Worldmapper: The World As You've Never Seen Before

During TED2008, which was our first TED conference, Alisa Miller, CEO of Public Radio International, gave a brief talk about our perception of news and used some very cool maps help us see things in a new way. Later we found out the maps were from an academic research team in the U.K. and U.S. called the Worldmapper Project.

For the first book club mailing for TED2010, we received the Worldmapper team's book, "The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the Way we Live" along with a couple others. Tom Rielly's, TED's community director, description:

"Some of you remember Public Radio International CEO Alisa Miller’s short talk at TED about using maps to understand the world in a new way. Her talk showed worldmapper.org’s beautiful equal density cartograms, or map based infographics that help you to understand big ideas about the world in a visual way. We’re pleased to share Worldmapper’s beautifully illustrated Atlas of the Real World by site founders Daniel Dorling, Mark Newman and Anna Barford."

Here are some snapshots of "An animation, from the world sized by people living on less than $1 a day, to those earning over $200":




Alisa Miller's TEDTalk:

Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why -- though we want to know more about the world than ever -- the US media is actually showing less. Eye-opening stats and graphs.