Tuesday, November 18, 2008

World Maps for Today's World

A picture is worth a thousand words. And a map using today's data and asking pertinent questions gives us a whole new picture of the world. See the website http://www.worldmapper.org/

Look at the Map Categories or the A-Z Map Index to view how our world really looks in numbers. For example, you can see the numbers of elderly in the world, or midwives working, or hospital beds, or forest loss, or ecological footprint. A new software has enabled production of cartograms that let us see how whole continents or regions can bulge (Africa's malaria deaths), or disappear (dentists working in sub-Saharan Africa) or surprise (science research).

This is a wonderful resource for teaching about the world, and for understanding debates and positions taken by countries at the United Nations.

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