The series of maps the British Telegraph published today is easily the coolest thing I’ve seen all week.  The maps were created by Worldmapper, a website that distorts the traditional land-mass map to illustrate different sets of data.  The series, which the Telegraph calls “The Atlas of the Real World,” includes maps depicting relative migration patterns, the use of various modes of transportation (aircraft, rail, motorcycles), wealth distribution, housing prices, HIV prevalence, alcohol consumption, nuclear weapons, armed forces at war, war deaths, and increases and decreases in carbon emissions.  The three on wealth show the distribution of income across the world in year 1, in 1900, and the projected distribution in 2015.  Here are a couple of interesting ones, and check out the others.  There are even more on the Worldmapper website.

Standard map based on land mass.

Projected relative wealth in the year 2015.

Relative HIV prevalence.

Relative distribution of nuclear weapons.

Relative increase in emissions of carbon dioxide.

Relative decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide.

Cool, eh?