Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
The map above shows which states require front and rear license plates vs those that only require rear license plates across the US. Overall, the majority of US states (62.75%) and a majority of people (62.73%) live in states that require both.
And in case you’re wondering about the two exceptions they are:
The map above shows global terrorist attacks with more than 20 fatalities over the last 15 years.
While there have been several tragic attacks in Europe and North America, it’s the people of Asia, Africa and especially the Middle-East who have been the primary victims.
In 2014, deaths from terrorism increased by 80% from 2013, with a total of 32,658 victims.
78% of all deaths and 57% of all attacks occurred in just five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria. With Iraq continuing to be the country most impacted by terrorism with 9,929 terrorist fatalities, the highest ever recorded in a single country.
To understand the timeline of these attacks watch the time-lapse video below:
The European Union’s (EU) 28 member states vary enormously in population. From tiny Malta with just 425,000 people to Germany with 81 million. But what if they all had the same population? How would the map look?
The map shows the Greater London commuter belt, or more specifically the percentage of workers who work in London, but live outside it.
How many people are killed by sharks each year? 100,000? 10,000? 1,000? 100? 10? As you can see above, it’s much lower. Only 7 people in the entire world were killed by sharks in 2014.
Yet, how many sharks were killed by people?
Note the first paragraph was written when the post was first published in 2015:
As France and the world continue to come to terms with the aftermath of France’s darkest night since World War 2, it’s perhaps worth remembering that France is the only Republic on which the sun never sets.
The true map of France above shows that France is more than just a European country, but one that stretches around the globe. And as the world stands with France in this dark time, it’s important to know that the light of the sun has not abandoned it.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr
If you would like to support victims of the Paris attacks consider donating to the Red Cross and/or to Doctors Without Borders
The map above shows the Facebook friendships from the approximately 1.1 billion active Facebook users in 2013.
Amazingly, that number has grown by another 450 million people, with Facebook now claiming to have 1.55 billion active users and this despite some rather obvious black holes above.
The Platypus is native to Australia, and was not encountered by Europeans until as late as 1798. Yet despite their relatively recent discovery, there is no agreed upon etymology for their name across European languages, as you can see in the map above.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that most people who read Brilliant Maps, probably have little to no idea about the ethnic make-up of Venezuela. Fortunately, geographer Gabriel S. Dávila was kind enough to share his beautiful interactive map with us.
The screenshot above shows the percentage of Blancos (Whites) by region in Venezuela, but also includes layers for Amerindios (Indigenous people), Morenos (Brown / Mestizos) and Negros (Blacks). Just click on “Visible layer” in order to activate/deactivate one of the previous layers or have a look at the maps below:
It’s official (well at least if Google can be trusted) the US prefers dogs over cats. We arrived at this conclusion simply by comparing monthly Google searches for the term ‘dog’ compared to ‘cat.’
However, the map above does not tell the whole story.