40 Maps They Didn’t Teach You In School By the time we graduate high school, we learn that they never taught us the most interesting things in there. Sure, you might be able to name the European countries or point New York on the map, but does that give a you real understanding of how the world functions? To fill this gap, we have gathered a great and informative selection of infographical maps that they should’ve shown us at school: every single one of these maps reveals different fun and interesting facts, which can actually help you draw some pretty interesting conclusions. Show Full Text What makes infographical maps so engaging is how easy it becomes to conceive graphically presented information. The best part, there are brilliant services like Target Map that “allow everyone (from individuals to large organizations) to represent their data on maps of any country in the world and to share their knowledge with the whole Internet Community.” Trust us, these are way better than the ones they taught you at school!
The Most Disproportionately Well-Paying Job in Each State 8513 25Share1 Click to enlarge Get rich quick schemes rarely go according to plan, so unfortunately you're going to have to do some work if you want to make it big. Still, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, you might want to check out what state is going to pay you the most for the same job. Business Insider found the jobs that make the most money in each state versus the national average. The Afternoon Map is a semi-regular feature in which we post maps and infographics. November 11, 2015 - 4:25pm ©2016 Mental Floss, Inc. Origin of crops |click on pic by Colin K. Khoury, Harold A. Achicanoy, Carlos Navarro-Racines, Steven Sotelo, and Andy Jarvis at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Version 1.0 (May 2016). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This work is associated with the publication: Khoury CK, Achicanoy HA, Bjorkman AD, Navarro-Racines C, Guarino L, Flores-Palacios X, Engels JMM, Wiersema JH, Dempewolf H, Sotelo S, Ramírez-Villegas J, Castañeda-Álvarez NP, Fowler C, Jarvis A, Rieseberg LH, and Struik PC (2016). About the circular plots Each region has a color representing its own “native” crops and those colors are connected to other regions due the importance of those crops in the diets/agricultural production in other regions. Methods and code for the plots were derived from The Global Flow of People by Nikola Sander, Guy J. About the data
MapCrunch - Random Google Street View Mongolia Adopts An Innovative System of 3-Word Locations The idea is simple enough. Wouldn’t locations be easier to remember if we traded in complicated GPS coordinates for simple and memorable three-word phrases? That’s the idea behind what3words, a new system that—in the words of Big Think’s Frank Jacobs in his entertaining article on the system—is “doing for geolocation what domain names did for IP addresses.” That is, make them easier to share and to remember. (Read Frank’s article—it’s fun.) what3words has divided up the earth into 57 trillion three-by-three-meter squares and created an algorithm to assign each one a three-word name. You can also find the name of any location using their website’s interactive map. what3words estimates 4 billion people live in locations without a numbered street system, and it’s difficult for these people to open bank accounts, receive deliveries, or even be contacted. It’s not that surprising it’s Mongolia, well-monied these days thanks to its vast mineral deposits.
A Real Map of the Middle East Could this map be any more different from the previous one discussed on this blog? That one dealt with the water, wetlands and shifting shorelines of Louisiana. This one zooms in on lines in the sand of the Middle-Eastern desert. Yet both maps do something similar: knowing that our current maps no longer reflect reality, they replace their conventional wisdom with a new cartography, based on the new facts on the ground. For Louisiana, that means a shoreline that bites much deeper inland. The Middle East has been in turmoil since the so-called Arab Spring of 2011, with the Syrian civil war as its bloodiest consequence. Here, the colonial-era boundary system known as Sykes-Picot has broken down, apparently permanently: few can envision a return to a unitary Syrian state – or a unitary Iraqi one, for that matter. The Syrian central government (in light grey), based in Damascus, controls a coastal strip of territory in a patchwork shared with a number of rebel forces.
How to make infographics: a beginner’s guide to data visualisation | Global Development Professionals Network As a growing number of international NGOs are using infographics, charts and interactive maps to share success and highlight disaster, how can organisations with less resources create high quality visualisations without having to pay to outsource them? We’ve put together a beginner’s guide for visualising development data. Organising your data The first thing you need to do is have a clear idea of the data you want to visualise. Are you trying to highlight a particular disparity between money spent in one place and another? Are you trying to show a volume of activity going on in one location? Let’s imagine I’m running a campaign calling for better sanitation worldwide. While I have data for over 10 years, I just want the figures for 2000 and 2012, so the first thing I need to do is remove any irrelevant columns and rows (tip: save a separate copy of the original first). Before... After... Once you’ve cleaned-up your data, you’re ready to visualise it. How to build a chart How to build a map
Global inequalities in population, wealth, and religious origin shown in six maps. This map of Canada shows the country's familiar vastness. A single line drawn across its deep south adds a surprising layer of information. The line runs well below the 49th parallel that constitutes that long straight stretch of U.S.-Canada border from Point Roberts, WA to Lake of the Woods, MN (see also #519). Split in two by the U.S. state of Maine poking north, the line traverses four eastern provinces, cutting off the southern extremities of Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick. Nova Scotia is the only province that falls mostly below the line. Amazingly, what the line does, is divide Canada in two perfect halves – demographically speaking: 50% of Canada's 35 million inhabitants live south of the line, 50% north of it. Canada's three northernmost circumscriptions (Yukon, Northern Territories and Nunavut) cover about 40% of Canada's total area, but only count around 100,000 people (less than 0.3% of the 35-million total). And there's more. Want more curious dividers? Strange Map #782
Six maps that will make you rethink the world Save We don’t often question the typical world map that hangs on the walls of classrooms — a patchwork of yellow, pink and green that separates the world into more than 200 nations. But Parag Khanna, a global strategist, says that this map is, essentially, obsolete. Khanna is the author of the new book “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” in which he argues that the arc of global history is undeniably bending toward integration. I spoke with Khanna about several of the incredible maps from his book, which he uses to illustrate some proposals for our future world that might, at first glance, seem pretty far out — like dividing the United States into seven economic mega-regions or politically integrating North America. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. One of the most impressive maps in your book is the map of the world’s mega-cities. The example of Johannesburg and Pretoria, the capital cluster of South Africa, is revealing.
42 maps that explain World War II by Timothy B. Lee on November 13, 2014 World War II was a great tragedy, claiming 60 million lives and throwing millions more into turmoil. Yet the war also spurred rapid technological development, hastened the end of colonialism, and laid the foundation for institutions like the United Nations and the European Union. Here are 42 maps that explain the conflict — how it started, why the Allies won, and how it has shaped the modern world. Background World War II, animatedWorld War II was the biggest conflict in world history, with major battles on three continents and some of the largest naval engagements in history. The Axis (and the Soviet Union) attacks Japan and China were already at war in 1937People often describe World War II as beginning in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The Allies besieged Tens of thousands of British troops escape from DunkirkThe war in France didn't go well for the Allies. The USA and USSR are drawn into the conflict The Allies retake Europe and Africa
Mapping the Affordable Housing Deficit for Each State in the U.S. Every single county in the U.S. lacks affordable housing, and in no state can someone earning a minimum wage salary rent a two-bedroom apartment at market rate. A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition paints a fresh, grim picture of this ongoing affordable housing crisis. Using 2014 American Community Survey data, the report’s authors calculated the number of units families earning below 30 percent of the median income in their areas could rent comfortably, without devoting more than 30 percent of their income towards housing. Overall, the report found that only 31 such units existed for every set of 100 poor families in the U.S. These findings reveal “an alarming reality about housing for extremely low income households,” Andrew Aurand, vice president research at NLIHC said in press release. But the national deficit—appalling as it is—masks even more dire housing gaps in several states. In total, 20 states fared worse than the national average.
667 - Pop! Goes the World: 7.2 Billion and Counting | Strange Maps by Frank Jacobs The world has added over 800 million people over the last decade – a number so vast it is almost meaningless. Unless you convert it to more familiar units of measurement: Four Brazils. Two and a half times the U.S. More than half of China. Both maps compared here were published on July 11, World Population Day – the first one in 2004, the second one last Friday. World Population Map for 2005 (6.4 billion) The U.N. designated July 11 as a day to 'reflect' on population issues, in commemoration of the fact that humanity passed the 5-billion mark on that date in 1987. World Population Map for 2015 (7.2 billion) Projected population growth between 2005 and 2015 represents an increase of about 12%. Let's zoom in... North America N. N. By 2015, North America will have added about 50 million inhabitants, most of which in the U.S. (+26 million) and Mexico (+13 million). South America S. S. Europe Europe Pop. 2005 Europe Pop. 2015 Africa Africa Pop. 2005 Africa Pop. 2015 Middle East E. E.