Mappa Mundi

Over at the Map Room I saw mention of a site called WorldMapper. Slick! Cartographic maps where the shape of countries change depending on the item being measured.

Here are a few thumbnails:

The world by landmass (or the world as you’re used to seeing it)

Vehicle Freight:

Aircraft Freight:

Cargo Shipping. This one’s interesting, because that little tilde-shaped country, Panama, is the biggest, baddest country in this map:

Here’s why:

See more Panama Canal pix from my visit to Panama.

Fish: Net imports. USA, Western Europe, and oh my Japan.

So far they’ve got 56 maps posted, in these categories: —Basic (land area, population), Movement (tourism, immigration), Transport, Food.

WorldMapper plans to have over 200 maps when they’re done. Upcoming maps are in these categories: Goods, Manufacturers, Services, Resources, Fuel, Production, Work, Income, Wealth, Poverty, Housing, Education, Health. New categories will come online each month from now till September.