Mapping the Geography of Science: Distribution Patterns and Networks of Relations Among Cities and Institutes

Using Google Earth, Google Maps, and/or network visualization programs such as Pajek, one can overlay the network of relations among addresses in scientific publications onto the geographic map. The authors discuss the pros and cons of various options, and provide software (freeware) for bridging existing gaps between the Science Citation Indices (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier), on the one hand, and these various visualization tools on the other. At the level of city names, the global map can be drawn reliably on the basis of the available address information. At the level of the names of organizations and institutes, there are problems of unification both in the ISI databases and with Scopus. Pajek enables a combination of visualization and statistical analysis, whereas the Google Maps and its derivatives provide superior tools on the Internet.