Worldmapper

I read about this in the paper today and thought it was interesting enough to have its own category rather than just a link in random links. www.worldmapper.org

Using different algorithms, the people behind this website take a map of the world and skew the size of the countries to reflect whatever it is that they are measuring. A few examples.

Their standard map of the world:


Now the world, skewed according to population distribution:


And now the world skewed according to profit from tourism:


All in all, fascinating information! www.worldmapper.org

Eww, it reminds me of the balloons one would make as a kid where you poured paints in a trough of water, then rolled a balloon over it to colour the balloon with strange patterns!

Wow - Spain is huge in that last one.

Madagascar is pretty big too

wouldn't that big red splodge off the east coast of SA be the seychelles rather than madagascar?
hmmm - although thinking about it, seychelles are to the north of madagascar, i think...

am confused now

edit - well, that huge red splodge of the south east coast of africa might be mauritius or la réunion. looks on google earth like it's the right place for them. shame they don't label the places on the map, really.

the red splodge is indeed probably one of those small ones you mention but the even bigger orange blob is Madagascar I guess (seeing as it fits with the colour in the 'standard' map)

EDIT actually no it isn't - its South Africa of course (with the little blob of Lesotho inside it)

You can look at the original map to see the colour of the countries. That doesn't change.

nah, that big orange blob is South Africa, innit...

edit - as you quite rightly said

showem, it's not clear what that great big red blob is, though - not to me, anyroad

It's Mauritius and the Seychelles. Madagascar is only a faint wisp in the tourism map

Surprising that Antarctica is so densely populated and draws in so many tourist dollars

yes, that one is SA. Bit surprised that the rest of Africa gets almost nothing from tourism - always thought it was the mainstay of Egypt, Tunisia, the Gambia etc

quite a few countries have the same colour though

they are also pretty big on the tourist map (just dwarfed by Spain a bit). As is Morocco??? (sure cant be Algeria)

how can it be mauritius and the seychelles, though - they're miles apart in real life, aren't they?
Mauritius is about on a level with Zimbabwe, whereas Seychelles are on a level with Kenya

ah so they are, its just the middle of Africa that has been shrinkwrapped

exactly, its too far south for the Seychelles

Aren't these geographical threads nice

looking at the pdf file on the site, that huge red blob must be mauritius
there are some bigger islands up further north that are prob seychelles, i guess

@ boomy - yes they are
I love geogers, me

Poor Canada

So big but nobody wants to be there

That is a great website.

ER, all the better for us to get away from the riff-raff of tourists.

I'm only finding maps that are based on the population as a whole are there any that are measured per capita?

isn't the population per capita always 1?

What I meant is as a percent of population.
Which would be more useful for some of the income maps.
As it stands, Chinese women have the second highest income in the world which is a misleading figure.

Yes... per capita = per unit of population (per person).

right, see what you mean ER, yes that would be handy if they don't have such maps (I haven't looked at the site)