observe the following world map where the countries shown on the basics of there population which content is shown large and why
Answers
Answer:
To show global data it is convenient to use a map. But despite the popularity and familiarity of world maps, they can mislead our understanding global living conditions.
Maps are made for a different purpose; they show us where the world’s land masses are. They don’t show us where the people are.
If we want to show where the world’s people are we need a population cartogram, a geographical presentation of the world where the size of the countries are not drawn according to the distribution of land, but according to the distribution of people.
So I spent the last few weekends making this cartogram for the world population in 2018.
The cartogram is made up of squares, each of which represents half a million people of a country’s population. The 11.5 million Belgians are represented by 23 squares; the 49.5 million Colombians are represented by 99 squares; the 1.415 billion people in China are represented by 2830 squares; and this year’s entire world population of 7.633 billion people is represented by the total sum of 15,266 squares.
As the size of the population rather than the size of the territory is shown in this map you can see some big differences when you compare it to the standard geographical map we’re most familiar with. Small countries with a high population density increase in size in this cartogram relative to the world maps we are used to – look at Bangladesh, Taiwan, or the Netherlands. Large countries with a small population shrink in size – talking about you Canada, Mongolia, Australia, and Russia.
The cartogram of the world population
We should keep this cartogram in mind when we are looking at charts that show country-by-country data, because we have to remember that the number of people that these charts speak about is very different from one country to the next: An increase of the life expectancy in Denmark means that the average health of 5.8 million people is increasing, while an increase for India means that the health of 1,354 million people is improving. And a line chart that shows improvements in all African countries or across all of the American countries refers to fewer people than a chart with a single line that shows an improvement in China. The two largest countries in Asia – China or India – are the home of more people than any other entire continent.
My models
When I made this visualization I built upon the work of others that made cartograms of the world population at earlier points in time: From cartograms from more than a century ago, to recent ones that emphasize the split between continents, to more recent ones like this one for 2005, and this one for 2015.1
Population cartogram world 2 e1538912000147
Cartogram of the World Population in 20182
[click on the cartogram to enlarge it and download it in high resolution.]
Some perspectives on the distributio