Worldmapper

Mark Newman, of the University of Michigan’s Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, has put together around 40 cartograms of the world covering such topics as population, tourist destinations, gross domestric product, energy consumption and child mortality. Data has been gathered from several different sources but mainly from UN organizations. Each map, comes up a small description which makes it more enjoyable. This is part of the Worldmapper Project.

World map of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

The cartograms are based on a variant of the algorithm produced by Newman and Michael Gastner diffusion-based method for producing density-equalizing maps.

Via the resourceful Cartography.

Relation to my thesis: I am interested in the ways to visualize information on maps. Cartograms could support the presentation to users the measured space sensed by ubicomp systems.