Cartagen

If you want to layer a twist to your geographic data over Google Maps then check out Cartagen, a vector-based, client-side framework for rendering maps in native HTML 5.  From the site:

Written in JavaScript, it uses the new Canvas element to load mapping data from various sources, including OpenStreetMap. Maps are styled with Geographic Style Sheets (GSS), a cascading stylesheet specification for geospatial information – a decision which leverages literacy in CSS to make map styling more accessible. However, GSS is a scripting language as well, making Cartagen an ideal framework for mapping dynamic data.

In a profile on Metropolis POV, Jeffrey Warren a MIT researcher whose team developed Cartagen, explains the intent:

“Before Google Maps, designers thought much more broadly about what maps could do,” the MIT researcher Jeffrey Warren says. “Now, most mapping on the Web consists just of using Google Maps and sticking pins on it.” In the name of reclaiming some of that creativity, he’s created a software platform called Cartagen, the latest version of which debuted last week. It uses Google’s geographic data as a starting point, but lets people choose which features to include on their maps—streets, parks, churches, and so on—and how to visually represent those features, creating their maps from the ground up. Users can also add new data, which Cartagen can represent not just as points on the map but as outlines, polygons, overlapping shaded clouds—the possibilities are still expanding as Warren’s team brainstorms new potential uses for its creation.

More information on what Cartagen is and how to use it can be found on Cartegen’s wiki.