Worldmapper: A New Way to View the Planet

An interesting website run by a collaboration of cartographers and other researchers offers, "the world as you've never seen it before." Worldmapper contains 366 maps each of which re-size territory according to a specific subject of interest. For example, with a couple of mouse clicks, you can see a map of the Earth where each country's size relates to the number of people living in cities, or the number of tractors working.

Not surprisingly, the U.S., Europe and Japan tend to be greatly exaggerated from their true size in the wealth and income maps. Africa and most of Asia, what we think of as the "third world" tend to increase in size whenever the categories are poverty and disease. However, it's one thing to know the numbers. Seeing displayed the way Worldmapper does adds new meaning to it, and can be kind of fun.

The site is sponsored by the University of Michigan, the University of Sheffield, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Geographical Association.