* The Trib web apps team has a nice side-by-side comparison of today's wards and the ones that will go in place in 2015.

* Due credit to the Chicago City Clerk's office (@chicityclerk on Twitter) for releasing the new map in handy computer-readable form.

* You've probably heard about the city's snowplow tracker, which shows where they are; now some Chicagoans, including open-government advocate Derek Eder, have built a map to show where they've been.

* The Woodstock Institute has a data snapshot of vacant properties in the city.

* With all due respect to the mapmakers above, I think Frederick Thrasher's 1926 map of Chicago gang activity is my favorite Chicago map.

* Daniel Huffman, creator of a wonderful set of river-system-as-transit-system maps, has an essay on how cartography saved his life, and a reflection on the clever, short-lived mapping software LineDrive.