Map of West Bengal #India

If you've noticed, I added a TripIt badge to the sidebar, which shows that I'm going to Kolkata (Calcutta) on Thursday.  This inspired me to create a map of West Bengal, complete with inset map showing the location of West Bengal in India:

I used two data layers, one for the map of West Bengal, and the other for the inset map.

You may download a zip file containing the map of West Bengal in JPEG, PDF, and ArcMap (.mxd) formats.

#India: areas under irrigation map

After being unhappy with the maps in Brahma Chellaney’s book Water: Asia's New Battleground, I decided to create my own map of areas under irrigation in India.

For this map, I used irrigation data from the global map of irrigation areas from AQUASTAT, the FAO's global information system on water and agriculture.  Data shows the percentage of irrigated land per 5 arcmin cell, which is approximately 8547 hectares: someone check my calculations!

Source: Stefan Siebert, Petra Döll, Sebastian Feick, Jippe Hoogeveen and Karen Frenken (2007) Global Map of Irrigation Areas version 4.0.1. Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany / Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

The number of cells in the AQUASTAT data set is huge: 4320 columns x 1260 rows = 5,443,200 cells.  To bring this down to size, I clipped the map to the area of India.  Even so, I had more data than ArcMap could handle (max: 10,000 items) in computing equal percentage intervals (see the map legend).  Nonetheless, the resulting map corresponded well to the Global Map of Irrigated Ares.  The Ganges River basin is the most irrigated area in the world.

You may download the map of irrigated areas in India in JPEG format or the map of irrigated areas of India in PDF format. Alternatively, if you would like to muck around with the map itself, download the ArcMap document showing irrigated areas of India.

Rivers of India with Landsat imagery

Here is another map I created of the rivers of India, this time with Landsat imagery:

You may download the map of the rivers of India in JPEG format or the map of the rivers of India in PDF format. Alternatively, if you would like to play around with the map itself, download the ArcMap document showing the rivers of India.

Tales from River Brahmaputra

Source: amazon.com via Julie on Pinterest

Namaste, 

I'm only on page 60, and Tales from River Brahmaputra by Tiziana Baldizzoni is already proving to be a better book than Rivers of India. It has a superior pressing and stunning photos. It's easy to overlook the text, which is filled with lore about the Brahmaputra.

It seems to be a little thin on the coverage of the river's course through India.

Reproductions of antique maps are provided on the back side of the front and back covers.

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Rivers of India

Rivers of India by Sunil Vaidyanathan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Cheap pressing. Simplistic text. Single fold-out map features rivers symbolized with thick blue lines. Would have liked more detailed maps for each of the chapters.


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OK, I would have liked better maps, so I created my own with data in ArcMap, using free data from Esri:

Rivers of India

The map has been formatted to a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet (US).

You may download the JPEG image of Rivers of India or the PDF file of Rivers of India from Google Drive.  One problem is the overprint of place names, but I couldn't toggle the options on and off. :-(

Alternatively, if you would like to play around with the data itself download the Rivers of India ArcMap document (.mxd). 

Review of India: A Sacred Geography

India: A Sacred Geography by Diana L Eck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

India: A Sacred Geography is a lyrical account of the sacred places in India. Although it was not Eck's intent (and she expresses anguish at Hindu nationalism), she inadvertently proves that India is a nation based in Hindu culture by highlighting the interconnectedness of sacred places in India.

Each chapter is illustrated by maps with a level of detail appropriate to the subject matter. I have faulted other books on India for their poor maps, but not this book.

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Review of Water: Asia's New Battleground

Water: Asia's New Battleground by Brahma Chellaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an ambitious, nay, overly ambitious book. Brahma Chellaney covers inter- and intra-state water conflicts across Asia (including the Middle East!)

Riverine issues have interested me since I traveled along the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River in Tibet and India. No wonder why Tibet matters so much to China: by controlling Tibet, China controls the headwaters of the great rivers of Asia. Chellaney devotes a whole chapter to the Tibetan Plateau. Sadly, but in time-honored Indian fashion, India ceded its advantages to India.

The maps in this book are not particularly useful and illustrative of the text.

Water: Asia's New Battleground won the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

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