Maps Show Where Tourists Go—and Where Locals Do

GEOGRAPHY

If you want to find tourists snapping pictures, you probably know where to go—Times Square in New York City, the Embarcadero in San Francisco, or Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. But what locals think is picture-worthy in these cities is often substantially different. (Washington Post)

Use our resources to better understand urban geography.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas
Take a look at some maps of global tourist destinations. (Note there are two pages!) Red indicates photos taken by tourists. Blue indicates photos taken by locals. (So dark purple areas indicate heavy overlap between tourists and locals.) Yellow indicates photos that could have been taken by either a resident or a tourist.

Where do you think tourists are taking pictures in these cities?

Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Map by Eric Fischer, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-SA-2.0

 

Paris, France
Paris, France
Map by Eric Fischer, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-SA-2.0

 

Chicago, Illinois
Chicago, Illinois
Map by Eric Fischer, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-SA-2.0
  • The red line running along Michigan Avenue is Chicago’s famous “Magnificent Mile,” which is part of the city’s “Loop” business district. The Magnificent Mile includes elite retail shops, hotels, and five of the 85 tallest buildings in the world. Jutting into Lake Michigan is the tourist-friendly Navy Pier.

 

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Map by Eric Fischer, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-SA-2.0

 

Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Map by Eric Fischer, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-SA-2.0

Orlando is the home of some of the world’s biggest theme parks. That’s Universal Studios Orlando to the north, Sea World due south of Universal, and the Disney complex to the southwest: the Magic Kingdom, Epcot (with the circle), Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Now click through the cities in this gallery. What do they have in common? Why?

  • All these cities seem to have no locals taking photos!
    • The absence of local photos might be due to the fact that these are urban areas with highly concentrated business districts. Most residents would likely be working downtown, with little time or inclination to snap photos.
    • The cartographer gathered his information solely from geotagged Flickr images. There is a good chance that many local residents are simply not uploading their everyday personal or family photos to Flickr.

 

 

 

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

Washington Post: Fascinating maps show the different places locals and tourists go in 19 major cities

Locals and Tourists: A Map Series by Eric Fischer

Nat Geo: AP Human Geography: Cities

2 thoughts on “Maps Show Where Tourists Go—and Where Locals Do

Leave a Reply