World maps redesigned by professors

There are few things as universally accepted and trusted as the map of the world, but researchers from the University of Sheffield would have us believe otherwise.

Professor of Human Geography at Sheffield, Daniel Dorling, and research associate Anne Barford have published a book which suggests that physical geography is not the only, nor the most relevant, data to take into account.

The Atlas of the Real World, written with Mark Newman, a physics professor at the University of Michigan, is made up of 366 cartograms (statistical maps). These present the world map according to a wide range of geographical factors ranging from population density and education levels to disease and greenhouse gas emissions.

Work on the project commenced in 2006 when Dorling and Newman teamed up to use newly created software allowing equal area cartograms to be drawn up.

The cartograms twist and distort the continental layout as we know it to reflect social and geographical inequalities, causing many small developing countries to balloon in appearance.

For example, the graph reflects a risk of extinction to endangered animal species, where the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar are swollen to more than twice their normal size.

In order to allow easier visual recognition, the cartograms are split into geographical regions and colour coded - such as green for South America, brown for Northern Africa and specific countries marked by shading.

John Pritchard is a researcher at the University, and one of the cartographers working on the project.

He said: "I think the maps of disease are particularly shocking and bring home the scale of the problem in Africa better than a table of statistics does."

It is true that while the maps may look puzzling at first glance, the project sheds light on some thought-provoking issues of social inequality.

The cartogram showing the number of girls not in primary education reduced the majority of the developed world to thin streaks and left countries such as India, where about 8million fewer girls than boys receive a basic education, enormously inflated. Large discrepancies also occurred in Western Africa.

Now this project is completed, researchers are continuing similar tasks, including maps charting languages and the dispersion of their speakers. They also hope to be producing animated maps in the near future.

Pritchard added: "We have a series of maps that show deaths at several stages, which would be particularly suited to an animation, and we now have a PhD student looking at extending the website, including ways of mapping the flow."

Amy Taylor