Maps4currAffairs

The Data section of British paper The Guardian is a great example of illustrating reams of data and helping readers make sense of it. But maps are only illustrations, not exacting science as in my previous post: Readers wish to grasp trends for tabular data by country, rather than examine their exact geographies.

Google Fusion Tables (GFT) are a very easy means to post and combine data stored by countries, say, by the UN Data repository. I already wrote here about using World Bank Ease of doing Business data, as well as my own mash-up of WolframAlpha search results for religions per capita. I will now use World Bank data from the GFT Catalogue to do the following:

1. Find the World Bank 2007 GDP data
2. Merge it with the world population over 10M searched in Wolfram Alpha
3. GFT allows to very easilly merge them
   a) by country into a GDP by population over 10M table
   b) and to add religions to the same table
4. Download them locally to calculate per capita columns
5. Finally upload them as:
   a) GDP over 10M population per capita
   b) GDP for the same by religion.

But what does all this look like? Well try it out yourself! For the table in section 3b above select Visualise then Intensity Map, and then in turn pick GDP, then Christian and Islam.

Let's post GDP from item 3b on top and below it GDP per capita from item 5b:

As noted in my earlier post, appearances can be deceptive, as Islam cut a sharper profile in North Africa and South Asia than when it is factored by population. Notice here how GDP per capita here is more spread out to lesser populated countries.

So per capita seems to be a truer measure as it filters out population distortion. But where it gets really interesting is comparing religions per capita. Try it yourself again, go to 5b and select per capita GDP for Islam (GDPislaPC) and Juadaism (GDPjudPC):

The dichotomy of the spheres of influence really jumps out. While GDP is but one measure of wealth and not directly related to power, I saw an indication where the levers of power sit in the Middle Eastern conflicts.

As my gran said once: learn something every day, and you shall stay young.