Science & TechnologyMAY 6, 2014

38 Maps They Didn't Teach You At School (Part II)

Lina D.BoredPanda Staff

When we collected a list of 40 cool maps that you would never have seen in school, you guys loved them, so we’re back with more. If interesting world maps are one of the main ways that we understand the world we live in (and how people elsewhere in the world live), then it’s no surprise that people are always coming up with new ways to use them to display information.

Every single one of these interesting maps reveals different fun and surprising facts, from which we can make some curious inferences. There’s usually a no better way to illustrate the economic, social and cultural differences between different parts of the world than by displaying them on a map.

However, it’s also important not to jump to conclusions with these world maps – whether a country ranks well or poorly in a particular metric can be due to a whole number of factors, some of which we understand and some of which we don’t. Information without context should be taken with a grain of salt.

So, have you ever wondered where in the world the most and least photos are taken? How is the human population or economic production distributed across the globe? These maps – some of which are new and some of which are old favorites – intuitively answer questions like these.

If you like what you see, check out the rest of our thought-provoking map-related posts as well. Do you know of any cool maps that we haven’t seen before?

NOTE: Studies like these, while entertaining or interesting, are not always 100% accurate. Leading questions and limited sample sizes are just a few of the data gathering problems that could be present in funny maps like these.

The Most Photographed Places In The World

Educational Backgrounds of World Leaders

ENLARGE

Image credits: reddit.com

How The World Would Look If Mapping Conventions Were Flipped Upside-Down

Because orienting north toward the top is a matter of convention rather than correctness, a south-up map is technically just as correct as north-up. Maps with different orientations have appeared in several cultures and time periods. The convention of orienting north to the top (and thus east to the right) was probably established by the astronomer Ptolemy. [1] Image credits: unknown