Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time
I’ve seen a lot of bad maps in my time, but the one above has to be among the worst. Vexillology or flag maps can be a beautiful thing when done right. The map above, on the other hand, is hilarious in its randomness.
The cartogram above is an updated version of this one from 10 years ago. Since that time a few things have changed.
What if Hitler and the Nazis had won World War II? This is perhaps the greatest historical ‘what if’ of all time. The map above shows just how close they came.
This has led both novelists and historians to speculate about might have happened if Germany had won the war and how they might have done so. Below we’ll look at a few fictional scenarios (with maps) where they do win and what that means for the rest of the world. This will be followed by some historical speculation about whether or not Germany really could have won.
Why is America so fat? Well as this faux Time magazine cover created by Ricky Linn shows, it may be because the country looks like a man gorging himself on an Alaskan-sized burger.
As difficult as it may be to believe, the The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18th, 1920, less than 100 years ago. It stated that: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” In plain English, it gave the vote to all women of voting age.
However, before its passage, not all women had been denied the vote as the map above demonstrates.
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Constantinople has been the capital of 4 different empires during its long history. The Roman, Byzantine (or Eastern Roman), Latin and Ottoman empires all coveted the city due to its strategic and commercial importance.
The Scottish Watershed separates the drainage and river systems that flow east into the North Sea from those that flow west into the Atlantic. The map above shows its route from the English Border to the North of Scotland at Duncansby Head (near the more famous John O’ Groats).
Or, as Peter Wright (one of the only people to have walked it) puts it:
Locating a working loo in London is not always easy, especially on the Tube.
The lack of toilets on the London Underground, is just one of many complaints Londoners have with the network that celebrated it’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 2013.
Looking at the tube map above it’s easy to see why. In zone 1 (central London), only Baker Street (men only), Shoreditch High Street and Hoxton have any toilet facilities within the gateline and none have baby changing facilitates. Only when you get outside of central London do you start finding stations that actually have toilets in them.
The map above shows the relative size of the world’s 26 largest islands. Combined they cover 7.7 million square km (roughly the size of Australia) and have 540 million people living on them (behind only China and India).
If you’re curious to learn a bit more about them, below you can find their names, what country (or countries) they belong to, their areas and the population of each island (data from Wikipedia):
Inspired by the popular map of Which Countries Are Due East And West Of The Americas, this version looks at the same for British Isles (UK + Ireland), with North and South added in too.