctype, a header and a footer tag. The maps are svg not canvas.