Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Looking at the world differently



Image above: A cartogram from the Worldmapper site.


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Worldmapper: the world as you have never seen it

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. These types of maps are called Cartograms (equal area cartograms, otherwise known as density-equalising maps) and are a way for us to see the differences across the world in terms of an unlimited number of social, economic, cultural and geographical criteria.There are now nearly 700 cartogram maps  on the site that you can explore. 

Your task is to pick just 10 maps that interest you and write a brief summary of what the map shows.


Some additional information on the Cartograms

Colours and regions
The colours used on the maps group the territories into 12 geographical regions, and allow for an easier visual comparison between the maps than would otherwise be possible. The shading of each territory within a region is consistent throughout all of the maps.
You can view a labelled territory map with the territories labelled, and also a labelled regions map

Data files
When you choose a map to view, there are links at the bottom to download a data file giving the values used for all 200 territories, a graph (usually a cumulative frequency one) of the data, and a top 10 or 20 table (and the original data used, and its source).