Without commenting on the science or validity of the study...the map implementation here could be improved, in fact, it's about as confusingly implemented as an infographic could be.<p>First of all, it violates the "rainbow map" rule, in that a wide spectrum of color is used to graph what is basically a very simple continuum: more depression vs. less depression.<p><a href="http://eagereyes.org/basics/rainbow-color-map" rel="nofollow">http://eagereyes.org/basics/rainbow-color-map</a><p>Second of all, and most egregiously, it uses the <i>most confusing color scheme possible.</i> At least in America, which is the WaPo's main audience, the color blue is widely used to describe "depression" ('feeling the blues'). While red is often used to describe a dangerous or very intense situation...it's not really appropriate here, as red is also used for "passion", which is not mutually exclusive to depression, but is not usually associated with it either.<p>And the purple, rather than acting as a middle ground between "more" and "less" depression, comes off as its own weird symbolism.<p>And why the f-ck is "gray" in <i>between</i> blue and purple?<p>And of course, in America (and <i>especially</i> among the audience that the Washington Post serves), red and blue often indicate political thought.<p>It's hard to think of how this map could be any more confusing, even without getting into the discussion of how country/state-color maps greatly distort the quantities involved.<p>----<p>That said, I was surprised to see that the United States ranked on the low side...my intuition was that well-off countries had higher rates of reported and diagnosed depression (first world problems and all that). But I had to stare at the map for quite awhile to make sure I was reading it right...<p>Edit: Also, this stuck out:<p>> <i>The most depressed country is Afghanistan, where more than one in five people suffer from the disorder. The least depressed is Japan, with a diagnosed rate of less than 2.5 percent.</i><p>I know Japanese culture has the propensity to be greatly distorted by outside observers...but how is it that a country that has among the highest suicide rates in the world (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan</a>) also happens to have the lowest rates of depression? I mean, it's certainly mathematically possible (e.g. clinically depressed Japanese, few as they are, are also at the extreme edges of depression, or, Japanese suicides are committed for reasons other than depression)...it's just a bit unexpected.