Brilliant Maps: An Atlas for Curious Minds

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There is a lot more that I could say here, but I don’t want to take away from the pleasure of discovering it for yourself. With just an introduction followed by a collection of maps, this is less of a 'read' than a 'look', book. Divided into categories (People & Population, Religion and Politics, Culture, Geography, History etc), and then a colour coded map - usually of the world, and to illustrate a specific things - some general, some very specific. Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the 'wrong' side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild?

Enjoyment of this book is going to vary from reader to reader, but North American Maps for Curious Minds is overall intriguing and informative--and very easy to get lost in. Despite not totally loving it, I still feel enthusiastic in recommending this, and I look forward to possibly more books from brilliantmaps.com in the future. As you might expect, the maps range in appeal or interest. It turns out that sometimes the most obscure facts or the most unlikely lists lead to the most unexpected insights. (Consider how states have changed from red to blue or blue to red over the years.) In any event there is more than enough here to inform and entertain, and that is, after all, the point.Grouped into broad categories (culture and customs, history, nature, etc.), these maps cover topics serious and less so . . . Whether browsing or looking for report inspiration, this visual, trivia-filled offering will get teens thinking outside the box.”— Booklist Which nations have North Korean embassies? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? This simple book serves the schoolroom for all ages, the coffee table of any household, the shelf in any library, and a font of wonderfulness for any trivia gamer.” — New York Journal of Books Sources for the data: Sources and latest available data: UK Census (2011), destatis.de (2019), Eurostat (2019), Russian Registrar (2019), dmsu.gov.ua (2019), scb.se (2019), Irish Census (2016), demo.istat.it (2019), opendata.cbs.nl (2019), ssb.no (2019), statbank.dk (2020), stat.fi (2019), migracje.gov.pl (2018) and ine.es (2019). Now, using the “exact” proportion of sub-Saharan and Caribbean (in the case of Netherlands/UK) descended

Data was unclear. It’s definitely more for entertainment than for information. One of the maps, for example, shows different statistics, each in a shade of pink. Okay, it’s a very pretty map, but I have no idea which of the 6 or so almost-identical shades I’m looking at for any given country. Cute, but not helpful. There were several like this, where the data was illegible. This book will be published in November. It would be a fantastic gift book for the winter holidays. It would also make a great coffee table book, bet settler, and conversation starter. ("Hey, did y'all know California, all by itself, is one of the world's biggest economies?"). Having access to maps on the internet is nice. But as the little girl I used to be knew, sometimes it's nice to look at them in a book.In Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, you’ll learn all this and much more. One hundred visually arresting maps strike a balance between sobering analysis (number of executions by state) and whimsical insight (the countries of the world where there aren’t any McDonald’s). These North American maps didn't excite me quite as much as those in the related Brilliant…, but that’s not to say it was hard to find favorites.

Our diversity across the planet has lead to a lot of different culture and customs, and know who drives on the wrong side of the road and writes the date wrong is useful if unimportant information.In the foreword, Wright explained that he defined "popular" as "the most talked-about maps, the ones that seemed especially to strike a nerve with readers." Some of these maps went viral. Unsurprisingly, maps having to do with politics and national identity were some of the most popular over the last five years. It's an interesting book, showing a number of interesting and surprising map-based statistics like who drives on which side of the road or what countries lost the most people in each world war or how much sunlight does each country get? A lot of good stuff. A pity it wasn't presented a bit better. Quirkiness. It has serious elements such as casualties from wars, but it also has some unabashedly bizarre entries, such as the one titled “Chile is a ridiculously long country.” Data was incomplete. Sometimes the maps just raised more questions about the research. One map, for example, compares homicide statistics among certain countries (randomly? I assume?). The data goes by number of deaths, but it doesn’t show the number as a percentage of the total population, so naturally, the more populous countries tend to have more deaths by any cause, because they have more people in the first place. This doesn’t help me understand anything about the countries’ safety or violence levels. Another map, comparing the U.S. and Europe, shows murder stats as percentages, which would have been more meaningful if two-thirds of it weren’t shades of blue. As before, I couldn’t tell them apart. For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it.