The 2015 UK general election is history and many stories have been told about the unexpected victory of the Conservative party. But the picture of the election is far more diverse than it seems and the political landscapes are more polarised than a conventional map of the first votes can show.
This poster, submitted as an entry to the joint BCS-SoC ‘Mapping Together’ Conference starting tomorrow in York, presents the electoral doctrine of the 2015 election. It is a cartographic roundup of the beliefs of the electorate in thirty-nine images that tell the full story of a shift in political paradigms that will shape the debates for the elections to come:
Tag Archives: map
Death Penalty
Amnesty International has launched its most recent report on Death sentences and executions in 2014. In their annual report they publish the minimum figures of recorded death sentences and executions that they are able to verify. For producing a Worldmapper-style cartogram, absolute numbers are essential of course, which requires some decisions to be made which numbers go into the map transformation. For the following two maps, showing the death penalty executions and sentences in 2014, the minimum figures of validated cases provided in the report were used, or, where these were not stated, the estimated figures as stated in the report were used instead (China was set to 1000 to not dominate the cartogram entirely, even if the number is believed to be much higher than that). The maps therefore need to be seen as a general picture of the state of death penalty in the world, rather than the exact reality. As stated by Amnesty, “the real number of people executed is much higher. There are no figures for China, for example, which is believed to execute more people than the rest of the world put together. Other countries like Belarus also execute prisoners in secret, often without informing the detainees’ relatives or lawyers.”
World Cup Statistics
Where is all the football gone? While it’s another four years now to wait for the next Football (Soccer) World Cup, there is plenty of statistics to look back at from this year’s tournament in Brazil. “World” cup of course only applied to a small number of countries from around the world, as only 32 nations have qualified for the event. And then, one after another leaves early, so that the number of matches adds to the representation of countries and regions from around the world in this global sports event that – in terms of television ratings – is only superseded by the Olympics. Here is how the world looks distorted according to the total number of matches played at the 2014 World Cup:
And there is much more data that is counted during the event. The following map series looks into some of the statistics showing the distribution of goals, cards, fouls, tackles and much more of the action that went on during the four weeks in Brazil: Continue reading
World Cup Bites
On the first match-free day of this year’s Football (Soccer) World Cup in Brazil, one incident dominates the headlines while all fans anticipate the knock-out stage. It’s Luis Suárez and his bite into his opponent Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder that keep making the headlines. Here comes the cartographic perspective on the topic: We made all efforts to analyse all available data on this year’s bite incidents (so far) at the World Cup and ended up with the following map representation of this highly complex data set. The map makes this data immediately accessible to the lay-person showing from which country players have been biting their opponents and which countries are the most affected by bite attacks of other teams. The evidence is hardly deniable – there is a highly unequal distribution emerging in these maps:
Views of Christmas
Another year over
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year
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Megacity London: ever growing, ever more unequal?
What is it about London? Population growth is slowing across most of Europe – people are having fewer children and, it could be argued, steps are being taken to try to reduce social inequalities. But London is unusual. London continues growing, and London is becoming more youthful. The middle aged and those who are poor, but not desperately poor, are being squeezed out. Graduates from the rest of Britain and the rest of the world flow in ever greater numbers and require ever higher degrees of optimism. Many fail to achieve their aspirations. Above them a few are becoming ever richer. Below them, as private rents and social housing becomes too expensive for huge numbers of lowly paid families and many leave, a new poor may be growing, less well documented, less well protected, with even less to lose.
With a population of currently 8.2 million (according to the 2011 Census), London is not only unique for one of the old world’s megacities by being projected to continue rising significantly in population size over the forthcoming decades, but also by its specific demographic structure. Like many large cities, London has a large share of people in the younger age groups – over 20% in the cohorts from 25-34 – but also a significant share of the youngest with around 7% of its population being 0 to 4 years old. Here is a population pyramid of London compiled from the 2011 Census data that has been released recently:
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