Before we begin, you're going to have to click here to access the zoomable, high res version. Because without it, countries like Iceland, Mongolia, and Vanuatu are going to be too tiny to even see.

Created by Redditor TeaDranks, using "good ol' MS Paint", Wikipedia, and a windows calculator, this infographic shows the countries of the world mapped according to population size. Each tiny square represents 500,000 people. Called a cartogram, it's not a 'true map', because it doesn't depict geographic space, but instead uses a certain attribute - in this case, population - to determine each country's size within the graphical space.

It was inspired by this very similar cartograph, made in 2005 by American cartographer Paul Breding, which offers a handy reference tool so we can track each nation's population growth over the past decade.

So what can we learn from this handy little cartogram? Lots of things! Immediately we can see how huge landmasses with relatively few people, such as Australia, Canada, and Russia, shrink right down to 'Hard-To-Seesville', while Nigeria - with a population double that of any other African nation - visually dominates its home continent. In fact, by 2050, Nigeria is expected to replace the US as the third most populous country on the planet. Also, in 2005, China had 1.3 billion people and India 1.080, but now, China's only grown to 1.4 billion and India is quickly catching up, with 1.3 billion and counting.

Other things I learned from TeaDranks's map include:

North Korea has a bigger population than Australia's.

South America mapped to population looks pretty similar to how it's actually mapped.

Greenland has so much room with so few people, that when you map it by population, it ends up in the 'too small to appear on this map' list, alongside a bunch of tiny island nations.

TeaDranks lives in Wisconsin, which is why it's one of just seven US states marked on the map. We love TeaDranks.

Keep infographics like this coming, data enthusiasts! We'll take every chance we can get to see the world in a cool, new light.

Source: Vox

