Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
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.
When you think about potatoes, where do you imagine they’re grown? Popular locations might include Ireland, Idaho or maybe Poland. But would you also think of India, China and North Korea as being major producers?
The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), also known as the Baghdad Pact or the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), was one of Cold War’s weirdest and ultimately least successful alliances. This was largely the result of the improbable quintet of nations making up the Organization: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
Yet an alliance made up of these unlikely allies is not the only interesting thing to note about CENTO.
If you’re not following @sadtopographies on Instagram, you should. The account shows the places with saddest and most depressing names on earth.
Examples include everything from Cape Disappointment to Point No Point to Sad Road. And while Americans and Australians are usually thought to have sunny dispositions they also have a lot of unfortunate place names.
21 of our favourites are included below:
While the 49th parallel is often thought of as the border between the US and Canada, the vast majority of Canadians (roughly 72%) live below it, with 50% of Canadians living south of 45°42′ (45.7 degrees) north or the red line above.
The map above is one of my all time favourites. It shows Pangaea, a supercontinent that existed from 300 million to 175 million years ago, with modern international borders.
Needless to say it would make international relations a little bit more complicated. Major changes include:
The map above shows one the craziest facts about the world: there are more people living inside the circle than outside of it. However, that’s not the only thing the circle contains.
Inside the circle you’ll also find:
There are a few interesting things to note about the map.