Swiss Leaks: A world of secret money and bank accounts

Last week the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a team of journalists from 45 countries, published leaked information about secret bank accounts at the Swiss branch of HSBC Private Bank.
The over 60,000 files relate to accounts holding more than $100 billion in total and provide information about more than 100,000 clients, their accounts and the amounts of money hidden in Switzerland, far away from their national tax authorities. The data was first given to the French government and the newspaper ‘Le Monde’ in 2008 already by a whistle-blower from HSBC and later shared with the ICIJ.
The two cartograms shown on this page reveal the global picture that emerges from the leaked data: They show the countries of the world resized according to the total number of clients and the absolute value of their accounts allocated to their respective country of origin:

Cartogram of the money held in secret Swiss HSBC bank accounts
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Nobel Prize Worlds

It’s Nobel Week yet again…
On 27 November 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, giving the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace – the Nobel Prizes. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.” (quoted from Nobelprize.org) On 10 December 2014 this year’s main award ceremonies take place in Stockholm and Oslo, adding the latest laureates to the list of 567 Prizes that went to 889 laureates in 6 Prize categories, amongst them 46 women, 22 organizations and 6 multiple laureates since its inauguration in 1901. These are plenty of awards that went out over time and allow a closer look at the spatial distribution of the awards that went out over time. The following Worldmapper-style cartogram shows the overall shape of the Nobel Prize World that shows where all prizes that were awarded in the past 113 years went to. Each country is resized according to the total number of Nobel Prizes that went to an individual or group from that country:

Map of the distribution of Nobel Prize Winners
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