Tube tongues: mapping languages at London tube stops

This interactive map showing the most common second languages spoken at London tube stations is fascinating and provides a wealth of information to explore. It was created by Oliver O’Brien who is a researcher in geovisualisation and web mapping at University College London’s geography department. The links with different school geography courses at GCSE and AS/A2 level are many and this map will encourage enquiry amongst students.

An article from The Guardian explaining the background to the map can be found here.

It ties into geography in a number of ways including:

• -Themes such as migration and settlement/urban geography
• -graphical skills such as interpreting proportional symbols
• -cartographical technology such as GIS
• -using secondary data such as that from the Office of National Statistics and the census

The interactive map is found here.

Examples of possible questions include:

• -Why do immigrants tend to settle initially in inner city areas?
• -Why do immigrants tend to cluster together rather than spread out?
• -Can you see any differences between the areas dominated by French speakers and those populated by Bengali speakers? Can you think of any reasons these migrants settle in these respective areas?

A reasonable knowledge of London is useful but not a requirement as students should be encouraged to carry out their own research.

A case study often used by geography teachers to illustrate waves of immigration to London is the area of Spitalfields/Brick Lane in Tower Hamlets; on this map students should recognise the Bengali community clustered in this area having replaced the Jewish and Huguenot migrants before them. They might consider questions such as: under what conditions might migrants move out of the inner city areas in which they initially settled? Which migrant group may head to Brick Lane next?

The possibilities are almost endless... Constructing this incredible map must have taken a huge amount of work so hats off to Oliver O’Brien!