Saturday, May 13, 2006

New maps for a new world?

I've posted recently on digital mapping, so here's some interesting news on digital mapping being researched by cartographers Danny Dorling and Anna Barford of the University of Sheffield, UK at their Worldmapper project.

Worldmapper is a series of dramatically distorted multi-colored maps that show the world according to statistical data, largely obtained from obscure UN reports that glean little attention.

Via Worldchanging:

'Cartographers Danny Dorling and Anna Barford of the University of Sheffield, UK, have created almost one hundred maps so far, which display information on population, migration, births, freight, imports and exports, and more. As they say in the New Scientist,

No one wants to look at those figures, and it would be hard to provoke any excitement by confronting someone with spreadsheets filled with numbers. But you just can't help looking at these pictures. After all, a new view of the world, rather like the famous Earthrise photo taken by Apollo astronauts, is a compelling sight.

The map here shows the global proportion of refugees and internally displaced persons living there.

The internal movement of people explains why territories experiencing recent instability can simultaneously be a major destination of displaced people, for example Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2003 there were an estimated 15 million refugees and internally displaced persons. The Middle East and South America are the regions that provide sanctuary to most people seeking it; Pakistan, Iran and Germany are the territories that provide asylum to most people from outside their borders.'

Great stuff...

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