Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
The map above supposedly comes from the IISS (The International Institute for Strategic Studies) and shows which countries in 1900 (using modern borders) had more active miliary personnel than the United Kingdom in 1900 compared to today.
Getting data for the numbers in 1900 is actually difficult (can’t find them published online), but Data Is Beautiful has estimates that vary slightly from the map which you can see below:
These maps come from PayrollPrices.com and show the oldest family business in every country that is still in business.
The map above is just a fun look at the Google Trends for Brilliant Maps compared to Terrible Maps over the past 12 months.
Congrats to Michael Howe at Terrible Maps for winning the US, my home country of Canada, Australia and the biggest map prize of all New Zealand.
My only consolation is that I “won” 3 out of the 4 countries I’ve ever lived in.
Here is the relative share by country:
| Country | brilliant maps: (8/12/25 - 8/12/26) | terrible maps: (8/12/25 - 8/12/26) |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina | 0% | 100% |
| Australia | 38% | 62% |
| Belgium | 100% | 0% |
| Brazil | 100% | 0% |
| Canada | 41% | 59% |
| Chile | 0% | 100% |
| Czechia | 0% | 100% |
| Egypt | 0% | 100% |
| France | 49% | 51% |
| Germany | 55% | 45% |
| India | 51% | 49% |
| Indonesia | 100% | 0% |
| Iraq | 100% | 0% |
| Italy | 57% | 43% |
| Japan | 100% | 0% |
| Mauritius | 100% | 0% |
| Mexico | 51% | 49% |
| Netherlands | 56% | 44% |
| New Zealand | 0% | 100% |
| Poland | 30% | 70% |
| Romania | 100% | 0% |
| South Korea | 100% | 0% |
| Spain | 56% | 44% |
| Turkey | 100% | 0% |
| United Kingdom | 57% | 43% |
| United States | 42% | 58% |
| Vietnam | 100% | 0% |
Although the fact that there is no data for most of the world is probably the most interesting stat of all.
The map above shows an odd fact, it includes New Zealand (frequently left off maps) BUT removes Poland for some bizarre reason.
Here’s the story from redditor Derisiak:
It is essentially the U.S. Army’s enormous fictional geopolitical universe for training exercises.
More about it:
The map above shows a rather sunrising fact: as of mid-2026 two countries in the world still have people alive who served as Heads of State for their country during World War 2.
The two men:
While it’s well known that the mercator projection distorts the world, the maps here show very clearly by how much. Countries close to the equator barely change, whereas countries further north shrink dramatically.
The maps are all the work of climate data scientist @neilrkaye.
You can see an animation below:
[Read more…]
The map above shows where in the world restaurants have a legal requitement to offer free tap water and where they don’t. Of course there is nothing stopping restaurants in areas where it is not legally required doing so, just they don’t have to.
MonotoneCreeper explains: