1. A political map of the world, circa 200 A.D.
What’s more amazing: how much things have changed over the last 1,800 years,
a major chunk of the civilizational history of humanity, or how many of this map’s
divisions are still with us today?
2. Where people are the most and least welcoming to foreigners
Data source: World Economic Forum. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
3. The world’s major writing systems
(Wikimedia Commons)
This map is a reminder that the world’s divisions and commonalities go much deeper than national borders. It also helps to tell the stories of a few major events that still shape the globe, the echoes of which you can see in almost every map on this page:European colonialism, the Arabic-speaking Islamic conquests of the 7th century, the Russian expansions of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the (still-ongoing!) unifications of India and China.
4. The best and worst places to be born
Click to enlarge. Data source: Economist intelligence unit. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
5. World map of major religions
Click to enlarge (Pew)
6. The countries where people are the most and least emotional
Click to enlarge. Data source: Gallup (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
People in yellow countries are the least likely to report having emotional experiences of any kind, positive or negative. Purple countries are where people report experiencing the most feelings. If you’re surprised to see that the United States is among the world’s most emotional countries (but far from No. 1) or want to learn why some regions are so unemotional, you can read all about it here.
7. A European missionary’s map of Africa, circa 1908
I have this one hanging over my desk in part because of its appeal as a historic document (the borders are tellingly rough) but also as a reminder of the colonial legacy in Africa, which European powers divided up a century ago with little respect for how actual Africans wanted to be grouped. Those arbitrary borders are still with us today, in part because African leaders agreed not to dispute them when they won independence. The borders contribute significantly to conflict and unrest on the continent because there are so many diverse communities forced together.
8. Where people are the most and least racially tolerant
Click to enlarge. Data source: World Values Survey (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
9. The world’s most and least ethnically diverse countries
Click to enlarge. Data source: Harvard Institute for Economic Research (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
10. Where people feel the most and least loved
Click to enlarge. Data source: Gallup (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
11. A Russian professor thinks the U.S. will break up into these four countries
(Laris Karklis/Washington Post)
Professor Igor Panarin became a minor celebrity in Russia when he first unveiled his grim prediction for the future of the United States, which was widely covered by Russian state media and treated as credible. Panarin said the United States would break apart under internal strain and form four different countries, with only one wholly independent while the others fell under foreign influence or control. I’ve included it both for a taste of how the United States is sometimes perceived abroad and to give American readers a sense for what it can feel like to have the outside world get your country so wildly wrong.
12. Who loves and hates America
Click to enlarge. Data source: Pew (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
13. How the U.S. and China compare on global popularity
Blue countries view the U.S. more favorably than they do China; red countries are the reverse. Data source: Pew (Max Fisher/The Washington Post)
This map is actually mostly good news for the United States. Here’s why.
14. China’s disastrous passport
My annotation of a photo of China’s new passport. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
15. Gay rights around the world
Click to enlarge (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
16. Where people are the most and least tolerant of homosexuality
Click to enlarge. Data source: Pew (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
17. Languages and dialects of the Middle East and Central Asia
Click to enlarge. Each color represents a language group, with shades for each dialect. (The Gulf/2000 Project at Columbia University)
The first thing this map shows you is the remarkable diversity in one of the world’s oldest and most storied regions, from Iraq in the West all the way to China in the East and Russia in the North. There are a hundred other stories embedded in here: the expansion of Iran beyond just Persian-speaking peoples, the fracturing of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the really stunning diversity packed into the Caucasus, which includes the troubled Russian regions of Chechnya and Dagestan.
18. Where people smoke the most (and least) cigarettes per person
Annual per capita cigarette consumption rates. Data sources: World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. (Max Fisher / Washington Post)
19. Economic inequality around the world
Higher gini coefficient scores indicate higher economic inequality. (Wikimedia Commons)
This map shows each country’s gini coefficient, which measures economic inequality. The red countries are the most unequal under the metric, and the green countries are the closest to nationwide economic equality. More here.
20. How the U.S. compares to the world on economic inequality
Click to enlarge. (Max Fisher)
Blue countries are more equal than the U.S., red countries are less equal. This map gives you a sense of just how severe economic inequality is in the United States; much higher than in any other developed country, and most developing countries as well.
21. Global crop yields are stagnating
One of four maps showing projected changes in major crop yields. (University of Minnesota)
22. The best and worst countries to be a mother
Click to enlarge. Data source: Save the Children. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
23. How al-Qaeda is changing
(The Washington Post)
24. More than half of humanity lives inside this circle
(Imgur)
25. Legal systems of the world
Click to enlarge. (Wikimedia Commons)
One reason I find this map fascinating is it shows how British colonialism took the English “common law” legal system — once nearly unique in the world — and has now spread it across every continent. You can also see that religious law is unique to Islamic countries (although it didn’t use to be) and that customary law, once near-global, is now almost extinct.
26. How far Hamas’s rockets can reach into Israel
27. North Korea’s missile range
(Voice of America)
28. Child poverty in the developed world
Click to enlarge. Data source: UNICEF. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
29. The cancer villages of China
Locations of communities where cancer rates have spiked recently. (Global Times via Weibo)
30. What Europeans think about the European Union
Data source: Eurobarometer. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
Europe’s economic slump is no secret, but how people within the European Union feel about their big collective experiment can very widely. This map is a pretty telling indication of whom the E.U. has helped, whom it has hurt and who think they shouldn’t really count as European (read: the United Kingdom).
31. Meet the world’s 26 remaining monarchies
(Max Fisher and Caitlin Dewey/Washington Post)
32. The diversity of the Levant
This color-coded map shows the different ethnic groups of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. There’s an awful lot of history packed into this corner of the world — and maybe some of the deepest ethnic and religious animosities anywhere in the world.
33. The nuclear powers, after the Cold War
Click to enlarge. (International Law and Policy Institute)
The Cold War may have ended, but its thousands of nuclear warheads are still around — and often still divided along the same lines. This map shows in blue the Russian “umbrella states,” which are formally under the protection of Russian nuclear weapons, and in orange the “umbrella states” protected by the U.S./NATO. The five other nuclear powers — Israel, Pakistan, India, China and North Korea — are in gray.
34. How people think their economies are doing
Click to enlarge. Data source: Gallup (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
35. A partial map of geopolitical anomalies
Each of these red markers cheekily indicates some unusual or unique phenomenon — for example, Abkhazia, the “barely recognized puppet state” just between Russia and Georgia. (Read more on Abkhazia and other not-yet-real countries here.) My favorite may be the various overseas French territories, such as French Guyana, that are simply and accurately labeled “France.”
36. Where the atheists live
Click to enlarge. Data source: WIN/Gallup International poll. (Max Fisher and Caitlin Dewey/Washington Post)
37. What the Muslim world believes, part 1: democracy
Click to enlarge. Data source: Pew. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
The first of three maps from a comprehensive study on attitudes and views in the Muslim world (full breakdown of the report here) shows that most Muslims broadly support democracy, with a few telling exceptions.
38. What the Muslim world believes, part 2: religious conflict
Click to enlarge. Data source: Pew. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
Significant shares of just about every large Muslim population worry about religious conflict (there is a widespread view in many Muslim-majority countries that the religion is under siege from the outside world). That share is more than half in four countries: Tunisia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Niger.
39. What the Muslim world believes, part 3: honor killings
Click to enlarge. Data source: Pew. (Max Fisher/Washington Post)
Red indicates countries where most surveyed Muslims believe that “honor killings” — the practice of killing someone, typically a member of your own family, for having sex out of wedlock — are sometimes justified. Blue indicates countries where most surveyed Muslims believe it is never justified.
40. The world as seen from space, over a 12-month time-lapse
This NASA moving image, recorded by satellite over a full year as part of their Blue Marble Project, shows the ebb and flow of the seasons and vegetation. Both are absolutely crucial factors in every facet of human existence — so crucial we barely even think about them. It’s also a reminder that the Earth is, for all its political and social and religious divisions, still unified by the natural phenomena that make everything else possible.
