A cartogram is a map that has been weighted for a particular variable. This pair of cartograms was created to mark the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The top cartogram adjusts country size according to current population. The bottom cartogram adjusts country size according to economic output as measured by GDP. www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TheWorldIn2018.png

A cartogram is a map weighted for a particular variable, and in this case the variable is the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. (Students in my "Hands-On Geography" and other geography classes study a sampling of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.) Earlier this month, the U.S. announced it is withdrawing from UNESCO, which is the acronym for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=4805

Cartograms are maps weighted for a specific variable.  In this case, the cartogram is weighted to reflect the number of health care workers in a given country, adjusted for differences in baseline population. geographical.co.uk/images/articles/places/mapping/2017/Healthcare_workers/health-workers.jpg  (Side note: before the outbreak of Ebola in 2014-15, the country of Liberia, with a population of more than 4.5 million, had a total of 50 doctors.)

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been tracking hate groups in the U.S. for decades, has created this interactive map of the 917 hate groups presently known to be operating in the U.S.: www.splcenter.org/hate-map.

The world's population is now more than half urban, but as you might imagine this is not true uniformly. This cartogram shows where the world's rural populations reside: the greater the distortion, the more people living in rural areas; the darker the green, the greater the proportion of the population that is rural. www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=5398

A cartogram is a map weighted to reflect a particular variable. In this case, the variable is 2015 population. d36tnp772eyphs.cloudfront.net/blogs/1/2016/09/maps-population.png

This geo-graphic shows the number of patents registered by residents of various countries and states. The U.S. has nearly 3x as many as the #2 country (Japan), and California has both the largest number within the U.S. and a high ration of patents per 1000 people. (The color scheme shows the number of patents per 1000 residents: dark blue being the highest ratio of patents to people and dark pink being the lowest.)  howmuch.net/articles/the-united-states-of-innovation

A cartogram is a map weighted for a particular variable, in this case population. The colors, though, represent the findings of the Happy Planet Index, which seeks to measure life expectancy, life satisfaction, inequality of outcomes, and ecological footprint. By this metric, Costa Rica comes out on top (and Chad on the bottom). The U.S. is 108th out of 140.  geographical.co.uk/places/mapping/item/2057-un-happy-planet

If you're roasting chestnuts and wondering where they might be from, this cartogram provides some clues. A cartogram is a map weighted for a particular variable, which in this case is chestnut production.  (If you're having trouble recognizing the countries: China accounts for about 85% of commercial chestnut production, followed by Turkey, Italy, South Korea and Bolivia, with lesser quantities grown in Greece, Japan, Portugal, North Korea, and Spain.)  www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=4681

A cartogram is a map that's been weighted for a particular variable, which in this case is religion.  This cartogram shows the distribution of the world's biggest "faith" groups.  www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/WorldReligions.jpg

A cartogram is essentially a map that's been weighted for a particular variable, in this case the number of electoral college votes a state has. [The colors indicate how strongly a state is leaning Democrat (blue) or Republican (red) in the race for president at this point in time.]  For more on electoral cartograms, see  news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/improved-election-map-cartograms/

This one's not actually a map: it's a cartogram, which is essentially a map that's been weighted for a particular variable. In this case, the variable is tropical storm frequency and intensity. (An area that looks "swollen" has more than its share of tropical storms; an area that looks "shrunken" has less.)
http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TropicalStormsCartograms.png