European debt levels in 2010

Posted on by

Alistair Darling is just about to announce the UK’s budget this Wednesday in the run-up to the forthcoming General Election, while the Eurozone countries stew over the fate of Greece and its implications for the European currency. In the reality of a world economic crisis, it’s everyone for himself, and Europe seems far from being a united community.
The following map compares the total debt of the EU-27 countries and the debt’s share of the GDP – revealing some interesting views: In sheer numbers, the PIGS are not alone (Greece, in fact, almost not counting). Eventually, we’re all in the same boat in the sea of gloom (click map for larger view)…

Map of debt and the debt/gdp ratio in the countries of the European Union 2010

The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

Vancouver revisited: Paralympics vs Olympics

Posted on by

The glowing hearts in Vancouver eventually died down with the ending of the Winter Paralympics yesterday. Time for another review and another map: The following map shows the final results of the Paralympics with the countries of the world re-sized according to the total number of medals awarded at the Paralympics (click map for larger view):

This map becomes quite interesting when opposed to the results of the Olympics. The more affluent countries dominate the whole picture again at the Paralympics, but there are some obvious differences. China disappeared, Eastern Europe grew and Canada finally managed to catch up with the United States. Here is the map of the Olympics again:

Continue reading →

Angles, Saxons, Inequality, and Educational Mobility in England and Germany

Posted on by

Good politics has always seen well-funded, public provision of education as a vital pathway to delivering the Good Society. This article draws on recent evidence from Germany and the UK to show that even in more equal societies, such as Germany, attention still needs to be paid by progressive politicians to education – in particular, the importance of non-elitist, comprehensive education systems for all, regardless of means.

Educational systems in England and Germany affect social inequalities in different ways. Social inequalities are narrower in Germany, but not thanks to German education systems. The English education system is highly discriminatory too, but it would be a mistake to believe that the German model is much better.
[read more]

  • Dorling, D. and Hennig, B. D. (2010). Angles, Saxons, Inequality, and Educational Mobility in England and Germany. Social Europe Journal.
    pdf icon Article as PDF ; Article online

    • Inequalities and Educational/Social Mobility

    The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

    The Population of the Island of Ireland

    Posted on by

    This map is not yet shown in worldmapper’s collection of country cartograms, as we don’t show maps of larger islands there if they are politically divided. As the Irish Islanders are all celebrating their culture today, here is how the full island’s population distribution looks like in the worldmapper gridded cartogram style:

    Happy Paddy’s Day…
    Update 2011: See a new version of this map using a NASA satellite image here.

    The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.

    Vancouver 2010 medal count

    Posted on by

    The Winter Olympics in Vancouver yielded some great visualizations, with the New York Times work being amongst the top ones. They are showing off a map of the Winter Olympic Medals in the tradition of the Dorling cartograms. They also did a great job on a 3D map of the venues.
    For those who want for worldmapper style maps, here is the relief: The worldmapper map of the actual medal count. The following is transformed due to a country’s total number of medals it has won.

    A larger version of the map can be viewed by clicking on the image.

    Continue reading →

    ArcUser article: Re-Mapping the World’s Population

    Posted on by

    My contribution to the ESRI UC 2009 found its way into the Winter 2010 edition of ArcUser:

  • Hennig, B.D., Pritchard, J., Ramsden, M., and Dorling, D. (2010). Remapping the World’s Population. Visualizing data using cartograms. ArcUser 2010 (1), 66-69.
    pdf icon Article as PDF ; Article online

    • The slideshow from last year’s talk at the ESRI UC Is now also available online to watch on Slideshare:

    The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.