Circumference

1) Fighting back against was he calls immappancy (lack of geographical knowledge), Greg Osuri threw together this map that offers a sense of Africa’s true scale. Not sure what projection he used, but click through for other details:

2) I’ve seen global maps distorted before to represent embedded data, but one digital cartographer/blogger seems to be doing it full time. He’s got some great examples up:

3) Last of all: I have never used an online dating site  but I love the wild findings OkCupid comes up with when they sort through the reams of data their users submit The OkTrends Blog is always chock full of charts and figures, but today they included an excellent heat map showing gay-curiosity across the US and Canada:

I love how Canada is entirely swathed in dark reds except the blue-green southern tip of Labrador that just shows on top of the map. In the US, it’s no surprise that Vermont, Massachusetts, Washington and Oregon are heavily covered in red – but New Mexico, wow, that’s a lot of heat. Otherwise, urban areas reliably light up as curious while the Bible belt represents, demonstrating shades of blue that get darker the closer you get to Mississippi.