2014 will be remembered as a year in which two nation-states faced the debate around city-regional configuration within their borders in very different ways. The United Kingdom witnessed a closely fought pro-union outcome in its Scottish independence referendum while, in Catalonia, despite a consultation process showing a huge majority declare their desire for independence, this outcome was not recognised by the Spanish government.
In an article for the “In Focus” section of Political Insight (April 2015, Volume 6, Issue 1) Igor Calzada and I looked at the rapidly changing balance of power between states and their regions.
Tag Archives: Ireland
The Emerald Island
This image of the day in NASA’s Earth Observatory is an extremely rare display of a cloud-free Irish island. NASA says:
It is easy to see from this true-color image why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. Intense green vegetation, primarily grassland, covers most of the country except for the exposed rock on mountaintops. Ireland owes its greenness to moderate temperatures and moist air. The Atlantic Ocean, particularly the warm currents in the North Atlantic Drift, gives the country a more temperate climate than most others at the same latitude.
That image coincided with St Patrick’s day last year, for which I created an Irish-Island version of the population cartogram series (see the Ireland Population Cartogram here). Continue reading
The Population of the Island of Ireland
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.
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