I’ve been working on doing a massive overhaul of the maps page. There were some issues with Leaflet.js, the map creation app that I’ve been using. Also, I’ve wanted to create a more granular, more accurate set of maps than I’d previously had.
What’s up now is a map showing census data from Russia, Ukraine, and Romania. The data gathering is slightly different in each country, so it shouldn’t be seen as comparing apples to apples. Russia is complete, Romania is complete, and Ukraine is nearly complete. The biggest surprise so far is the vast range covered by Gagauz speakers in Ukraine. Crimean Tatar is pretty much only in Crimea, while Karaim is very scattered. These are the only three Turkic languages covered in the 2001 Ukrainian census (at the village level), so that’s all I can show.
Once Ukraine is done, I have a lot of work to do:
- First, I need to edit the code so users can select only a single country or certain languages.
- Next, I plan to continue to search national census/statistics websites to see if this kind of granular information is available elsewhere.
- I’d like to include other types of maps where this data is not available. The Georgian census, for example, had province-level data about Azerbaijani speakers that I’d like to include is some other format.
- Finally, I’d like to restore some of my former maps: Baraba Tatar dialects, Khalaj and Urum villages, etc. Each map needs to have properly cited sources to ensure that anyone looking at this site isn’t comparing very different types of information.