New atlas designed to map people and places

Published on Thursday 1 October 2009 22:18

A NEW world atlas that concentrates on population rather than land mass has been published.

Researchers from the University of Sheffield created the online atlas of 200 maps that have been redrawn to show which cities are the largest, how all urban areas compare, and whether many or few people live in the countryside.

The images, which were created as part of a Leverhulme Trust project to remap the world and extend the Worldmapper project, have been produced using population distribution data so viewers can understand how many people make up each nation.

Benjamin Hennig, a postgraduate researcher at the university's department of geography, was part of the team that created the maps by using the gridded population of the world database of the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project.

Mr Hennig said the new projections gave an "interesting insight into different countries".

He added: "The map of Afghanistan, for example, shows a country dominated by Kabul and a few other urban centres.

"The UK on this new global projection is a tale of London and the other cities.

"The United States has much more variety to its human geography, while the new projection of China shows a sea of humanity bubbled up in the Eastern part of the country."

The maps can be viewed at www.worldmapper.org/countrycartograms/