Long time ago, back in 1992, Kai Krause was famous in desktop publishing for his software "Kai's Power Tools" - a set of plugins for Adobe Photoshop. Kai is one of the designers of this map.
Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
21–30 of 84 posts
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#22I wonder why they don't compare it to Russia? :)
Africa doesn't dwarf Russia necessarily, depending on the definition, but it's size is still almost twice as big as Russias.
Population might be a more cogent variable. E.g. Alaskans brag that if Texas doesn't curb its arrogance, Alaska will split in two and then Texas will be the THIRD largest state.
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#23I wonder why they don't compare it to Russia? :)
It's been done.
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#24I didn't read the article but the first thing that jumped into my head is why are they comparing the size of a continent to sizes of countries?
Why not?
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#25I didn't read the article but the first thing that jumped into my head is why are they comparing the size of a continent to sizes of countries?
Because most people have no idea that Africa is as large as it is due to the way we represent our planet's maps and globes. Seriously have this conversation several times a year. People really think Greenland is almost as large as Africa. I than state that we can fit these countries into the area of Africa and people are shocked. BTW US is the third largest geographical country in the world.
Wait, our globes do not show the correct size of Africa? :O
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#26For those interested in seeing the exact sizes here's the area of each continent in km and miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Continent#Area_and_populatio... One thing I noticed from looking over the above wikipedia comparison is that a lot of the land mass is probably uninhabitable, and it made me wonder how much is uninhabitable when comparing land-masses. The closest thing I could find was a chart of currently…
I think it's nice to educate people about map projections and that the earth is not a flat map, but area hardly is a measurement that dwarfs things in any other way than numbers. In economic terms it matters how many people that land can support, either trough agriculture or it's natural resources.
If it's just about area, the Pacific Ocean alone would dwarf all land masses all-together.
In general this approach of raising awareness to regions leaves a lot to question, especially if it's mixed with a humanitarian tone:
Understanding Africa's immense size helps us appreciate how difficult it may be to solve the continent's poverty and drought problems
To answer that: No, just no. As said, it might help raise initial awareness, but that's about it. Poverty is not a function of land area, just to name Bangladesh or Canada.
Alternatively one might point out, that Nigeria's current population alone is already on par with that of half of the USA's at a 10th of its area (~1⅓ of Texas).
Some population density maps:
Africa: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/fig_tab/nclimat...
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/nagdc/nagdc-...
Global: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/map-int...
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#27This has come up before on hn, but I always find it interesting how hard China is pushing into Africa economically: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/2163955... http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/china-embracing-africa-but-no... http://qz.com/217597/how-a-million-chinese-migrants-are-buil... (that third article is probably the most interesting)
If you want to see Chinese Tang architecture, visit Japan.
If you want to see Chinese Ming architecture, visit Korea.
If you want to see Chinese Qing architecture, visit Beijing.
If you want to see contemporary Chinese architecture, visit Africa ;-)
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because most people have no idea that Africa is as large as it is due to the way we represent our planet's maps and globes. Seriously have this conversation several times a year. People really think Greenland is almost as large as Africa. I than state that we can fit these countries into the area of Africa and people are shocked. BTW US is the third largest geographical country in the world.
Wait, our globes do not show the correct size of Africa? :O
Our globes do, but our Mercator projection maps don't.
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#29This has come up before on hn, but I always find it interesting how hard China is pushing into Africa economically: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/2163955... http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/china-embracing-africa-but-no... http://qz.com/217597/how-a-million-chinese-migrants-are-buil... (that third article is probably the most interesting)
They don't have the baggage of all the atrocities of the past, they aren't overtly racist on principle, and they have no qualms taking advantage or the situation and participating in the corruption and exploitation. How is that surprising?
"they aren't overtly racist on principle,"
Are you saying that because you have some sort of evidence of their highly egalitarian nature, or because "They aren't Americans/Western Europeans, therefore they can't possibly be racist."?
If it's the former, I've heard an awful lot of complaints from non-Han in China about racism, and I'd be curious how you reconcile that with your statement.
Re: Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
#30Related link : The Mercator Puzzle : https://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledr...
A nice way to get a feel for the distortions.