Once again, FOAF (that’s Friend of a Friend to the uninitiated) has come to the rescue with some incredible world maps. These maps remind me of Edward Tufte’s book on The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/index .
I’m sure that these maps are available somewhere on the Internet and, if you find out where, please give me the originator so I can credit that source. In the meantime, enjoy the graphical descriptions.
This map shows the world divided into 7 sections (each with a distinct color) with each section containing 1 billion people.
More people live inside the circle than outside of it.
This map shows (in white) where 98 percent of Australia’s population lives.
This map shows what is on the other side of the world from where you are standing. For the most part it will probably be water.
This map shows the countries (in blue) where people drive on the left side of the road.
This map shows countries (in white) that England has never invaded. There are only 22 of them.
The line in this map shows all of the world’s Internet connections in 1969.
This map shows the countries that heavily restricted Internet access in 2013.
This map shows (in red) countries that were all Communist at one point in time.
This map shows (in red) the countries that don’t use the metric system.
This map shows (in green) all the landlocked countries of the world.
And this is what the world would look like if all the countries with coast lines sank.
This map shows the longest straight line you can sail. It goes from Pakistan all the way to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia for a total of 20,000 miles.
This is a map of 19th century shipping lanes that outlines the continents.
This map shows the most photographed places in the world.
And this map shows all the places where you can get eaten by a Great White shark!
Curmudgeon at Large 
Fascinating! Whole blogs could be written on each map. Oh, where to start?
Wait…Are you sure i can’t get eaten by a Great White Shark living in Michigan? I read a National Enquirer article once that indicated I could, and I’ve been pinning all my hopes and dreams on that one simple notion.
Since you have been pinning and hoping for it, I grant your dream to be eaten by a great white shark in Michigan.
YESSS!!!
The Great White Shark one is handy-dandy. I’ll think about that the next time I go for a swim…
The trick is to swim in water that is only ankle deep.
An outstanding collection to factoids to ponder.
I’m filled with ponderable factoids.
My wife calls my ponderable factoids as useless.
I love maps — especially when I just have to look at them and not follow them!
See my earlier comment on how I can get lost using maps, GPS, the night sky, breadcrumbs…
Looking at those maps was lots of fun.
Yes, I appreciate the effort that the person who made them went through.
This is fantastic! Thank you for sharing. I reblogged it. Hope you don’t mind!
Reblogged this on Errors-Ways and commented:
Very cool!
Thanks for the re-blog.
Maps are fascinating even if you sometimes get lost following them new places and all that !!!
Now, instead of getting lost using maps, I get lost using the GPS.
These are great, Curmie!
At first, I thought I spotted a flaw in the population map, counting only six colors. Then I realized that the two greens were separate, the America’s and southeast Asia’s. They look the same color on my screen.
I particularly like the one showing countries that do not “use the metric system”, although it might more accurately be labeled, “do not make the use of the metric system mandatory.” The tool industry in the U.S. has a powerful lobby. Burma (Myanmar) can’t be bothered.
Some of the colors are too close in appearance, like the two in the population map.
It would be too convenient if we could go anywhere in the world and always drive on the same side of the road and measure in the same units.
These maps are a great find! Just think how happy the sharks in the last map would be if the countries with coastlines all suddenly sank…
I believe that we don’t need to make sharks happier.
Fascinating. I especially like the maps showing where populations are concentrated.
It’s somewhat startling how world population is concentrated.
These are fascinating. Thanks for posting them. That world-population one is really eye-opening.
Visual representation often gives eye-opening results.
Hi Mudge … please do more of these for Carrie … and Hi Carrie.
Okay, now I see you’re just really behind in reading posts, Frank. Your secret has been discovered. 😉 (Frank and I have been having a comment tag today. It’s about 6:1 in his favor.)
Carrie … and it worked!