Area Cartograms
An area cartogram is sometimes referred to as a value-by-area map or an isodemographic map, the latter particularly for a population cartogram, which illustrates the relative sizes of the populations of the countries of the world by scaling the area of each country in proportion to its population; the shape and relative location of each country is retained to as large an extent as possible, but inevitably a large amount of distortion results. Other synonyms in use are anamorphic map, density-equalizing map and Gastner map.
Area cartograms may be contiguous or noncontiguous. The area cartograms shown on this page are all contiguous, while a good example of a noncontiguous cartogram was published in The New York Times. The online resource SHOW®, provided by Mapping Worlds, creates discontiguous cartograms for different geographies (United States, Japan and World at this time) interactively, allowing users to quickly compare various characteristics.
A collection of about 700 area cartograms is available at Worldmapper, a collaborative team of researchers at the Universities of Sheffield and Michigan.
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Famous quotes containing the word area:
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)