You may have heard that the World Cup is currently doing its thing over in Brazil. Of course, it’s not a major event unless there are a raft of accompanying maps, and Google Maps Mania has done its darndest to compile the best of the lot.

Jonathan Crowe has an interesting post about OpenGeofiction, which is a collaborative platform where users can create maps of fictional worlds using OSM tools. Pretty neat.

Big Think’s Strange Maps Blog has a post that rolls together political cartooning, curious cartography, and questionable punning – specifically Putin crying rivers. You’ll understand when you go there.

Google Maps Mania also shows off a great way to highlight hills on road maps (on walk or cycle maps, for instance), by colouring by gradient.

Also, not that it’s really featured on any blog, but intrepid Spatial Source roving reporter Ross Johnson has alerted me to this new ‘travel by drone’ website, which tracks videos taken by UAVs, and posts them onto a map, allowing you to take an armchair holiday to some of the world’s best destinations.

Don Murray, president and co-founder of Safe Software, has posted a re-cap of the FME International User Conference on the Safe Software blog.

Finally, if you’re sick of the new Google Maps – perhaps your PC is too slow for it – Geoawesomeness has posted a method to switch back to the old one.