One day last week my daughter called and asked if I'd seen an article on the Washington Post website that she'd found particularly interesting. I sought out the article and was immediately hooked. Dear Readers, I give you 40 Maps That Explain the World.
This is a fascinating collection of information that attempts to put world events and history in focus by setting forth 40 sets of demographic, geographic, social, and linguistic information in the form of maps. This is not the same as the wonderful Strange Maps blog which you can visit from my link list, but it gives you more potentially useful information (rather than cocktail-party small talk). Here are a few of the maps I found most interesting (click on the maps to enlarge for easier reading):
Writing systems of the world (hey, I'm a linguist ... I think it's neat)* ...
And finally, a map showing the locations of the world's last 26 monarchies ...
Someone like Mike, retired and snowed in with nothing else to do, ought to be able to spend hours on this article. And it ought to be interesting for the rest of you, too.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
* You will note, Trekkies, that Klingon and Romulan are not listed anywhere on this map. If you want to see those, go here.
5 comments:
The whole article sounds interesting for a later-on today read. But I found the Geographical Anomalities one to be especially intriguing. Crown colony fiscal refuge, autonomous reservations, French islands, Narco territory.
According to the map, Sweden is the most economically equal place to be. Canada is more equal than we are. South Africa is very unequal.
I recommend the second map on the WP site: the countries where the people are most and least welcoming of foreigners.
Many interesting maps. The WP gave some new insights on the way the world is.
I like the languages one.
I've got 40 maps ready to go for a blog also. A few are the same but most aren't. Maybe I'll wait until next week so as not to map out everyone.
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