Satellite image of crowds on the Mall

[bananas]

Source: CNN

Click and drag the image to view. Hold shift key to zoom in, control key to zoom out.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/mall.satellite/

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Found this on some blog:

http://coralnotesfromthefield.blogspot.com/2009/01/inauguration-from-space.html

Inauguration From Space
Perhaps you've already seen this on CNN, but head here to check out an amazing composite image of The Mall from this morning's Presidential Inauguration.

You can zoom in and out and pan across The Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capital Building. If you look hard, you might see Karen James, Angelo Villagomez, or Jennifer Jacquet who all witnessed and participated in history.

[struggle4progress]

1. Wow. The Feds really planned for crowd-control, didn't they?

[Turborama]

2. Great interactive image, thanks for the share K&R

It's funny, I thought there wouldn't be any room for people to move around, but it looks like there was loads...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. when were these images taken?...it was either very early or long after the 12:00 ceremony

look at the long shadows....my guess is it wasn't anywhere near noon

[Turborama]

4. According to The Washington Post website...

On the homepage's slide show...

"An image taken at 11:19 a.m. shows dark brown masses of people on the Mall. (GeoEye Satellite Image)"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nid=top_news&reload=true

[Roland99]

7. 11:19am and shadows *that* long at this time of year??

[Uroboros]

5. Yeah noticed that early myself

I think the anchor on CNN (when this was first presented) said this was sometime before 12 but after 11am (11:38am maybe. I forget). But the shadows do look pretty long for being close to noon. I'd attribute it to the fact that the sun is lower in the sky during the winter months; but the shadows still SEEM rather long for that time of the day. I say seem because what do I know. :)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. and where is the ice?...the potomac is frozen and the reflection pool and ponds too

[jdporter]

10. not length. angle.

I don't think shadow length is a reliable guide.
But angle should be. Judging by the angle, I'd say it couldn't have been much after 11, if at all.

[sofa king]

11. Here's more on using the WM as a sundial.

http://home.netcom.com/~abraxas2/washdial.htm

The fifth image down (a copyrighted image which I don't want to link) shows a map with time lines and date declinations, with the February 22 line being the curved one near the top of the image. If the time is between eleven and twelve, the shadow should appear to the right of the old ovoid parking lot for the Washington Monument, pointing toward the center of the Ellipse, and in fact it is pretty close, but much closer to 11am than 12 pm.

Edit: I should add that as a longtime resident of the area and a frequent visitor to large gatherings on the Mall, I think that's a sh!tload of people. Usually, when half a million or so people are there to watch the fireworks, the crowd gravitates toward the river/stage and is concentrated around the Washington Monument, and the Mall near the Capitol is usually vacant past the Smithsonian castle.

The Mall is divided into cells by cross streets, and I count nine concentrations of people in the stadium-sized rage (stadiums with people filling the field, too), with several smaller concentrations in one cell of the mall, on Maryland Ave, and along Pennsylvania Ave. That's just an awesome display of humanity there! And not a single damned arrest all day.

[sofa king]

13. And still more.

Here's a comparison I made between RFK Stadium and one "cell" of the Mall. My guess is that there must be between 50,000 and 100,000 people standing in that one section alone, and there are at least eight other crowds almost as large and even much larger. Wow!



An estimate like this cannot account for many thousands more who are in shadows or standing far enough apart from one another that they don't show up in the picture. It doesn't account for the lines of people still streaming over the bridges between Virginia and DC, nor for those north of the White House in the Dupont Circle area.

[liberal N proud]

6. That picture shows a large crowd still outside security

[Hissyspit]

9. It took a long time to get inside and some people didn't make it.

[undeterred]

12. Looks like bugs or an ant hill

[comtec]

14. wow

just... wow