Submarine cable maps: 1901 v. 2009

This is what the world's submarine cable system looked like in 1901, according to the Eastern Telegraph Company.

This is what it looks like now. [Image via Telegeography]

[#1 posted by NoahApples, April 17, 2009 12:00 PM]

I had no idea that there were that many submarine cables already by 1901!

[#2 posted by ZoopyFunk, April 17, 2009 12:16 PM]

These images are fascinating, especially that there was an undersea cable from N. America to Australia in 1909! Crazy. Is it national cable day, or are you all restricting yourselves to(nearly) one topic per day now?

[#3 posted by Agies, April 17, 2009 12:32 PM]

@2 They are doing pereodic theme days.

[#4 posted by drtwist, April 17, 2009 2:20 PM]

the first transoceanic cable was layed in 1866!
John Steele Gordon has a good book on the story of the first transoceanic cable called "A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable" that's a fun, quick read.

[#5 posted by desiredusername, April 17, 2009 3:26 PM]

All the links are to maps that are too tiny.

[#6 posted by MooseDesign, April 17, 2009 3:49 PM]

Thank goodness the new map designer had the good sense to make it Amerocentric!

[#7 posted by RyanH, April 17, 2009 4:10 PM]

Amerocentric actually makes sense in this case. There are very few undersea cables running between, say, Russia and England or China and France. So it makes sense to split the map in the middle of Asia/Europe.

[#8 posted by zackly76, April 17, 2009 6:23 PM]

A close friend of the family is the captain for a cable-laying and repair ship. They go out and repair and put down the fiber optic lines. The ship is really cool - big reels of thin fiber and the whole massive ship is controlled with a freaking joystick.
a cool thing to visit, for sure.

[#9 posted by killdeer, April 17, 2009 8:21 PM]

Nice thumbnails you got there (insert goofy.jpg)

[#10 posted by Trilby, April 18, 2009 2:05 AM]

@6 Well, in the old map it's definitely centred on England, because that's where all the cable came from; it was designed to connect the Empire. And the first transatlantic cable was laid by one of Brunel's ships, I think.

[#11 posted by tzed, April 18, 2009 6:29 AM]

Bruce Sterling wrote a novella-length history of undersea cable for WIRED magazine in December '96.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html

[#12 posted by Anonymous, April 18, 2009 2:06 PM]

@tzed Great article, but it's Neal Stephenson

[#13 posted by Telecustard, April 19, 2009 10:05 AM]

http://atlantic-cable.com/Maps/index.htm

for better quality maps.

[#14 posted by Anonymous, April 19, 2009 4:03 PM]

wow, they're a lot straighter now.

[#15 posted by Otter, April 19, 2009 4:34 PM]

@11--Neal Stephenson, you mean. It was that article that made me a devoted fan. I still have the issue of Wired around somewhere.