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The shapes of the world (maps)

dailymail.co.uk — What if the world map were drawn based on things other than size? Say, military spending or alcohol consumption or even toy imports. Scroll through these maps and enjoy the the differences.

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  • a12k, on 10/10/2007, -13/+8canada doesn't drink....
  • tehbored, on 10/10/2007, -1/+22Ah yes, 2002. Back when we didn't spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined (only 45 %). Also, I thought Russia would be bigger for alcohol consumption.
    • Frnnkdlxx, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4Yeah. It's nice to see my continent of Africa is a leader... In SUCKINESS! Good thing I prescribe to conspiracy theories! Otherwise i'd go ahead and commit suicide.

      FYI - the 1500 map of the distribution of wealth was innacurate. There was no proper indeces of any extraneous nations wealth outside Europe.
    • FiP0, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Concerning russia'alcohol consumption, I suppose it the same case as Canada : They may drink a lot (or maybe it's just a cliché ?), but the country is so big, that the population density is very low...
    • ICSU, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Regarding Russia: I think those stats fail to include home-made alcohol.
    • seraph582, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0They do. It is a well known fact that alcohol abuse is more prevalent the further away from the equator you go. This map is total *****. It must go by just plain totals instead of total divided by population or something. What a freakin crock.
    • nonymous666, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Regarding Russia... as the article states, the alchohol map doesn't take population density into account.
  • MasterThief117, on 10/10/2007, -5/+32It looks like someone went crazy with the liquefy tool in Photoshop.
  • Zique, on 10/10/2007, -0/+63More maps like that (300+): http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/thumbnails/mapindex1-12.html
  • dallascorbin504, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16All the Canadians are too stoned to drink!! I need to move there myself.
    • xxNIRVANAxx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9I'm trying my hardest to bring up that percentage.
  • rhylan, on 10/10/2007, -4/+26Nice to see my country (Britain) is a world leader...

    ...even if it is for alcohol consumption
    • 0crabby0, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5Congratulations

      The alcohol map is inaccurate - Argentina should be larger with all of it's wine consumption...lol
      • rhylan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Thank you - there's going to be proud single teenage parents all round Britain whose eyes are going to be welling up after hearing this...

        God I love my country
  • wafflez, on 10/10/2007, -12/+56AMERICA! ***** YEAH!
    • bajesus, on 10/10/2007, -5/+20That is the only appropriate use of the caps lock button
  • TJATL, on 10/10/2007, -7/+6Where's the map of wanna be socialists and neo-commies?
  • RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -10/+3"What if the world map were drawn based on things other than size?" - you mean... like it already is?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection

    The current world map greatly distorts the size of things - making things toward the poles (like the US and Canada) seem much bigger than things toward the equator.
    • Buckiller, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7thats why we use globes as our maps
      • RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Did you read the article? All the images are flat-plane projections.
  • consoneo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+55So, the basic theme here, is Africa is ***** up.

    That's what you should take away from this whole thing I think..

    It's amazing how bad it is :(
    • dark2025, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Yeah, it seems that in all the maps that might indicate health in a region, Africa's just a thin line. Amazing when contrasted with the some of the negative things like HIV prevalence. I really wish the nations of Africa would stop fighting and reinvest all the money spent on military into education, hospitals, and social welfare in general.
      • kuzotz, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2social welfare will just make them lazy and not want to work

        /sarcastic remark to mock the republicans and Bush supporters.
    • Urusai, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2Sub-Saharan Africa's fundamental problem is that it never developed beyond the tribal stage of civilization. They never developed a substantive philosophy in particular, which provides a rational means of uniting men together in a productive manner. Societies where tribal and familial ties are paramount tend to suffer from major corruption and competition problems. South America has a similar albeit lesser problem.
      • JediPrime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1No civilization has started where Africa is a become what they are. Not America, not Great Britain, not Rome nor Greece. They all benefited from the ideas, knowledge, and culture of those those that proceeded them. Whereas, that part of Africa has endured much hostility and detachment from the world up until recently.
        • wholly2b, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0What are you talking about? The human species, it is widely believed, originated in Africa and spread throughout the rest of the world. The main causes behind a civilization developing (we're talking thousands and thousands of years ago, mind you, when all this happened) are geography and resources -- large land mammals, productive crops, etc. The reason sub-Saharan Africa didn't really develop past hunter-gatherer tribes is because of Africa's geography -- those huge deserts prevented cultural diffusion across the continent. Similar story in Australia until the Europeans arrived. Read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond to understand why civilization turned out the way it did.
    • jessssss, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1or that the US is pretty spoiled..
    • ICSU, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4They have cheap houses apparently.
  • robszol, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16where's one that makes Canada look big...hmm
    finally!

    http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=59
    • jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1They finally found something important from our north Mexico.
    • Burn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1And Australia, wow.
  • univerio, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18Look who's selling all the toys! Look who's buying all the toys!

    Suckers.
  • danewb, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Goddamn. Military spending and America is practically the size of the globe itself. Now I feel safe. Except for if the government gets pissed and decides to kill it's population. Then we'd be screwed.
  • RawOysters, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Great perspective to view the world from!
    • jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2One of the coolest things I've seen on Digg in a long time.
  • MackPrime, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14Australia's alcohol consumption is way too low on that.
    • markwilcox, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0I believe it's the total, and not per person. NZ is even smaller lol
  • ShadySpace, on 10/10/2007, -2/+20Man, we should really do something about Africa.
    • ICSU, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3We tried and those are the results (see wealth comparison 1500-2002).
    • thatmarkguy82, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Lets see, we could:
      a) stop building bombs and feed them.
      b) stop drinking and buy them food.
      b) throw toys at them.
  • over9, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9house prices in japan is really ***** up.
  • gratajik, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7This one probably helps explain why the government seems to keep backing the RIAA, and why we keep trying to get other countries to enforce RIAA-like rules:

    http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=99
  • BevansDesign, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Does anyone know of a program that'll let me do this type of stuff on my own? I love putzing around with graphs and charts and stuff.
  • junk2006, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13its ironic that U.S. has the biggest military budget but it has no wars
    • elilyons, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4I don't think it's that ironic. An argument could be made that having a large military prevents having a full out war. You could argue that is why the cold war was just a cold war, much better than having an actual one...
      • wholly2b, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I would argue that the cold war was just a cold war because of the mutually assured destruction provided by both sides containing absurd stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
  • Weip, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2uh where is Canada? Noob country.
  • davidrools, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8Asia drinks a lot...is that why they can't drive?

    (just a joke, and im half chinese)
  • blitzer, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4This should really be per capita. Countries like Canada, Australia and Russia look really small, simply because of their large territory and smaller popluation.
  • kuzotz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=206

    extremely accurate!!!
  • Skanadian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12I was looking at all the blue thinking it was US and Canada. Then I realized Canada was squished above it.

    :(
  • skinturtle, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Yup..the one about drinking is wrong. Newfoundland itself (Canadian Province) should be bigger than America. You can buy liquor anywhere there. Plus in Nova Scotia the whole french shore...man ole man them guys drink! Every one have moonshine distillers in their backyards!

    But having George Bush as a president I suppose could drive most of the population to drink
  • gutterboy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Japan, you fat bastard!
  • evanmyers, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5oh man, I thought it said Oreos.

    http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=61
  • agarfield2004, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I'm guessing Alaska gets evenly distributed along with the rest of the US, because I don't think housing prices are that high up there.
  • Backlash, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Who wants to make a widget? I want a random map on my dashboard daily!

    http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html

    Go.
  • KingGorilla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0America loves toys!
  • spyd3rweb, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2Africa needs to get off its ***** ass and develop
    • jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1 it's time they start pitching in their fair share of carbon emissions like the rest of us. AIDS and warring and stuff is no excuse
      • Prathik89, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Thats just DUMB. How can you even think US, UK, CHINA etc can even COMPARE to the countries in Africa?
  • mewhunter67, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0they're called demographic maps... or something like that... been a little time since i've done geography. they've been around for years.
  • brotherfranciz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Whoa! Look how big Hong Kong is in the "Toy Exports" cartogram - those green island blobs with the light blue (sea) wrapped around it...
    • Terr01, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yeah, I saw that before reading the text, and I thought: "I know that outline!"

      I think odds are that a lot of the actual manufacturing is done in China, but that companies are based in and transport through Hong Kong.
  • cr1t, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I must say that it is funny that America has the highest spend on Millitary and Afrika the highest war and death ratio also we HIV is bit of a downer but you can't beet Africa for better deal on property.
  • ph00tbag, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Everyone needs to look at that war deaths map and wonder if maybe something should be done about the Congo.

    Just maybe.
    • wholly2b, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0"maybe something should be done"? What do you suggest should be done? And who should do it? If you say America then golly I'll be annoyed.
  • unitheory, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1when i saw the "alcohol consumption" map, for a second i thought a drunk person had tried to draw a map..
  • oblongmouth, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1As much as I like this content, there's no way that I can digg this article - the daily mail is the biggest pile of ***** pushed through people's doors in the UK after the Sun (or possibly equal to)
  • Dylan47, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1lol @ toy exports and military spending!
  • brandempire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Japan hits the bottle way more than I thought...
    • jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I want to see a map of Karaoke participation worldwide
  • fragsta, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Those things have been in my University's students union coffee house for ages now.

    Sheffield! Woo!
  • seraph582, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0DUGG LIKE A MOFO FOR THE KIERA KNIGHTLY AD ON THE SIDE
  • dstz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1"Man, we should really do something about Africa."

    We've actually done much and been greatly rewarded for it. Oh, you're speaking of the African interest ? silly me.
  • dstz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"Per capita would obviously make sense, however look at the map for carbon emissions. http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=295
    Australia is small, however per capita they should be as big as the US:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CO2_per_capita_per_country.png

    So your wrong, dumbass."

    To put in perspective when people are raging against Chinese pollution, folks.
  • arjunt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Under the two maps of 'Wealth of Nations', check India.
  • binorgog, on 08/07/2008, -0/+1I just confirmed that, I am a visual learner.
  • jubilanttiger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1INDIA-Go Baby Go, its your time now! :)
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