World Mapper

The World Mapper Collaboration has more than 350 of these "density-equalising maps," on its website, www.worldmapper.org. Each cartogram re-sizes countries according to the variable being mapped. For example, the cartogram above left shows the relative prevalence of HIV worldwide. The map categories include: goods, services, resources, work, income, housing, education, poverty, health, disease, disaster, death, polution, violence, and many others.

Small quiz: of the maps below, which shows relative malaria deaths? Which shows military spending in 2002? Which shows electronics exports?

You can download pdf posters of all maps for teaching material. For more information on the map-making technique, see worldmapper website, or Michael T. Gastner and M. E. J. Newman (2004) Diffusion-based method for producing density equalizing maps Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101, 7499-7504. Maps copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).