Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
The maps below look at how long each state has voted for the same party in US Presidential elections. The maps come from 270toWin and I highly recommend you visit to play around with all their tools.
It should be noted that the states show the current number of electoral college votes as of 2024, not the number of votes they had that year.
Now on to the maps:
The map above shows the rapidly shifting alliances during the 1910s in the Balkans. Over the course of the decade three different wars were fought there with very different alliances and outcomes.
More about them below:
The hidden text: ‘Well, there’s speculation that it’s due to a mantle hotspot.’ –a geologist who’s trying to cover up the fact that they didn’t hear your question
And for more here’s an explanation from Explain XKCD:
The map above shows the 10 happiest countries in the world based on the World Happiness Report 2026.
And as you can see all but 2 are European countries. From the report:
The following 5 maps show just how big a geographic area Iran covers compared to the United State’s other major post-WW2 wars.
All size comparisons come from TrueSize.net
The map above shows an interesting fact. While the majority of Sikhs live in India and Sikhism itself comes from there, the country with the highest share of Sikhs is not India but Canada.
The map below shows that only 3 countries have a Sikh population above 1%:
You can learn more about each section on the National Trails website here.
More about it below:
The following maps all come from data taken from Special Eurobarometer 545 Gender Stereotypes published in early 2024.
And it should be noted the surveys included both men and women in roughly equal number.
The full methodology can be found here.
I’ve published the maps below along with the underlying data so you can make your own conclusions:
The map above was created by Instagramer Matt Shirley and the data comes from his followers.
If you like this sort of map, you’ll probably like his book A Visual Learner’s Guide to Being a Grown-Up.
Here is the full list: