Observations. I think many people would benefit from meditating over the tremendous significance of map #26: <i>Asia is ridiculously important</i>.<p>About the money stuff: this is all extremely misleading chiefly because a lot of people grow and/or catch their own food and build their own houses on community owned land with <i>no debt</i>, thus have minimal expenses and no interest in having or raising this number. The global capitalist system seeks to change this, often by stealing their land at gunpoint or children with the lure of materialism, but while increasing material 'wealth' (ie. shiny trinkets and nominally convenient tech) ultimately results in bad things happening to health (sometimes; this can go both ways), community, security, and the environment.<p>In map #35, <i>Open defecation in India</i>, look at the difference between the hard-line Hindu state of Tamil Nadu (southeast) versus the long-time communist state of Kerala (southwest coast). Incidentally, you see open defecation in southeast Asia and China as well.<p>In map #37, in 13 years I've never seen anyone appearing to be obviously malnourished and/or starving in China (and my time tends towards mountainous/poor areas), so I'm not sure where they get their statistics from. The throwaway remark about them 'getting better at feeding their people' is frankly bullshit: China is a leader in agricultural science, they are very good at extracting vast productivity from small areas of land and producing protein-rich foods such as tofu in harsh climates.<p>Similarly, map #38 is complete bullshit. China is <i>absolutely covered</i> in extremely high quality infrastructure such as highways.
Most interesting to me is unremarked by the article. #5 showing North and South Korea, also shows a virtual city of light in the middle of the Sea of Japan.<p>A little Googling shows its fisherman attracting the squid to the surface with massive lights. Who knew?
I enjoyed this collection.<p>Every visualization have some kind of bias in what data is used. How it is categorized. Mapped to colors. Projected on screen. Mapped on to a world map which itself is biased. Etc. etc. But compared to raw numbers or text the quantity of information that can be chucked into a picture is magnitudes greater. And it is immediately understandable and invites to further exploration in way no other media does.<p>I really wish we had more of this.
The very notion of a center of X makes a lot of sense when such a simplification is useful. For mass, the center of mass is a lossless (or nearly so) simplification. In physics, the movement of complex object can be understood with only its center of mass.<p>Not so with economics; I'm very skeptical of a "center of economic activity" constructed as shown in figure 2. What questions does it answer well that a proper geographic distribution does not? (It certainly doesn't imply that all economic transactions go through that "center".) I think it misleads more than it helps. (And I'm not even going into the 3D -> 2D problems.)
I see a big theoretical and practical problem with Figure 2's projection of a 3D center of gravity to our planet's surface. For now, lets ignore all the other problems (e.g. does calculating a "center" really help answer useful questions).<p>The 2D projection only shows "non-radial" movements (e.g. shifts not pointed towards the earth's core). For example, if the center of gravity moves directly to the other side of the planet, the 2D projection won't change until the 3D point passes through the core, at which point the projection would jump wildly to the other side of the planet.<p>This is probably quite similar to what has really happened. I'd expect that the westward shift from AD 1 to 1950 had much to do with the growth in the Americas. Afterwards, I'd expect growth in India, China, and Japan moved the center eastward.
I particularly found map #4, the Federal Reserve map, to be very interesting. An artifact of politics from days gone by the still has influence today. Does the Fed always move as whole or is there any real infighting going on there?<p>However with such a wealth of information I am sure as I go through the rest I will find something else to take up my day<p>okay, #35 creeps me out. Having read a story on how difficult it is to get people to use toilets even after the government went on a building spree I can understand how the map can look so extreme
<a href="http://www.vox.com/a/how-the-us-is-changing" rel="nofollow">http://www.vox.com/a/how-the-us-is-changing</a>
is another good read if you enjoyed this
Doesn't the second map (Economic centrer of gravity map) [0] depend on the projection you use? I.e. if you'd shift the map so that the Americas are in the middle of the picture, then wouldn't the "center of gravity" end up in the US?<p>[0] - <a href="http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/666632/mckinsey-global-center-map.0.png" rel="nofollow">http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/666632/mck...</a>
Map 3 World Light Map shows many light points in Western Australia. I thought that there is negligible population in this area. Is the map incorect or .. why?
The original title promises maps that <i>explain</i> the global economy and of course it does nothing of the sort.<p>Most of the maps are fun, quirky and/or entertaining. A few of them illustrate a single, isolated point well. But explain more than the most trivial points (China is kind of a big deal!) they most certainly don't.<p>Vox increasingly looks like intellectually pretentious Buzzfeed.
Little remark about the map 'Unemployment in Europe'<p>I can't speak for other countries, but in France the official metric is heavily manipulated and does not make sense anymore.
Basically, if you are unemployed long enough (~2 year), you do not get money from the unemployment insurance, and thereby are no longer unemployed.<p>Beside that, extremely cool collection of maps.
First map - first question. Is UAE/Saudi (in black like USA) actually got > 50k per head, or is that per head of <i>citizens</i> instead of per head of acini if participants (large immigrant worker population)<p>And would counting Americas <i>cardless</i> Mexicans affect the per capita count too?
Map 9 is so badly coloured; the black lines indicate the largest volume of trade, but blend into the background. The red lines pop out, but represent the least trade.<p>I love Map 10 though, principal exports, very interesting.
It might be interesting to see a measure of spread visualized alongside the center of gravity (figure 2), perhaps using a translucent circle of varying radius.