Important Maps They Didn't Teach You at School

Everyone knows this. The world map. The one you've known since you were little. But throw in some colors and some symbols and this old map can show you the world as you've never seen it before.

So let's take a look - Amazing!The most popular sports in the world. See all this green? That's soccer or football if you're from the rest of the world which you probably already knew is the most popular sport in the world.

By far, there are Fifty Countries in the world. With professional soccer leagues and an incredible 3.4 Billion people tuned in to watch the 2018 World Cup Final in Russia.

And the Red? That's cricket which spread around the British Empire along with Tea drinking and good manners. Other mentions are purple, China's obsession with table tennis, cream-colored Mongolia's taste for Wrestling, Canada and Finland's Ice Hockey Habit and Rugby's domination of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

But mostly it's just soccer, 2016 Olympics results. So if we're talking sports, who is the best? Well, here we can see prowess at the greatest sport meet them all the Olympics.

The United States took a comfortable first place getting Gold in a staggering 46 events ahead of the UK with 27 and China with 26. And the worst Country? That has to be India who only had a Silver in Woman's Badminton and a Bronze Medal in Woman's Wrestling to show for the efforts of 1.3 Billion people, the same number as the Bahamas with less than 400,000 People.

Map of Imperial units. The United States is indeed a special country. In fact it's so special that it's one of only three places to use the Imperial system of measurements instead of the metric system. The only two other countries using pounds and feet instead of kilograms and meters are the paragons of progress Myanmar and Liberia.

Worldwide Driving Orientation. At least the US is in the majority when it comes to the rules of the road. This map shows that most of the world drives on the right as they should as well as Japan and Indonesia, it's mostly the former countries of the British Empire that are driving in the wrong lane.

Monarchies in the World, The British Empire also features strongly in this map, showing the remaining Monarchies in the World. At one point, the British Empire governed almost a quarter of the World's People and land area, here shown in red.

In fact the blue in this map shows all of the countries invaded by Britain at some point in history. But since the pop Super group Queen went out of fashion, well, queens have really gone out of fashion. As you can see blue Australia, New Zealand and Canada are yet to grow up and cut ties with their mother country and it's only the few red countries in which the Monarch has really any real power.

Educational backgrounds of world leaders. Speaking of Leaders, this map shows the educational backgrounds of world leaders. What are the light purple countries? Those are the places where the Head of State has a background in Economics or Business.

The second most common category are the Lawyers, shown in Yellowy-Brown. You can also see the Soldiers in red and the Scientists in blue, how welcoming to foreigners. This map made by the World Economic Forum shows how countries welcome foreigners.

You can see the lands of open Arms in soothing Blue and the Countries of cold stares in hostile red. Surprisingly, famously friendly America ranks somewhere in the middle. Behind the three most welcoming countries, Iceland, New Zealand and Morocco.

In deepest red are Bolivia, Venezuela and Russia; The three places that really don't want to see you. Freedom of press. Here we can see that much of the World isn't very welcome to Journalists either.

The black and the red countries show the places where the press certainly isn't free and the orange shows where there are noticeable problems. It's only in the yellow and white countries where the situation is satisfactory or good which includes countries like the United States and the UK. Average height for males by country. Here we can see the world by height with the Nordic Giants in a healthy red and the more vertically challenged people represented in blue.

Prevalence of obesity. After height comes width and here we can find out by the most obese countries in the world which are shown in red.

Twin North American fatties, the United States and Mexico are joined by a helping of South Africa and there's lots of bad cholesterol in North Africa as well. Part of the reason for them is increased sedentary lifestyles and higher fat intakes.

Opposite them Asia has slimmed right down ready for beach season. Speaking of gluttony, here we can see the hotbeds of sin in the United States. Everything is bigger in Texas. So it's no surprise they have the most fast food restaurants. California and the Northeast look pretty greedy with both plenty of wealthy people and many living below the poverty line. While Florida and the Southeast are envious of the wealth around them with high rates of theft. They're also pretty wrathful with high rates of violence, Slothfulness is evenly spread, with lots of places spending plenty on entertainment and recreation relative to employment rates and then there's the pride belt all the way across the South.

The aggregation of all the other sins because pride is the root of all sin. Global distribution Of Atheists. Zooming back out, you can see China rejects all this moralistic thinking all together being by far the most Atheistic country in the world with Japan and parts of Europe being only slightly more keen on religion with 10% or more of people identifying as Atheist.

World map of social networks: If you thought Facebook was taking over the world, you were right. This map shows the difference in social networks from 2009 to 2012. The parts of the world where Facebook is the biggest social network are in blue, though don't ignore Q Zone in China, VK in Russia, and everyone's favorite Iranian social networking site, Cloob.

I wonder how its changed since. Map of the most common surnames in Europe. Zooming in now to look at the most common surnames in Europe, you can see some interesting things. You have the Joensen, Jensen, and Johansson's stretching across Northern Europe and the Nowak.

Novak heartland in the middle. And what is Borg doing down there in Malta? In proportion to population, you might enjoy this map, in which each square represents a million people. Asian giants China and India are well ginormous in proportion to the rest of the world.

Total Fertility rate map. If it sounds like there are too many people in the world, spend a moment on this map. Though you often hear of the impending disaster of over-population. Here you can see fertility rates around the world. The purple bits aren't growing at all and the parts in red are actually shrinking.

Map by Births and Deaths. But still there are a lot of people being born. 360,000 a day, 15,000 an hour, 250 a minute, 4 a second to be exact. So, there's this map, charting births and deaths in real time.

World air traffic. Also in real time is this rather beautiful map, showing all of the flights in the world over the twenty four hectic hours. Notice that as evening approaches, the traffic is predominantly from the US to Europe and when daylight comes, the traffic switches, and it's predominantly from Europe to the US.

Most photographed places. Or you can see the world lit up by flash bulbs in this map showing the world's most photographed places. Eight of the ten most photographed places in the world are in Europe. We just can't stop taking images of Europe.

Lightning Intensity map. If that didn't energize you, this might because it shows where in the world the most lightning strikes are.

Would you have guessed the Middle of Africa gets more than anywhere else in the world? Shocking, that concentration in central Africa is explained by the fact there's a higher frequency of lightning over land and on the equator where it's the hottest. Land heats up faster than water so there's greater atmospheric instability, leading to the formation of storms.

World map of National IQ scores. According to data by targetmap.com here you can see the bright sparks of the world by average IQ. Here's another map by authors Lynn and Vanhanen. In their 2006 book IQ and the Global Inequality. You might be surprised to see that the US and Canada are well exactly the same but both are comfortably outsourced by China and Japan. At the top of the class, Singapore and Hong Kong have an average IQ 10 points higher than the United States.

Lactose Intolerance. You might also be surprised to learn that much of the world doesn't do milk very well. In fact about 65% of the world's adults are lactose intolerant. The dark blue countries are ones where more than 80% of people are lactose intolerant. The fifteen biggest milk drinking countries are all European, hence explaining why people from these nations are tolerant of lactose.

Finland is the world champion milk guzzler. The average Finn consuming almost a kilogram each day. Interestingly 15% of the world's milk is sourced from animals other than cows, including goats, sheep, buffalo, camels, horses and donkeys.

Vegetarians and vegans by country. What India lacks in Olympic sportsmen, it makes up for in vegetarians, with more than any one in 10 Indians going without meat. In fact among those that are carnivorous, most don't eat beef which is why you won't find a Big Mac in India. They have the Maharaja Mac. Fossil Fuel Energy consumption.

If you care about the environment you might want to avert your eyes from this map as you can see the world in which we live in isn't very green. It shows countries by fossil fuel consumption, with everything from orange to red getting over half their energy from burning fossils.

Israel burns brightest, getting more than 96% of their energy from fossilized plant matter that they pull out of the ground. Nuclear energy percentage of total energy use an alternative to burning.

Carbon is nuclear power and this map shows countries by how much of their electricity is nuclear, while here you can see every nuclear power plant in the world, all 450 of them.

Number of nukes. In a slightly less crowded field, here we see the nuclear powers of the world, with heavy hitter Russia blowing the roof off the world with its hoard of more than 7000 nuclear weapons ahead of the United States and far ahead of the UK and France who have a pitiful tally of less than 300 nuclear bombs.

Billionaires on the planet. As you might expect, the US has more Millionaires than anywhere else on the planet by a lot. There are around 540 billionaires in the United States, according to Forbes magazine and almost 300 more than their closest Rival, China.

Thank goodness it's a Communist country. Map by sunshine hours. If you want to live the good life, this map shows where to retire to find your place in the sun. If you hadn't heard, the Sahara desert in Africa is great for sun lovers, while in Northern Canada you might want to leave your sunblock at home. Where to be born index. And finally, the world is a big place, so where would you want to be born?

I would suggest choosing one of the blue parts of the map which are the parts of the world that provide, the best chance at a good life according The Economist magazine, they factor in wealth, life expectancy, political freedom, job security, climate, security, community and gender equality to estimate the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life.

The red parts, well, let's just say that it might be better to gasp your first breath in Norway than Nigeria. Do you like or dislike any of these maps? Did any bend your mind or give you a new way to look at the world?

Let me know in the comments section down below.

And thanks for Reading!

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