The UK’s Telegraph recently posted an interesting slideshow to its website, one that distorts the size of countries on a map based on a number of factors, like number of tourists who visit, prevalence of train travel, and level of carbon dioxide emissions. Here are a couple of the maps from “The Atlas of the Real World”… (more below the fold)
Number of International Tourists
The size of each country in this map is proportional to the number of visits from international tourists the country receives. As you can see, Western Europe, particularly France, Spain, and Italy, receive huge numbers of visitors, while South America and Africa have almost disappeared from the map.
Rail Travel
No surprise here. India, China, and Japan dominate this map, which seeks to compare countries based on the extent of their rail networks. As those visitors to South America can attest, if you want to get around, you’d better learn to love the bus.
Alcohol Consumption
This map shows a country’s total quantity of alcohol consumed. The Chinese, though not known as particularly heavy drinkers, still consume the most alcohol in the world. There are over a billion of them, after all. Notice the Middle East, which is largely Islamic and where alcohol consumption is verboten, can barely been seen on this map.
Go here to check out the whole slideshow.