Brugge Blog

There are plenty of map projections that show the world on a piece of paper, but when you apply scaling measures that aren’t geographic, you get something very different. You get Worldmapper.

The maps there are powerful. Newspaper stories with tables of numbers or even bar graphs of measures such as wealth or disease are data, but envisioning the information involves trying to explain the numbers, not just present them. With one of these maps, you have compelling visuals that tell a different story than a table of numbers. Place a couple of maps side by side and you can tell even more stories.

A couple of examples:

• Wealth Growth. We often hear about who the wealthiest people or countries are, but just as compelling is to see the trajectory: where is the wealth heading. It is certainly not an even race.
• Absolute Poverty (up to $2 a day). The quote by John Kenneth Galbraith on the page is worth the visit: “Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”
• Secondary Education. Sending children to school beyond primary schooling is not that easy, for any number of reasons. This, though, is where people are taught more than the rudimentaries of reading and writing, and where real independence and power begins.