The shape of our world

When I last mentioned cartograms -- those maps that are distorted so that size on the map shows something like population instead of area -- I got an enthusiastic (private) reply. NPR recently did a feature on Mark Newman, the guy at the University of Michigan who is part of the team that makes these cartograms. As part of that NPR feature they gave out the webpage that has more maps -- close to 600 of them on a wide variety of subjects. I've been looking at the population based maps. When we think of the year 1 AD we know there is civilization around the Mediterranean Sea but I didn't realize the population of what is now India and China was much larger. Look at the cartograms for then 1900s and we see that is still true. Have fun wasting time.