This map compares U.S. educational attainment, as measured by high school graduation rates, by state, with countries of similar educational attainment. www.homesnacks.net/this-surprising-map-shows-all-50-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-education-levels-123796/

This 50-question online quiz challenges users to identify countries by their shapes and then provides interesting factoids about each one. learn.howstuffworks.com/quiz/97-people-cant-identify-individual-countries-just-a-map-outline-can-you

Lake Onega is the second largest lake in Europe (after nearby Lake Ladoga) and is today part of Russia's Republic of Karelia although the area (near Finland) has changed hands several times over the centuries. Lake Onega is dotted by more than 1,600 islands, including Kizhi Island. Kizhi is famous for its 18th-century wooden Orthodox churches, several of which are included in the Kizhi pogost UNESCO World Heritage Site. www.atlasobscura.com/places/kizhi-island

"Pegged as the most ambitious infrastructure megaproject of all time, China's One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR) will stretch from the very edge of East Asia to East Africa and Central Europe, connecting nearly two thirds of the world's population" via a "continuous network of highways, railways, ocean routes and ports." This map shows the projected routes. www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/one-belt-one-road.html

By most accounts, Mexico City is the largest urban area in North America (edging out the New York City metro area). The countries in red on this map have a smaller population than Mexico City. i.redditmedia.com/LzTwUYq_TOhOTnoDC5DU-KB0A_ZzvFfV7CaA0v_Y2uQ.png?w=1024&s=162924fa2399216df02e61157fd22ae0

A recent study analyzing information from the automatic identification system installed on all industrial fishing vessels finds that industrial-scale fishing spans an area four times that covered by terrestrial agriculture and affects more than half the world's ocean area. This map shows the patterns of industrial fishing (yellow=most intensively fished waters). www.sciencenews.org/article/new-mapping-shows-just-how-much-fishing-impacts-world-seas

This unusual topological map compares the life expectancy in each U.S. state to the national average from 1980 to 2014. Where you can see gold, a state's life expectancy exceeds the national average; where you can see lavender, a state's life expectancy is lower than the national average. The shape of the colored region indicates how closely a state's change in life expectancy paralleled the increase in U.S. life expectancy over this period: Minnesota's life expectancy, for example, has been consistently higher than the national average, whereas South Carolina's has been consistently lower, and Oklahoma has lost ground, while New York has gained ground. espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/barry-jester-life-expectancy-2.png

"[C]an someone's geographical location play a part in whether they will join a hate group? According to a group of University of Utah geographers whose research was published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers on Friday, the answer is yes. 'Hate is a geographic problem. The ways people hate are based on the cultures, histories, ethnicities and many other factors dependent on place and place perception,' the geographers said in a news release." www.deseretnews.com/article/900010002/geography-of-hate-u-study-examines-hate-groups-based-on-region.html

This Reddit map, based on data from the International Federation of Robotics' recent report "Robot Density Rises Globally," considers the use of robots in manufacturing. South Korea leads the pack in the use of robots per human employee, followed by Singapore, Germany, and Japan. For the full report, see ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/robot-density-rises-globally

Pharmaceuticals are big business. This geo-graphic looks at global pharmaceutical exports. Europe supplies nearly 80% of the world's pharmaceutical exports (by dollar value), whereas Africa, with 16% of the world's population, accounts for only 0.2% of the global drug export market. howmuch.net/articles/world-map-of-drug-exports-2016

Between 1950 and 2016, the population of the U.S. more than doubled, growing by roughly 114%. But, as this map shows, that population growth was not spread evenly across the country. In fact, none of the states in gold (and West Virginia, in red) kept pace with national trends in population growth. factsmaps.com/us-states-population-growth-rate-1950-2016/

The Economist (UK) produces an annual Democracy Index, which has documented, in part, the retreat of global democracy since 2008. This map is the result of the newest Democracy Index. Click on the link to see country-specific information. www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2018/01/daily-chart-21

Obesity is a serious public health problem in the U.S. and around the world. This 45-second video maps obesity rates from 1975 to 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqxTuoWqsQ

One of my geography classes recently explored patterns in apparel manufacturing. Uzbekistan is not a major textile producer, but it is one of the world's top cotton-producing countries. Because Uzbekistan is one of only two countries in the world that is doubly landlocked -- it is landlocked and all of its neighbors are also landlocked -- most Uzbek cotton, which is one of the country's major exports, goes by rail to ports in other countries (including Ukraine, Latvia, and Iran), much of it bound for textile mills in Bangladesh. 

This map compares countries by median age: purple = very low median age (in mid-teens), dark green = very high median age (in mid-forties).
i.redditmedia.com/umh710v0JMVz8ZzAIoIE3aPcpxWBUnaT5kQOehFUSWY.png?w=1024&s=b425f7aa42f528815da064f49396921d 

In less than three months, Cape Town, South Africa, may become the first major city to, literally, run out of water. Following three years of unprecedented droughts, Cape Town has announced it may be forced to turn off the city's municipal water system on or about April 22, requiring residents to line up at water distribution points across the city, under armed guard, to collect a maximum daily allotment of 6.6 gallons of water per day. time.com/5103259/cape-town-water-crisis/

New Zealand's two major islands (the North Island and the South Island) are separated by the Cook Strait. The North Island is home to 3/4 of the country's population, but this map shows even there the population is concentrated in a few specific locations: the population of the green areas rounds to zero people per square kilometer. www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/FkDilYsUaUOtiuVXuxK5izigfe4=/620x884/smart/filters:quality(70)/arc-anglerfish-syd-prod-nzme.s3.amazonaws.com/public/GLFNE2UDIZHZXEJ4P5OGMO7CZI.JPG

This map compares European countries by how much of their national population lives in their capital city or its surrounding metro area. As might be expected, small countries (like Malta, 90%, and Luxembourg, 76%) and countries with dominant primate cities (like Reykjavik, Iceland, Athens, Greece, and Olso, Norway) have a high concentration of population in the capital area.  jakubmarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/capital-percentage-europe.jpg

Central Italy, northeast of Rome, is the site of the world's tallest artificial waterfall, Cascata delle Marmore.  Even more impressive than its 541 foot drop (more than 3x the height of Niagara Falls) is the fact that it was built by the Romans more than 2,250 years ago, in 271 BC.   www.atlasobscura.com/places/cascata-delle-marmore-marmore-falls

This map considers the dominant Y-DNA haplogroup (passed from father to son) across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. brilliantmaps.com/europe-dna-borders/

Sea-level rise isn't the only thing causing flooding in coastal cities: in many cities, the land is literally sinking as drinking water is drained from underground aquifers. Jakarta, for example, is sinking by 6.7" per year due to subsidence.  Inland areas like Mexico City and California's San Joaquin Valley are also sinking, differentially, causing major water infrastructure problems. This BBC (UK) article looks at  subsidence and what communities can do to stop it. www.bbc.com/future/story/20171130-the-ambitious-plan-to-stop-the-ground-from-sinking

This interesting map considers the world's most isolated cities with a population over 100,000, based on their distance to the nearest city that also has a population of more than 100,000. The top two are American cities: Honolulu at #1 and Anchorage at #2. cityextremes.com/isolated.php

Bitcoin has been in the news a lot lately because of its rapid increase in valuation. This map considers what goes into creating bitcoin: the computers "mining" bitcoin collectively consume more electricity than the countries shown in orange on this map. In fact, if bitcoin mining were a country, it would be 61st in the world in electricity consumption. bigthink.com/strange-maps/bitcoin-consumes-more-energy-than-159-individual-countries

These GIFs show the steady progression in median ages in the Western Hemisphere and Europe from 1960 to 2060.  www.visualcapitalist.com/animation-rapidly-aging-western-world/

Are politically independent floating city-states part of the geography of the future? Earlier this year, French Polynesia agreed to let construction begin on a floating city off its shores in international waters. "Long the stuff of science fiction, so-called 'seasteading' has in recent years matured from pure fantasy into something approaching reality, and there are now companies, academics, architects and even a government working together on a prototype by 2020." www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/dealbook/seasteading-floating-cities.html