Cartographic Food for Your Imagination

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved maps — studying them and trying to figure out the mysteries that lay behind their representations.

Then I stumbled on this map (from Carl Stormer). And I thought, "What is going on here?" If you haven't seen this before, take a few moments to study it and see if you can figure out the key.

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The First Right Answer: It turns out that it's an "economic production equivalence" map. The country whose name is inside of each state has a GDP that is approximately the same as the state in which it is placed.

For example, California and France have approximately the same GDP. Some of the "equations" are off by as much as 20%, but I think this map paints a fascinating picture, namely one of the US as an economic powerhouse.

I just love it when someone's able to show me something that I've seen many times before in a fresh way!

The Second Right Answer: By joining together states and countries with similar GDPs, the map creator (perhaps inadvertently) has given us a big plate of "forced connections" to stimulate our thinking. This is one of the places I go with it:

What do you get when you mix together
the cultures of the two places?
For example:
Iran + Alabama = ? (Would Bear Bryant have been the Ayatollah)
Netherlands + Pennsylvania = ?
Algeria + West Virginia = ?
Oregon + Israel = ?

What connections can you make?

Comments

[Drew McLellan]

LOL! I am sure its not the connection you'd expect but the Iowa/Venezuela connection is ME!

I was born in Venezuela and now reside in Iowa. I must be attracted to that level of GDP!

Drew

[Paul McEnany]

Wow, great find Roger! That really is a great display of just how powerful, at least monetarily, the US is in the world. It's sort of oddly frightening actually!

[Stephen Denny]

Netherlands and PA? You'd get the "Pennsylvania Dutch", from whence come all great quarterbacks, at least from the western side of the state. (I thought it was actually "Pennsylvania Deutche", from German immigrants).

Poor Florida / Korea... they relocate and still have a rogue state to the north with the bomb... they can't catch a break, can they?

France and CA both share the same politics, mostly.

And is Hong Kong representing DC? How funny.

Interesting map, Roger -- thanks for posting!

[Roger von Oech]

Drew: With you connections, maybe you can solicit Hugo Chavez to donate some heating oil to the people of the Hawkeye State.

Paul: Based on the map, it would be interesting to have a face off between the best marketing brains of Texas Canada. I wonder who could pull off the better campaigns!

Stephen: You're right about the "Pennsylvania Deutsche," then "pidginified" to "Pennsylvania Dutch." Fortunately for the Koreans, there is no "Japan" on this map.

[Carl Stormer]

For the record -- I did not create this great map. Yorkinternational.com is the company from which it originated. I just liked it so much and posted it on my blog (with credit). And of course, Norway equals the size of Minnesota -- and they have loads of Norwegians as well.