Caitlin Dempsey

Caitlin Dempsey is a geographer, writer, and founder and editor of Geography Realm. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Geography from UCLA and a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from San José State University.

For more than two decades, she has written about geography, maps, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, satellite imagery, and environmental science. Her work focuses on making geography accessible to a broad audience through articles, tutorials, and educational resources.

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Paraná River

Caitlin Dempsey

The Paraná River runs 3,030 miles through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.   It originates at the junction of the Paranaiba and the Rio Grande rivers.  ...

Mississippi River

Caitlin Dempsey

The Mississippi River is the second longest river in North America.  Bodies of water from 31 contiguous states drain into ...

Map of heavy metal bands by country Per Capita.

Interactive Map of Heavy Metal Bands By Country Per 100,000 People

Caitlin Dempsey

Map and table showing where heavy metal bands are the most dense when compared against a country's total population.

Map of night lights showing the growth of urban lights in Europe between 1992 and 2010.

Mapping the World at Night

Caitlin Dempsey

Earth observation satellites are tracking nighttime lights around the world.

Angel of the North. © Copyright Bill Henderson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Mount Everest is the Biggest Mountain in England?

Caitlin Dempsey

If you're one of six out of ten adults in the United Kingdom, apparently you believe that either Mount Everest, Snowdon, or Ben Nevis is the answer to "What's the Biggest Mountain in England?"

Ryan Resella | Profiles from the Geospatial Community

Caitlin Dempsey

In this GIS interview, Ryan Resella discusses his experience as an inaugural fellow with Code for America last year and his outlook on geospatial technologies.

Moving Beyond Waiting for GIS’ Sally Field Moment

Caitlin Dempsey

To say the least, I was mildly boggled when I noticed that Slashgeo.org was running a poll on “Is Geospatial ...

OpenStreetMap on MapBox Streets.

OpenStreetMap: Grassroots Mapping

Caitlin Dempsey

OpenStreetMap was founded with the goal of creating and providing free geographic data to whoever wants it.

An illustrative example of distance decay using blue points and yellow arrows.

Distance Decay and Its Use in GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

Distance decay is a phenomenon observed between locations or ethnic groups- the further apart they are, the less likely it is that they will interact very much. Distance decay theory in GIS can be used for other purposes such as the effects of time and distance on public transportation ridership, crime analysis, and health care.

Getting Started With QGIS: Open Source GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

Quantum GIS is an open source GIS desktop software more popularly known as QGIS.  QGIS 1.0 was first released in ...

Ultima IV Map Exhibition Preparation – GIS in Imagery Series

Caitlin Dempsey

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is featuring an exhibition entitled The Art of Video Games which is set to run ...

What is Ethno Mapping?

Caitlin Dempsey

Maps aren’t just intended for navigation. Though most people think of maps in terms of what kind of physical land ...

Google Ancient Places: Exploring the Geography of Ancient Places in Text

Caitlin Dempsey

GapVis (Google Ancient Places Visualization) allows readers the ability to geographically explore text covering ancient places.  The endeavor is backed ...

TileMill Now for Windows.

TileMill: Open Source Mapping Now for Windows

Caitlin Dempsey

TileMill can now be used natively in Windows with the latest release.  The release of TileMill 0.9.0 also includes a new plugin system: “TileMill ...

Where to Look for Historical Maps

Caitlin Dempsey

The use of extracting data from old paper maps is growing in popularity as a method to understanding historical geography. ...

WorldMap: An Open Source Software Platform

Caitlin Dempsey

Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis recently released WorldMap, an open source mapping application designed to make it easier for researchers to upload ...

Map of 2011 Wind Performance for the United States from 3TIER.

Wind and GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

GIS  has many applications in wind mapping, analysis and modeling. Geographic data and modeling of wind performance can help site ...

GIS Industry Trends and Outlook

Caitlin Dempsey

GIS industry trends gain be gleaned by surveys and other reports produced by market research companies.  While most of these ...

ZUBAIR ISLANDS ON DECEMBER 23, 2011. SOURCE: NASA’S EO-1 – ALI.

New Baby Island in the Zubair Islands

Caitlin Dempsey

A new island has been added to the Zubair Islands off the Yemeni coast as a result of volcanic activity that erupted on December 19, 2011.

Aboveground Woody Biomass Map by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker.

National Forest Map and GIS Data

Caitlin Dempsey

Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) worked with the USGS and the US Forest Service over a six year period to create this forest map of the United States.

Caribbean Islands: the Greater Antilles

Caitlin Dempsey

A Look at the geography of the Greater Antilles By looking at a map of the Caribbean we can easily ...

Essential Geography of the United States Mapped

Caitlin Dempsey

Dave Imus is a well known cartographer who has specialized in highly detailed, hand annotated maps covering the United States. ...

With the new CryoSatApp, elevation profiles are at your fingertips. Users can select the day and orbit from which they want to extract the data, and view Earth’s ice profile from that orbit. Credits: ACS/ESA

Ice Mapping App for Smartphones

Caitlin Dempsey

The European Space Agency has released a new iOS app for accessing ice data from the ESA's CryoSat mission.  

Mapping Air Pollution

Caitlin Dempsey

Pulling real time data from the city government of Madrid, Into the Air is a project led by Nerea Calvillo (along with ...

Open MapQuest

Caitlin Dempsey

Google’s recent enforcement of Google Maps API usage, resulting in charges for those exceeding the stated free usage quotas, has ...

Historical Geography and GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

Historical GIS is the use of GIS data to document the given geography of an area in history.  GIS can ...