Cartograms as Tumoresque Insects
FastCompany.com's Infographic of the Day highlights Ballooning Population Maps:
Cartograms are often used to illustrate population density vs the area of a geographical entity. The BBC asks:
Conventional maps show the shape of a country according to its land mass. But what if you drew a map according to where people lived?Visit People Powered Maps to see nations inflate around their population centers.
Thanks to geoparigm who asks, "Does anyone else think Cartograms look like tumoresque insects?"
Labels: cartograms, russia
posted by Cartophiliac @ Thursday, October 15, 2009
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Tumoresque insects... that is indeed a good way to describe them!
I'm on record as being opposed to Gaster-Newman style cartograms on the grounds of readability and aesthetics (and because every professional cartographer is required to be an obnoxious snob about at least one topic). However, this latest series with grids and labels and superimposed on a regular map are an improvement. And I do recognize their worth; I just hate looking at them.
Still, it's all about the "zOMG!!1!!" effect.
I've always loved me a cartogram. It looks like the computer algorhythms have improved dramatically since I stopped paying attention, as well they should have since that's been ten years now. Not quite as elegant as a well-crafted hand-composed one, though, but ain't that always the case.
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