What the World Would Look Like if Countries Were as Big as Online Populations

[ddeck]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/what-the-world-would-look-like-if-countries-were-as-big-as-their-online-populations/280358/

[leviathan]

So Antarctica has the biggest online population?

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/population.png

[mrtksn → leviathan]

you should read about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_cylindrical_projection

[grimtrigger]

Whenever I see warped maps like this, I intuitively compare it to the standard map. Which, if you think about it, is a ridiculous comparison since one is based on population and the other is based on land mass.

[linux_devil]

In India there is huge potential , with mobile penetration increasing exponentially, its a big market waiting.

[fabrika]

South America is basically the same.

[sidcool]

Wow, Canada is really tiny inspite of being huge geographically. And I don't see Africa at all. Powerful visualization.

[m12k → sidcool]

> And I don't see Africa at all

That would be because Africa isn't a country. Look in the bottom center of the visualization: MAR, NGA, EGY, ZAF and a number of smaller countries between them - that's Africa.

[iliaznk → sidcool]

Yeah, Canada is only 34 mln population! I was really shocked when I learnt that recently.

[tadfisher → iliaznk]

Fun fact: over 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border.

[fredrikcarno → sidcool]

Sweden is the same as Canada, highly connected but large unpopulated areas

[rgbrenner]

why is alaska so large? The entire state population is only 780k.. so even if it were 100%, it should only be about two dots

Edit: also it says this data was published by the world bank in 2011

[seszett → rgbrenner]

Data isn't shown for every subunit of every country, the whole US have been sized according to their internet population, not each state.

What I find missing is mostly Taiwan, which should be the size and colour of Australia between Philippines and Korea on this map.

[gpjt → seszett]

Perhaps they bundled it in with China? A political minefield there, of course...

[seszett → gpjt]

Sure, that might be why they avoided it.

Since I still think it's an interesting to have it for comparison, I added it along with Hong Kong, taking my data from Wikipedia (respectively 17 and 5 million users, and 76% and 72% penetration):

http://ssz.fr/brdl/internet-pop-hk-tw.png (I'm no graphic artist and just fiddled a bit with Gimp to get something that looks acceptable - obviously the whole map would need to be redrawn to better take geography into account).

The two places do make up a sizable part of Internet population in east Asia, and make it look less like a region with only two isolated developped countries.

[ddeck → gpjt]

Yes. The data source for the map is the World Bank. The World Bank does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation and refers to them as Chinese Taipei, as does the IMF.

[bane → rgbrenner]

Alaska isn't a country.

[smanuel]

Japan is big.